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CCPC Minutes 10/07/2010 ROctober 7, 2010 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Naples, Florida October 7, 2010 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County Planning Commission, in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 8:30 a.m. in REGULAR SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: ALSO PRESENT: Jeffrey Klatzkow, County Attorney Ray Bellows, Zoning Manager Page 1 of 85 Mark Strain, Chairman Melissa Ahern Donna Reed -Caron Diane Ebert Karen Homiak Barry Klein Paul Midney Bob Murray Brad Schiffer AGENDA COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION WILL MEET AT 8:30 A.M., THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2010, IN THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS MEETING ROOM, ADMINISTRATION BUILDING, COUNTY GOVERNMENT CENTER, 3301 TAMIAMI TRAIL EAST, NAPLES, FLORIDA: NOTE: INDIVIDUAL. SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO 5 MINUTES ON ANY ITEM. INDIVIDUALS SELECTED TO SPEAK ON BEHALF OF AN ORGANIZATION OR GROUP ARE ENCOURAGED AND MAY BE ALLOTTED 10 MINUTES TO SPEAK ON AN ITEM IF SO RECOGNIZED BY THE CHAIRMAN. PERSONS WISHING TO HAVE WRITTEN OR GRAPHIC MATERIALS INCLUDED IN THE CCPC AGENDA PACKETS MUST SUBMIT SAID MATERIAL A MINIMUM OF 10 DAYS PRIOR TO THE RESPECTIVE PUBLIC HEARING. IN ANY CASE, WRITTEN MATERIALS INTENDED TO BE CONSIDERED BY THE CCPC SHALL BE SUBMITTED TO THE APPROPRIATE COUNTY STAFF A MINIMUM OF SEVEN DAYS PRIOR TO THE PUBLIC HEARING. ALL MATERIAL USED IN PRESENTATIONS BEFORE THE CCPC WILL BECOME A PERMANENT PART OF THE RECORD AND WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR PRESENTATION TO THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS IF APPLICABLE. ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APPEAL A DECISION OF THE CCPC WILL NEED A RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS PERTAINING THERETO, AND THEREFORE MAY NEED TO ENSURE THAT A VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS IS MADE, WIIICH RECORD INCLUDES THE TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED. 1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 2. ROLL CALL BY SECRETARY 3. ADDENDA TO THE AGENDA 4. PLANNING COMMISSION ABSENCES 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES - September 2, 2010 6. BCC REPORT- RECAPS -September 28, 2010 7. CHAIRMAN'S REPORT 8. CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS 9. ADVERTISED PUBLIC HEARINGS A. CU- 2008 -AR- 14078: Cemex Construction Materials Florida, LLC, represented by Robert J. Mulhere, AICP of RWA Consulting, Inc. and Will J. Dempsey, Esquire of Cheffy Passidomo, PA., is requesting a Conditional Use within the Rural Agricultural Zoning District with a Mobile Home Overlay and a Rural Land Stewardship Area Overlay (A- MHO- RLSAO), pursuant to Section 2.03.01.A.I.c.1 and Section 4.08.06.B.4.b. of the Collier County Land Development Code, to allow earth mining and related processing and production of material for a project to be known as the Immokalee Sand Mine. The 898+ -acre subject property is located on the north side of SR 82, approximately 1.2 miles west of the intersection with SR 29, in Sections 6 and 7, Township 46 South, Range 29 East, Collier County, Florida. [Coordinator: Kay Deselem, AICP] 1 10. OLD BUSINESS 11. NEW BUSINESS A. Review & Approval of the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance [Coordinator: Robert Wiley] B. Watershed Plan Update Workshop [Coordinator: Mac Hatcher] 12. PUBLIC COMMENT ITEM 13. DISCUSSION OF ADDENDA 14. ADJOURN 9/23/10 CCPC Agenda /Ray Bellows /jmp October 7, 2010 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the October 7th meeting of the Collier County Planning Commission. If you'll please rise for Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for a few moments afterwards. Thank you. (Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. As many which you probably know, last week our former County Manager Jim Mudd passed away after a long battle with cancer. We had interacted with Jim periodically on this Board and we knew him a man of great intelligence and of great compassion for Collier County. One thing that impressed me most, Jim had confidence. No matter what we went to him with, he always had a solution and he always felt confident about how to proceed with the issue. That was true sign of leadership for this Collier County at a time especially when the county was going through a lot of turmoil after just recently coming out of some bad periods prior to 2000. We will miss Jim, and our community is much better off because of his presence here. I sincerely extend our condolences to the family, and we hope that he forever remains in peace, and ask for a moment of silence on Jim's behalf. Thank you. (Moment of silence.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you very much. ** *And we have roll call today. Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yes. Ms. Ahem? COMMISSIONER AHERN: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I know. We'll do this slowly. Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Ms. Caron is here. Mr. Strain? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Ms. Homiak? COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Here. COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes. COMMISSIONER CARON: And Ms. Ebert? COMMISSIONER EBERT: Here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. We have what appears to be a short agenda, but in truth it may be a rather lengthy one. ** *Besides the advertised public hearing on the case that we have today, we're also going to be discussing the -- I'm going to say it right, because they're pretty close in terminology -- the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance. And then after that we have the Watershed Plan Update workshop. We had received extensive amount of material on the watershed plan. I expect that will get into a lot of discussion in length, so I don't believe we'll be finishing before noon today, for those of you who are trying to set your schedules. ** *Addenda to the agenda. Another thing I need to add to the end of new business would be the annual elections of officers for the Planning Commission. ** *And then we'll move into Planning Commission absences. Our next meeting is two weeks from today, which would be the 21 st. Does anybody know if they're not going to be able to make it to that meeting? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll definitely have a quorum. ** *Approval of the minutes. The minutes were distributed to us for September 2nd, 2010. Does anybody Page 2 of 85 October 7, 2010 have any problems with the minutes? If not -- Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: No, I was just going to correct that there were no Ms. Amolds, it was all Mr. Arnold who spoke. And that was the only thing that I saw. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, anybody else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If not, is there a motion to recommend approval? COMMISSIONER CARON: Motion to approve. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Actually, to approve. Second? COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Second. COMMISSIONER EBERT: Second, CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Homiak got the second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER EBERT: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye, COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. Anybody opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries 8 -0. ** *Ray, do we have any recaps? MR. BELLOWS: Yes, On September 28th, the Board of County Commissioners heard the conditional use for the collection and transfer station that was located off of Pheasant Route Trail. That was approved on the summary agenda. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. ** *Chairman's report. I have another interesting comment to make, and that is I've been in this county for over 30 years, and during most all that time that I can remember, I've had the pleasure of working with a gentleman by the name of Stan Chrzanowski. Well, while Stan retired from Collier County October -- well, actually September 30th, last week. And I doubt if he's listening to these meetings, because if I was him, that might be the last thing I'd be doing right now. But he was a fine gentleman to work with, he is a lot of fun, very practical in his application, and he always had a good attitude. So I want to thank Stan for his many years in Collier County, from this Board. I know the times he came before us we certainly appreciated his input. And he has someone in his shoes who's got some big shoes to fill, and that gentleman is here today to, I'm sure, respond to some of our questions when we get into the Flood Damage Ordinance and the Watershed Plan. ** *Consent agenda items. There are none, so we'll move right into the advertised public hearing. ** *All those wishing to participate in this item --first of all, I'll read it to you. It's the CU2008 -AR- 14078, the Cemex Construction Materials, Florida, LLC, otherwise known as the Immokalee Sand Mine on the north side of SR82. All those wishing to testify on behalf of this item, please rise to be sworn in by the court reporter. (Speakers were duly swom.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there disclosures on the part of the Planning Commission? Anybody? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I met with the applicant's representatives, Mr. Mulhere, Mr. Dempsey. Talked to Mr. Varnadoe on the phone. And we will be going over the same issues we talked about today at this meeting. Okay, Bob, it's all yours. MR. MULHERE: Thank you. For the record, Bob Mulhere, here this morning on behalf of Cemex. With me Page 3 of 85 October 7, 2010 this morning is Dan Beatty, also with -- with Cemex; Will Dempsey, with the Cheffy- Passidomo Law Firm, who's a land use attorney; Emilio Robau with RWA, who is the project civil; Mark Stephens, who's going to deal with hydrologic issues; Vijay Komala and Ron Talone for transportation related issues with David Plummer and Associates. We're here today this morning to request the Planning Commission's recommendation of approval on this earth mining conditional use. We believe the project is an ideal one for several reasons, and we'll go over those as part of our presentation. I'll make a fairly brief presentation. Of course we have all these experts here to answer any specific questions that I may not be able to answer. If you look on the visualizer, you'll see the subject property highlighted in yellow at the top of the Hendry County line and immediately adjacent to it. So I'll use the pointer to point out some things. Hendry County here, Lee County here. This is the Immokalee urban area, the airport right here, Lake Trafford, State Road 82, State Road 29, and the project is right here. The actual site and the surrounding lands within Collier County are all located within the Rural Land Stewardship Area open designation, which is the least environmentally sensitive. There are no habitat stewardship areas, no flowway stewardship areas and no water retention areas affected by the proposed use. There is no panther primary habitat on -site or near the property. And obviously, as you can see, the site is in rural Collier County. It's been farmed for many years. It's for the most part cleared of any native vegetation. I'll show an aerial that will depict that a little bit better. This use will be relatively quiet. There won't be -- it's a hydraulic mining operation with no noisy drag lines. We don't expect to have to do any blasting, but we want to reserve the right. There may be some blasting needed, but we don't think we'll have to do too much blasting, if at all. (At which time, Commissioner Klein enters the boardroom.) MR. MULHERE: This project involves the extraction of a really very, very high quality sand not typically found in these areas. It's critical in road construction, concrete manufacturing and glass making. It's very unique; the material is very unique. I want to mention that the EAC reviewed this project and unanimously recommended approval, and staff has also recommended approval. We'll walk you through most of the issues and then open it up for questions, I guess. The project access or entryway -- let me just -- I did want to show you, this is the RLSA map which shows the project. The pink color -- and some of you may know some of these items, but there's also -- Ms. Ebert's new on the Planning Commission, so I do want to go over some things that might be helpful. The pink is an open designation within the Rural Land Stewardship Area overlay. This map shows -- is a blow -up of the project and panther telemetry. And this is the site plan. And you can see we designed it so that the access road here on 82 leads quite a distance up to the actual production facility here. You have the lake here. And this is a wildlife corridor. So this access point is 6.5 miles east of the Lee County line. Just a little bit down the road here would be State Road 29, moving to the east. So there's really good connectivity to the regional transportation network. This site was cleared at least 35 years ago, and has been in active agriculture for all that time. Let's talk about operations a little bit here. The idea would be to mine this in phases. Obviously any mining operation is going to be contingent upon the market. Right now the market's a little slow. Hopefully in the next few years that will change. Again, this is a very unique resource, and so there would be greater demand for this resource in terms of road building. But the agricultural activities would continue as you phase in the operation. I talked about blasting. It might be required. We're not really sure about that, so we'd like to reserve the right for that. This project -- based on the soil borings, there's resources going down to approximately 90 feet. And that reminds me to let you know that we had two neighborhood information meetings. The first meeting we made a statement that was in error. We talked about the depth of the mine being 80 feet. In order to clarify that, we actually had a second meeting. There was two people at the fast meeting and one person at the second meeting. That person was Chip Block Page 4 of 85 October 7, 2010 from Lee County, he's here this morning, who attended both meetings. And so anyway we clarified the mine depth was 90 feet, or the confuting layer, whichever is less. Let's see. We've -- we'll have a de minimis impact on the level of service on the adjacent nearby roadway network. And that reminds me of another issue. State Road 82, there was an error contained in the AUIR which classified that roadway as a Level D roadway. It's presently operating at Level C. And we confirmed that with staff. And of course staff' can respond to that. We're reserving a section of property along State Road 82 up to -- the state is in the process of desigaiung a widening for State Road 82. And we've reserved 35 feet, almost 1,200 feet in length to accommodate stormwater runoff for that project. They haven't really gotten very far in the design, so they don't know exactly how much of our property they're going to need, but they've agreed at least in principle that it wouldn't be more than 35 feet and 1,200 feet in length along the State Road 82 frontage. So after we complete the mining operations, we'll go through the process of reclamation in accordance with Florida law, and there will be a reclamation plan approved and include planted littorals along 10 percent of the lake boundary. And so we know that we have to go through that process and that's part of the permitting process for us. I mentioned that we had two neighborhood information meetings. I mentioned that staff had recommended approval, EAC as well. There's some housekeeping items we'd like to talk to, or about. Item number four on the conditions of approval, we recommend a slight revision to that, and staff has agreed that that was acceptable. The stipulation reads, prior to any vehicular use of the site the owner shall post two signs along the entry drive, clearly visible to vehicles entering and leaving the site. This was a stipulation of the EAC for educational reasons so that the drivers would understand that they needed -- that there was wildlife habitat out there and they needed to take care in terms of driving, especially in the early morning hours. The last sentence, we've proposed some changes. We proposed it would read as follows: The owner shall submit and receive approval of the proposed signage plan in conjunction with the fast to occur of either -- and that's new language, the first to occur of either -- the site development plan process, comma, and this is new language as well, or other local development order as may be required which may allow vehicular use of the site. And that's because we have seen that there was early work authorizations issued in other mining operations, and just in case that becomes -- you know, the county needs the resource or something for early work authorization, that would be the first development order issue. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Bob, could you please -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: -- repeat the last part of that? MR. MULHERE: Sure. The sentence would read -- for the last phrase? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes. MR. MULHERE: Okay. So it would be, or local development order as may be required which may allow vehicular use of the site. Just looking to see if there's anything else specifically that I need to address before we go to Q and A. I think that really covers my brief presentation. rm sure there's going to be some questions, and we'll find out who the best person to respond to those. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before we go into questions, I didn't want to interrupt your presentation, but I want to welcome Mr. Barry Klein to the Planning Commission meeting. He's our new member. Mr. Klein, welcome aboard. COMMISSIONER KLEIN: Thank you. And I apologize for my tardiness, I thought it was 9:00 -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's happened before to others, so -- COMMISSIONER KLEIN: I'm already learning. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Okay, are there any questions of the applicant at this time? COMMISSIONER AHERN: Just a quick question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Melissa, go ahead. Page 5 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER AHERN: On the traffic study that's in here, didn't it reference Level C? MR. MULHERE: It did. The traffic study did reference Level C, which is correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ray, are there public speakers registered? MR. BELLOWS: No registered speakers. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any members of the public want to speak on this as we go through the meeting? If so, just raise your hands so I know the quantity. Okay, one gentleman. Because I have a series of questions, but some of them may be impacted by the questions or the comments of the public. Bob, in our conversations there were some issues that I had brought up relative to the way we've looked at mines in Collier County in the past. Most recently is Hogan's -- I think it's called Hogan's Run or Hogan's Quarry, something like that -- MR. MULHERE: Hogan Island. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah. The wheel wash aspect of that, I believe you've agreed to provide the wheel wash that we had actually imposed on Hogan's Quarry as well; is that a fair statement? MR. MULHERE: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In regards to the parking on SR82, your statements to me were that the haul trucks will not be permitted to park or stage along SR82 right -of -way. Applicant may allow haul trucks to stage or park on the project's internal roadway prior to 6:30 a.m. MR. MULHERE: Yes, that's acceptable as well. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. We talked about the compensating right -of -way and turn and decel lanes, and we also talked about acceleration lanes. And I've got comments from you in regards to that. Can you just tell us your response to those concerns that I had expressed to you about the length and even the supply, for example, the acceleration lane? MR. MULHERE: Yeah, we understand that typically an acceleration lane is required, and we would commit to also providing an acceleration lane. We would suggest that we structure the stipulation such that the design actual length be determined at the time of Site Development Plan. We haven't really determined how long it should be. But there is a stipulation I think that provides for a maximum length. I'm looking for that right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I just wanted to make sure that on the record the changes -- I will, when we get to stipulations, suggest we include the language that you had provided. And I'll read it for the record at that time so there's no mistaking that those lanes will be installed and utilized. Does anybody else have any other questions? Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: There were several additional stipulations that Lee County had suggested. Are there any of those that you have a problem with other than obviously the 80 versus 90 feet? MR. MULHERE: I guess I'd have to respond that we have a problem with most of them, but we don't have a problem with all of them. You said are there any we have a problem with, so -- the two that we don't have a problem with were the ones that the Chairman I think already referenced. One was a wheel wash, not a truck wash, a wheel wash. There were some perhaps just errors in the letter, and Chip can certainly speak to that. But I think it said we were a mile and change away from Lee County. It's actually 6.5 miles to our entry point. So that's quite a distance. But nevertheless, we've agreed to do a wheel wash, which will eliminate the dust issue and the mud issue. And I think the second thing that we agree is appropriate is the limitation or the prohibition on staging early in the morning on that roadway. So those two we think are appropriate. With respect to other things, funding and so on and so forth, I'm not aware of any situation where Lee County is providing funding to Collier County for impacts on mining trips coming into Collier County. You know, there's certainly no reason why they couldn't develop an interlocal agreement. But it would have to be comprehensive, it couldn't be case by case. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any mines in Lee County close to Collier County's border that may have an impact on us? Page 6 of 85 October 7, 2010 MR. MULHERE: I think we looked at that. And we have an exhibit that shows -- I know when I was involved in the DRGR hearings there were statements made that the majority of mines in Lee County provide materials to Collier County. So we know there's impacts from Lee County to Collier County. Then we have this exhibit, which I'll -- Kady, if you're in there, we're going to go to the visualizer. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Kady, if you're in there? And you're talking into the mic.? MR. MULHERE: I don't know if she's in there. So, you can see from these -- let me just back out a little bit. These are mines in -- thank you. Here's the Lee County border, okay. So these are mines in Lee County. You can see there's a significant number of mines here close to the Collier County boundary. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And we don't have any impact from -- well, we have impact from them, but we have no income off of those mines? MR. MULHERE: No. And there's reference to an interlocal agreement, but we are unaware of any existing interlocal agreement that addresses this issue. There's an agreement to do general planning and communicate in that way. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron, did you have any more? COMMISSIONER CARON: Well, I think that's -- if you look at the rest of the conditions, they were not all concerning -- MR. MULHERE: No. COMMISSIONER CARON: -- road impacts, so -- MR. MULHERE: But some were very specific that wouldn't occur, like fire protection. You know, I'm kind of surprised that there would be a -- even a comment on something like that. It happens here at the Site Development Plan. COMMISSIONER CARON: I think we do that, yeah, already. COMMISSIONER EBERT: I have a question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER EBERT: In reading this on the conditions, I see that there's a 12- and -a -half hour, and yet going back into the other pages in the traffic study it shows that the sales component, you plan on being open at 4:00 a.m. in the morning and you're planning a 14 -hour work day? The two -- and operations are supposed to be from 6:30 in the morning to 7:00 p.m. at night. These two do not j ive. MR. MULHERE: There's two separate issues. There's the mining operation that occurs on the site, and then there's the actual impact of truck traffic, taking the material to and from the site. Those are the activities that are limited. So it's -- those are the activities that are limited. COMMISSIONER EBERT: So you are limited to 12- and -a -half hours? MR. MULHERE: We're limited for truck traffic bringing the materials in and out of -- we're not limited for the actual mining operations on the site -- COMMISSIONER EBERT: No, I understand. And do you really plan on working 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 35 years? MR. MULHERE: No, no, no, no. The only -- that's a -- that's a decision that's made based on market demand. If there's a high market demand, you mine and then the whole mining operation goes away faster. If there's lower market demand, you're certainly not going to have three shifts working when there's no demand for the materials. So that's simply a question of demand. It's actually probably in everyone's best interest if there's high demand to mine the resource more quickly. COMMISSIONER EBERT: And can you tell me, what do they plan on doing with this site when they are finished with it? MR. MULHERE: You mean other than -- COMMISSIONER EBERT: There's an extra 300 acres. MR. MULHERE: Well, there'll be a commitment for the wildlife corridor, so that will be protected. And then there's a couple wetlands I think that will also be protected. And then the -- there's a restoration plan, so there'll be the littoral zones which will provide for wading bird habitat and native vegetation along the lake shoreline. Page 7 of 85 October 7, 2010 But beyond that, no, there's no -- it's so far away nobody has even given a thought to -- COMMISSIONER EBERT: Well, because there's, as you say, extra 300 acres. I thought maybe they would do something later on or have a plan for it. MR. MULHERE: No, no plan. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, anybody else have any questions of the applicant at this time? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll move on to the staff report. MS. DESELEM: Good morning. For the record, Kay Deselem, Principal Planner with Zoning. We also have -- I haven't looked but I'm assuming they're here -- Susan Mason for environmental questions, Jack McKenna for engineering questions and John Podczerwinsky for any transportation questions. The staff report is a combined updated report for this hearing, which is a very short report. Last revised 9/7. The main staff report is what was prepared for the August 7th hearing, and it has a revised date of 7/21. In that staff report it goes into the information that's been provided by the applicant, telling you what the requested action is, where the project is located, what the purpose of it is, explains what the surrounding land uses are, talks about the growth management consistency addressing particularly the Future Land Use Element, the Transportation Element, going into the impacts on State Road 82 and mitigation that will be provided for that impact. And it also provides the analysis of the coastal -- I'm sorry, Conservation and Coastal Management Element. And as noted, this project did go to the EAC and received approval from that body. On Page 7 of the staff report it goes into the analysis for the required findings. Staff is recommending that it be found consistent with the Growth Management Plan and has provided the findings in support of a recommendation of approval. We have provided the conditions for your consideration to go along with that approval recommendation. And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to attempt to answer them. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any questions of staff at this time? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Just one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Kay, in all the neighborhood meetings and in your analysis, has anybody expressed any concerns about what uses could come alongside this? For example, this might bring in other uses, cement plants, things like that. MS. DESELEM: Not that I recall. Not to me, at least. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Kay, does staff have any objection to the changes suggested to recommendation number four by the applicant? MS. DESELEM: No, sir. He did run that past us beforehand, but due to the timing we couldn't present it to you. I told him that we reviewed it and we were okay with it, both environmental staff and zoning. And we were okay with that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I think it's obvious, but I want to be just certain. You have the supplemental and you have the original. And in the original you had some of the Lee County concerns, recommendations by Lee County. Do we take it that they have remained in this or are we now just dealing with the supplemental statement with these recommendations, the five of them? MS. DESELEM: I'm not sure I understand your question. In the supplemental information that we gave you was the official letter from Lee County that indicated what changes they wanted made to the list of conditions, and that remains viable. And as noted, there is a staff person here from Lee County that I assume will be addressing those issues. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay, so everything that they've requested remains; is that -- MS. DESELEM: As far as I know, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It remains as a request just like any other citizen's request. But it's not part of the recommendations by staff. Page 8 of 85 October 7, 2010 MS. DESELEM: Yes, that's correct. It's not our recommendation. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Anything else, anybody? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, with that, thank you, Kay. Members of the public, one gentleman, please come up and identify yourself for the record. MR. BLOCK: Good morning, Chairman Schiffer and Planning Commission members. For the record, my name is Alvin Block, but I go by the nickname of Chip. Rather obvious, a chip off the old block might come out on that. So that's where it's come from. Alvin doesn't help with Alvin and the Chipmunks also. But we'll stick with the chip off the old block. As I said, for the record, Pm Alvin Chip Block with the Department of Community Development for Lee County. I'm here today to express the concern that Lee County has regarding this conditional use application that is before you today. The primary concern for Lee County that we have with this application is regards to the amount of truck traffic associated to this project and the fact that 65 percent, at least according to the applicant's traffic impact statement, is going to be traveling westbound on State Route 82 toward Lee County, 60 percent of it stays on State Route 82, the other five percent then shifts and goes onto what is known as Corkscrew Road, Currently State Route 82 within Lee County has a number of multiple failing segments associated to that within Lee County. The first four segments as you look at it from Lee County has three segments that are level of service C, which are just below failing, and one segment that is a level of service F, as in Frank, which is failing. So as you go from the Lee County/Hendry County border westbound -- and by the way, the applicant's presentation about where Lee County staff in this case has mentioned that it's only one mile from the mining operation to the Lee County border is inaccurate. Their distance of six - and -a -half miles is accurate. It somehow got in the letter to you all, and I apologize for that. But I do agree with that distance from their access point to the Lee County border. We have been in communication with the Collier County staff since about December of 2009 on this application when we became aware of this, and have been working with Collier County staff conveying our comments back and forth from Lee County staff to Collier County staff, making sure that our information on the case was up to date and accurate. Lee County staff did send a letter in to Collier County, which I understand that you all have got a copy of Those members such as Ms. Ebert and Mr. Klein who may or may not have that letter, I do have extra copies for any Planning Commission member if you want to have that, but it is part of the record for your -all's consideration. The suggested condition 19, which is found on the last page of the Lee County letter, talks about depth of the mining operation. And as Mr. Mulhere has mentioned during his presentation, there was a correction during the second neighborhood meeting in whch I was in attendance for both of the neighborhood meetings in Immokalee. And that correction was a depth of the mining operation. They had initially said 80 feet, then they said in the second hearing 90 feet. We have no objection to that 90 feet. So if you want to grant a maximum depth of 90 feet because their soil borings indicate that the material that they want to pull out goes down to approximately 90 feet, we have no objection to that. But of course that's up to your -all's review. And as -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You might want to slow down just a little bit. She's trying to write everything you're saying, so just take it a little easier, if you could. MR. BLOCK: That's perfectly fine, Commissioner Strain. I do understand that. I have that tendency to be a little fast in my presentations. I've even suggested in the past the court reporters pick up a pen and throw it at me to slow me down. I don't know if she wants to do that but -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: She might throw the whole laptop at you. MR. BLOCK: If she does, I'll do my best to try to catch it with my peripheral vision so we don't break it. As I said, 90 feet would be acceptable to Lee County staff. We have no objection to the depth. Our concern has been and continues to be the truck traffic associated to the mining operation. We have had several suggestions, as Chairman Strain has pointed out. It is only a Lee County suggestion, recommended conditions. If you all choose to accept it, you all choose to accept it. If you all choose not to, we understand that. Page 9 of 85 October 7, 2010 If the Planning Commission now has any questions of me, I am more than willing to answer those questions right after I go through one little note from the public hearing that I would like to go to. On the overhead that you have with the maps showing the Lee County mines, I think I would like to do some corrections and just give you one small bit of information. The bit of information is I've been with Lee County government since 1985. Since 1987 I've handled the mining operations in Lee County, probably 90, 95 percent of them. So those that you see in Lee County, I'd like to do some -- at least point out a couple of things to you all so that you know what exists in Lee County today versus what was approved before. You can see on this drawing -- again, Lee County border being here and Corkscrew Road being here, and coming up into Collier County here. Hendry and Collier County here. There are no mining operations on State Route 82 in this location. This mining operation, which is most recently known as Westwind Mine, that mining operation is now no longer operating. It's now no longer being operated, although it does have existing zoning on the property in which they could possibly go back in and restart up the operation if market demands provide for it. You then reach the intersection of what is known as Corkscrew Road and Alico Road. The one south of Corkscrew Road is no longer operating. It's completed, no longer in operation, and has been platted for a residential subdivision. The three dots in this location right here that are together are all part of one mining operation now instead of three separate ones. It's one mining operation known as University West Lakes. So it's operating as one mining operation today. This separate mining operation here I'm going to presume is the Olde Florida Rock, which when I came to Lee County in 1985 was already approved in Lee County. There were some mining approvals granted for industrial plan development zoning, but all of the Florida Rock mining operations south of Alico Road, which you see all the rest of these dots here, is no longer in operation. So you have no mining operation between Alico Road and Corkscrew Road, with the exception of this one right here in the western portion which is called, as I mentioned, University West Lakes. On the north side Florida Rock had other mining interests approved. These are operating in some ways. One of them is Cemex Mining operation, another one is Florida Rock still trying to get its operation approved for future operations. They have a massive amount of acreage in that area for future mincing operations. All of these mining operations here access either Alico Road or Corkscrew Road. So just wanted to bring that up to date with the Planning Commission. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Just a minute, Bob. Are there any questions of Mr. Block from the Planning Commission? Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah. Mr. Block, I'm here. With regard to State Road 82, do you have any plans, Lee County have any plans for working with FDOT to cure the problem of the F and the other designations? MR. BLOCK: There are some improvements that are currently going on on State Route 82 that FDOT has been doing near some of the intersections to provide some additional lanes where you have a turn lane, that way you don't have traffic slowing down the traffic on Immokalee Road. But to my knowledge there hasn't been any comprehensive actions in that area to do any improvements to Immokalee Road/State Route 82 in that area. It's kind of along at certain intersections to help alleviate some of the backup traffic that might occur as people are trying to make a left -hand turn. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So the failing portions are the result of surface degradation or lane size, if you will, or width? MR. BLOCK: No, sir, I would say it's entirely traffic. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Too much in the way of traffic. MR. BLOCK: Too much in the way of traffic. Although there is degradation of the roadway out there, that doesn't go into the Lee County aspect of analysis for whether or not the road meets or does not meet level of service requirements. That's a completely separate issue. Page 10 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. So the truck traffic is -- your concerns are exclusively then by definition exclusively associated with too many vehicles. MR. BLOCK: Additional traffic, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Thank you. COMMISSIONER EBERT: I have a question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Ms. Ebert. COMMISSIONER EBERT: On the truck traffic, on one it says close to 800, 796, and on the other one it says 600. That's a difference of 200 trucks a day. Which is it? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before -- that's actually one of Mr. Mulhere's -- before we go into that question, is there any other questions of Mr. Block? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, sir. MR. BLOCK: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bob, if you could have the appropriate member of your team respond to Ms. Ebert. MR. MULHERE: I'm going to ask Ron Talone to come up, from David Plummer, and respond to your question, Ms. Ebert. But I did want to just mention a couple of things in response to Chip's comments. Probably the more relevant factor as it relates to trips is the peak hour trips. And we're only sending eight truck trips into Lee County during peak hour, seven truck trips on State Road 82 and one on Corkscrew. The purpose of this exhibit was to show the number of mines that were approved and that there wasn't any funding coming into Collier County for impacts associated with those mines. The fact that some of them are no longer operational, well, that's probably a good thing, it means there are fewer truck trips being generated. With that, I'd like to ask Ron Talone to come up and talk a little about truck trips and the level of service. The question was related to a potential discrepancy in the number of trips we were proposing to generate. I know 7961 think was the number. MR. TALONS: Well, my name is Ron Talone. Pm with the consulting firm David Plummer and Associates. We prepared the traffic impact statement. The first thing I do want to address is the question about the numbers. We reported based on -- we came up with our traffic generation based on a comparable mine, a comparable Cemex mine, and came up with an estimate of approximately 611 truck loads per day. But you have to consider that for each of those truck loads there's an inbound empty truck as well as an outbound loaded truck. So that doubled that figure, and that's accounted for in the traffic study. And then we added on some additional traffic for employees at the mine. So the total number ended up being a grand total of around 1,280 trips that came from 611 truck loads. So that's where the difference in those numbers are. But they're consistent numbers and they're accounted for in the traffic study. I do want to address the issues raised, Mr. Block's raising the issue on State Road 82. And yes, there are some level of service issues in Lee County. I do believe there is more being done to address those than was indicated. For example, through a public - private partnership, the section of State Road 82 between I -75 and Lee Boulevard is scheduled for six - laving, and that should occur within the next year or two. And that's a major undertaking to widen the road from its current two -lane cross section to six lanes. The state has been programming right -of -way -- I'm sorry, design for sections further east. Also, it's important to recognize that the state just completed a resurfacing project on State Road 82 for 7.5 miles in eastern Lee County. They resurfaced and upgraded 82, and that will make it better prepared to handle the traffic. One other thing I will mention is that, as Bob has mentioned, we have a fairly low -- a pretty low impact during the PM peak hour. The traffic of the mine is actually highest at midmorning around -- from midmorning to noontime. And that does not coincide with when the traffic on State Road 82 is heaviest. I have an exhibit here that shows the daily variation of traffic on State Road 82. What this shows is that there's an AM peak and a PM peak. And during that PM peak we have a minimal impact. It's actually not a significant impact and it's a de minimis impact based on the county regulations. Page 11 of 85 October 7, 2010 Our traffic is -- most of our traffic is coming in and out around noontime. And you can see that that's when the traffic volumes on State Road 82 are relatively low. So our impacts do not coincide with the impacts of the background traffic on State Road 82, CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there any other questions related to traffic? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead. MR. TALONE: In closing, I do want to also mention that we're cooperating with FDOT. We've had meetings -- or discussions with FDOT, and as Bob had mentioned now we've agreed to reserve right -of -way. So we're going to be working with the state in terms of the right -of -way required to widen State Road 82. The state has completed a PD &E study. What we've agreed to is consistent with that PD &E study, and we'll be continuing to coordinate with FDOT on making sure that the right -of -way they need will be available. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Are there any other questions of anyone at this point? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bob, is there any further presentation you have? MR. MULHERE: No, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: With that, we'll close the public hearing and -- go ahead, Ms. Caron. COMMISSIONER CARON: Actually, I want to speak to John for a minute. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: John is sitting back there thinking he's getting away with not having to speak today. COMMISSIONER CARON: But he dressed up today so I wanted to make sure he got on camera. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: He cut his hair too. MR. PODCZERWINSKY: Cut my hair, lose 50 pounds. Good morning. For the record, John Podczerwinsky, Transportation Planning. COMMISSIONER CARON: John, one of the suggested conditions that the Lee County people had suggested was that any damage directly attributable to the mine operation be paid for by -- the repairs be paid for by the mine operation. Do we ever request that of -- MR. PODCZERWINSKY: On occasion we do. We typically offer an option between two choices: Either -- and some of you are familiar with this terminology, the buck a truck, that's one dollar per loaded truck that's measured contribution. Or as an alternative option of that, an agreement to maintain the roadway within a certain distance of the project entrances. In this case my understanding is that this applicant has chosen the second of those two options, that they've agreed to maintain certain portions of State Road 82. The level to which their maintenance will extend will be something that they'll work out with staff over time. COMMISSIONER CARON: Oh, so you don't get that up front? MR. PODCZERWINSKY: Well, it's kind of hard to put that much definition in such a document. It's hard to define who the pothole belongs to. But we do work on that. COMMISSIONER CARON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else have any questions of anyone at this time? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we will close the public hearing and entertain a motion. There are some stipulations I'd like to read into the record at whatever point a motion -- it's appropriate with the motion. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'll make the motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I move we forward CU- 2008 -AR- 14078, Immokalee Sand Mine, to the Commission with a recommendation of approval, including staff recommendations one through eight, with four as revised by the applicant. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a second? Page 12 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Seconded by Mr. Murray. Discussion. I have some information from the applicant that they had responded to in requests I had made during my meeting with them. I'll read it for the record. And if the prime and second agree that it's acceptable, it's to be added as a stipulation, then so be it. The first one is the wheel wash station. Entire wash system will be installed to wash dust from the wheels and underbody of all haul trucks existing at the facility. This system directs water under pressure at the wheels of the underside of each vehicle as it passes through. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Agreed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Number two, haul trucks will not be permitted to park or stage along SR82 right -of -way. Applicant may allow haul trucks to stage or park on the project's internal roadway prior to 6:30 a.m. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Agreed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Number three, compensating right -of -way for turn decel lane. The owner, his successors in title and assigns agree to reserve 35 feet of right -of -way along the northerly side of 82 for approximately 1,190 feet along the property's frontage. The boundaries of this reservation shall coincide with the preferred alignment shown on the FDOT PD &E study. The owners, the successors and assigns agree to cooperate with FDOT during the design process of SR82, endeavoring to eliminate the need for additional 35 feet by allowing conveyance of off -site stormwater runoff, which may be accomplished via dedication of an easement within the project at no cost to the county or state, if needed. If the need for additional right -of -way cannot be reasonably eliminated as determined by FDOT, then the owner, its successors or assigns agree to dedicate up to 35 feet of right -of -way along the north side of SR82 to the State of Florida. The applicant shall provide compensating right -of -way of up to 12 -foot width and up to 460 feet in length, including taper, for a westbound right turn lane at the project entrance. Mr. Mulhere? MR. MULHERE: Staff has requested that we make one addition to that; we have no objection to it. It would be to insert in the last sentence where it says up to 35 feet of right -of -way along the north side of State Road 82, insert the phrase, at no cost. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, that certainly was the assumption. That's a good clarification. MR. MULHERE: We kind of thought that, but we'll make it clear. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And the last item -- well, actually there's -- yeah, the last item I have is the construction of a westbound acceleration lane. Applicant shall be fully responsible for designing, permitting and constructing a westbound acceleration lane at the project entrance on SR82 for vehicles leaving the project. The westbound acceleration lane will be up to 12 feet in width and up to 1,670 feet in length, including taper, and will otherwise comply with FDOT standards. Now, does the motion maker and the second accept those stipulations being added? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I do. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I do, Mark, but I'd like to comment. There is an acceleration lane in the package. Is it the same length as Mark referenced, or -- in other words, it looks longer. MR. MULHERE: I think the calculation was based on a maximum, based on design speed, 1,620 feet. I don't know if the length in the package is the same as what we put as the maximum in the stip, but that should sufficiently cover it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And then the staging on the site is a good idea, but should we qualify that in anyway? I mean -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, if you have some ideas. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, obviously there's an entrance road that goes up to -- it appears to look like a weigh station or something, Bob. Where would you intend to gate the site? And then the issue of — MR. MULHERE: Okay, so -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- a turnaround becomes a problem, too. MR. MULHERE: Well, if I could, I mean, you see this is a pretty long road right here leading up to the Page 13 of 85 October 7, 2010 actual operations. If there was going to be any kind of staging done, it would be done internal to the site. So we understand that prior to 6:30 there can be no staging along State Road 82 for obvious safety reasons. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, so we'll just leave it where there's no trucks on the state road. I accept everything, Mark. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Which brings the question, maybe it's moot, but after 6:30 you wouldn't need to stage on State Road 82; is that correct? MR. MULHERE: Most likely the in and out movements wouldn't require a line of trucks, correct. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's what I thought. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron, did you have a -- or Mr. Midney? COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Yeah, I just had one question, it just occurred to me. A lot of times when I see damage to the roads it's because the trucks come out dripping, and they're dripping sort of sand and water. Are these trucks going to come out dry? Or how are they going to come out? MR. MULHERE: Well, they're going to have -- the wheel wash will clean any residue or mud or sand or whatever that's on the bottom of the truck, so you won't get that dropping off. I think we've covered really the maintenance issue. We have a stipulation that already says that the county adopts some sort of a maintenance fee, that we'll be subject to that. So I think we've kind of covered that damage issue. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: All right, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And if staff has any objections to what I read into the record, please come up to the mic. now. Otherwise we'll assume that it's generally in conformance with what you're going to review for the consent agenda. Okay, there's -- Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: One other thought, and maybe you might think it's premature, and this thing is for 35 years, but we don't know when people will build around that area, if they ever will. And the concern I would have for blasting, maybe we need to put something in there about blasting, that before any blasting can be utilized that you must come back for verification in some form. MR. MULHERE: I would just respond, it's very well regulated by the county already. And we don't anticipate a significant amount of blasting. There's no -- there's one residence out there, we're not even sure if anybody's living in it. It's quite a distance away. And I don't foresee any rush to have additional residences -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I can -- what I was trying to do is -- with caution is to try to make it -- MR. MULHERE: There is a blasting ordinance that requires notification and monitoring and all of the things that I think you'd be -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'm cognizant of that. But I will tell you that I live in Lely Resort and at one time they were blasting and there was nobody coming around to check anything, so -- MR. MULHERE: It's A little more populated there. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: All right, I can withdraw that, that's not a big deal. Thirty-five years, I won't be around. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: There's been a motion. A motion made and seconded. There's been a series of stipulations accepted. Any further discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Aye. COMMISSIONER KLEIN: Aye. COMMISSIONER MIDNEY: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER EBERT: Aye. COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. Page 14 of 85 October 7, 2010 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. Anyone opposed? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries 9 -0. Thank you very much for your time, gentlemen, we appreciate it. ** *Next item up for today's meeting is a review and approval of the Flood Damage Prevention ordinance. This is a document that started a long time ago, and now it's back in front of us again. Mr. Wiley I believe is -- we're going to be taking this after Mr. Wiley's presentation. We'll be taking this a couple of pages at a time, as we normally do for questions of the Planning Commission as we work our way through it. Okay, Mr. Wiley, it's all yours. MR. WILEY: Good morning. For the record, I'm Robert Wiley with the county's land Development Services Department. And we're coming before you this morning with the revisions that have been made. We basically took the model ordinance that the State of Florida and FEMA have put together for the state on flood damage prevention. We came to you a couple years ago. It's been a while. And we have gone back, taken to the model ordinance, stripped it even of some of the provisions within it, stripped it down to the bare bones, even got rid of a few bones, as some of the phrases have been expressed by it. So it is presented to you today for your discussion. And I guess my intention was simply to go through it as you said, a page at a time, go from front to back. There are -- in the paragraphs with the memo that accompanied this ordinance, there's a little bit of discussion about some of the actual criteria that are in our existing ordinance that are not in this proposed ordinance, where there is some weakening even of existing conditions. The basic understanding we have to present to you today is our existing ordinance has been determined by FEMA to not be consistent with what they require us to have now. It has to be updated. So we do have to go through the process. We're bringing it before you right now in anticipation, then going to the Board of County Commissioners. We have had this reviewed extensively by the Floodplain Management Planning Committee. We got their vote of approval. We have had it before Development Services Advisory Committee. We did receive their vote of approval. If you will note in that second paragraph of the memo, there was the one discussion, what was the approving motion from DSAC, which is Development Services Advisory Committee. The one gentleman wanted us to include in their provisions for up to 20 percent obstruction beneath the structure within the VE zone for sheer walls. That is technically allowed within the Florida Building Code. Discussion with FEMA, they were real blunt about it, they say if you put that in your ordinance we will reject it. So we did get back in touch with the gentleman who put forth the motion at DSAC. He was understanding exactly of their objections. He had no objection to us then not including that in. So that's why the information went out to DSAC of what we have done with their recommendations in the ordinance, and it's also clearly stated in here so you understand that that provision is not in here. And then the last thing we want to talk about as we look at the end of the memo is an issue that staff wants to put in so that we basically as new development is coming in, we are having them to prepare the impacts that that new development has in relationship to the current version of the Flood Insurance Rate Map. If they're proposing putting the development within the special flood hazard area, that will be any of the flood zones that start with the letter A or V. Then as a part of that development they also provide the letter of map amendment applications, the application fee, if it's a letter of map revision based upon fill. Just depends upon their site. Some -- the wording that's here says wherever applicable. Some things apply in certain situations, some don't, so this covers it both ways. And that was just a statement that staff wanted to include in here in that one section of the ordinance. It is not within the ordinance itself, but we want you to know that we would like to be able to put it in there. And with that, I just want to go through it page at a time, answer your questions, if you have any. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I have some general statements I need to clarify. Page 15 of 85 October 7, 2010 First of all, where's Nick today? MR. BELLOWS: He didn't tell me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Because there are issues that are in this ordinance that will be pertaining to the operations of CDES that are critical. And without Nick's input, it's going to be hard to evaluate the impacts on the economics involving it in Collier County, hard to understand how it's going to flow through CDES. And I certainly would have appreciated his input on today's meeting. I didn't know he wasn't going to be here. I assumed with the magnitude of this document he would have been here. Ray, so I m not sure where we'll end up today, for my part. I'm not sure for the rest of the Planning Commission. The other item is -- MR. BELLOWS: I can send an e -mail. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- where is the fiscal analysis of this document, the impact of it? I don't mean as a credit from FEMA for any -- regarding how much it will help us off our insurance policies, if at all. But where is the fiscal analysis to Collier County based on the various paragraphs that are in here involving personnel and review and administration procedures? Did anybody do that? MR. WILEY: It's what we're doing right now, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Do you have the document? I mean, can I see the numbers? MR. WILEY: Well, I mean, it's our operating budget. There's no negative impact, this is what we're saying. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Who's the floodplain administrator? MR. WILEY: Technically it would be the county manager's designee, whoever that is, which our understanding is it would be probably Nick or Norman Feder. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Norman Feder and Nick don't review plans, they assign that to other people. MR. WILEY: That is correct, that -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Where is the staff impacts calculated into the County's budget for this? That's what I'm asking. Have you seen a budget item that calculates the impacts of this document? MR. WILEY: This is the same document we already have, sir, as far as impacts go. It's the same staff, the same reviews. So it's our current budget. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Mr. Wiley, as we go through the paragraphs then, I'll ask you for financial impacts, and we'll see where we go from there. MR. BELLOWS: I do have an update. Nick is at a mandatory Collier leadership meeting and it will be all day. He couldn't get out of it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Lucky Nick. Has the County Attorney's Office reviewed this ordinance? MR. KLATZKOW: We've been working with this office longer than I've been with the County Attorney's Office, to be blunt. Yeah, I mean, my strong recommendation was to use the model ordinance and be done with it. I understand that model ordinances are going through a review from several committees. I asked that those changes be made so that you guys can see what those changes were to the model ordinance and make your policy decisions. But honest to God, we must have had at least four attorneys over the years working on this ordinance. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. And is this a required ordinance for Collier County? MR. KLATZKOW: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is it required to change what we currently have by some legal mechanism that requires us to move into this, or is this optional based on a savings, say, on flood insurance? MR. KLATZKOW: Our present ordinance needs to be updated. It just does. I don't know that it has to be done right now as opposed to a year from now or two years from now. But our present ordinance is dated. It's not very good anyway. So my recommendation is that we do it, whether or not you want to accept all these changes from a policy standpoint. And I've been talking fiscal impact here for as long as I've been with the county as well and yet to see numbers. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. The procedures in here are concerning. And if they can be ironed out during Page 16 of 85 October 7, 2010 discussion, that's fine. But right now I haven't -- the questions haven't been asked, so as we go through we'll ask the questions and see how the issues are responded to. Okay, let's start with -- we'll just do Page 1 to begin with, then we'll do two pages at a time, because that's the way it opens in our book. So anybody have any questions on Page 1? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Mr. Wiley, when I ask for questions, if you have anything to say on those pages, just speak up and we'll move forward. Okay, we'll be on Pages 2 and 3. Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Is it a topical cyclone or a tropical? MR. WILEY: Tropical. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: A topical tropical. MR. WILEY: Thank you. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, I have a question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Schiffer? MR, WILEY: Topical doesn't get caught in the spell check. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Bob, why are you listing where the water comes from? Is that important? In other words, it's flood hazards. Is it important that you note where it comes from? I mean, we could have a tsunami, we could have other kinds of crazy stuff. But is it important to note that? MR. WILEY: It is important from the standpoint of understanding the development of the special flood hazard areas. And those are your zones along the coast, which are the VE and the AE. But the interior portions, we have to be prepared also for rainfall analysis. That's what's ongoing right now through the FEMA process for the development of the new Flood Insurance Rate Map. But we're identifying so that everyone understands where the flood zones definitions get their origin. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Down in C -5, what you're saying is if you put a flood barrier, and I assume it's on your property, and divert it to other lands, is other the best word, or adjoining? I guess other lands could be downstream somehow or -- MR. WILEY: They could, sir. MR. KLATZKOW: And just for discussion here, again, you have the model ordinance, that's what's not underlined and struck through, okay. So if you're seeing stuff that has been added onto, it's not necessary. These are policy decisions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Let me understand something. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Brad. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: We were given two things. One is I think our existing ordinance with a strike - through and underlined. And then the second thing is an evolution of that. But what you're saying is that there's the State's model ordinance -- MR. KLATZKOW: Right, COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- that we've never seen with a strike - through and underlined. MR. KLATZKOW: It should be here. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That is the one -- MR. WILEY: That is the one with the strike - through. The County Attorney's office took the existing ordinance and then word -by -word, line -by -line did a comparison, insertion, strike -outs to go from our existing ordinance to the model ordinance. So you can see what we used to say, where we used to say it to what the model ordinance now says and where it says it. Then the document that we are reviewing up front here for discussion takes that model ordinance language and makes additions to it as we have gone through the various staff reviews. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So for example that word, the use of the word other, it shows that it's underlined. So it was brought in by the model ordinance. Page 17 of 85 October 7, 2010 MR. WILEY: And that is a part of the model ordinance, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anything else, Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: On the second page, three, number five, it would be E -5. I just wonder if we should add public facilities and -- I just think adding essential services in there, I know we phrase it as all utilities and then we start listing them, but does public facilities totally cover all the essential services we have? There could be private essential services. MR. WILEY: Essential services is different than a utility. An essential service is a service. It's something even could be such as EMS or Sheriff, things of that nature. So this is taking forth the model ordinance provision. As you can see, the change there was to add the word all in to make sure everyone understood it's every utility that's out there. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So the objective of the ordinance doesn't want to protect essential services? MR. WILEY: It doesn't say it doesn't want to. This particular provision is addressing the physical facilities you put in the ground. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It may be -- we may be saying the same thing. In other words, minimize damage to public facilities and, and then you list all the utilities. So if you think essential services, EMS, anything private is covered, I'm happy. Do you think it is? MR. WILEY: Within their construction standards, they would fall within here, it just does not spell them out. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: You're right, okay. That's it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? Ms. Caron, then Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, you're adding all to all utilities. Is that because it was felt that somebody could interpret it to mean only some utilities would -- MR. WILEY: Yes, ma'am. That was the fear that some people expressed, well, does that mean only publicly owned facilities, was that private facilities? So they want us to put in the -- I mean utilities, they wanted to add the word all in there. COMMISSIONER CARON: Okay, does that change what had been the norm from before? Would we have done all utilities? Would we have covered all utilities? MR. WILEY: I think we would have. I didn't think the word needed to be in there, but -- COMMISSIONER CARON: All right. And then down under accessory structure it says in the notes that the definition from FEMA is different from our LDC definition. Is our definition stricter or more lenient? MR. WILEY: I would really ask Mr. Bellows to chime in on that one, because he did also some review of this definition. The best I could say is it's different in the way it's worded. This is FEMA's definition. MR. BELLOWS: For the record, Ray Bellows. I did have a discussion on this with Robert earlier, and it is different, but it's not substantially so. COMMISSIONER CARON: All right. So this doesn't -- I mean, this is not going to really affect anything by using the FEMA definition. MR. BELLOWS: Correct. COMMISSIONER CARON: If we have a stricter definition, that's what we should be using -- MR. BELLOWS: It's not substantially different, it's basically the same. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: For clarity, Ray, we can have accessory structures that have human habitation in them in our LDC. This is saying you can't. So this is definitely a lesser type of structure. I could have a guesthouse as an accessory structure. MR. BELLOWS: Well, it depends. A guesthouse has its own separate definition, and maybe that's where some confusion is coming in. But you're right, technically that would be deemed an accessory structure also. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But the definition here is for this ordinance and this ordinance only. MR. BELLOWS: Yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else on Pages 2 and 3? Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah, my question is probably going to go to our County Attorney. In fmdings of fact on Page 2 where we talk about we've deleted could and we say it results in loss of life, and Page 18 of 85 October 7, 2010 so if it says findings of fact I have to presume then that over the course of years we have actually had deaths attributed to flood hazard areas in Collier County. And I wonder, if that's not true, I wonder by that statement whether we're not helping actuaries and insurance companies to heap on the dollar costs by showing a greater gravity than reality. MR. KLATZKOW: It definitely results in property damage in the course of the years. I don't have an issue with the language. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay, you're comfortable that it would be loss of life that would be. I mean, it's possible, certainly. MR. KLATZKOW: We do have flood hazards areas that are subject to periodic inundation. That's why every now and then we have people leave their areas when we have storms coming in. I mean, we ask people to evacuate. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I understand. My --just that was findings of fact. And I didn't know that we had a factual basis to make that statement. I can see the statement where it could result in the loss of life. And I know that may seem to be a -- I love that term de minimis basis. We're changing it. But I can deal with -- if you're comfortable as an attorney -- MR. KLATZKOW: I'm not uncomfortable. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: -- I'm going to be fine. That's good. That's my question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on Pages 2 and 3? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Bob, on the findings of fact, B -2, it says these flood losses are caused by the cumulative effect of the obstructions in floodplains, and it goes on from there. Is that the only reason that we can have flood losses is because of a cumulative effect of obstructions in floodplains? MR. WILEY: If you look at the statement, it gives several, not just the one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, but they're all some kind of a floodplain obstruction. Explain to me what you mean by what you just said. MR. WILEY: Well, flood losses, it says, are caused by the cumulative effect of obstructions in floodplains causing increases in flood heights and velocities. So that's one way you can have flood losses. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right. MR. WILEY: And you can have it by occupancy in the flood hazard areas by uses vulnerable to floods or hazards to other lands. So basically when you are putting a structure, your dwelling within the special flood hazard area, it's subject to damage. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Understand. But in the first part where it said effect of obstructions in floodplains, what I guess I'm trying to ask you though, are the flood losses the one -- and sure, if you occupy a facility or a building in a floodplain that floods, the causing of that flooding, is it limited to obstructions? MR. WILEY: No, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, then my point is that the flood losses could be caused by other things than just obstructions in floodplains. And I don't mean by occupancy of buildings that are in floodplains, I mean the buildings, when they actually flood, the flooding is caused by something that cause -- it's storms, it's water, it's storm surge. And I'm just wondering if that statement is too narrow and too focused on just a singular cause, when there are more than -- possibly more than one cause for a floodplain to flood. And my suggestion is that we make that so that it reads better that way, instead of focusing on this being the sole cause, that we look at it as there are multiple causes, or other causes just besides obstructions that would cause a rise in water in the floodplains. Okay, you don't have to comment. I just don't have to vote on it. Item C -2 requires the uses vulnerable to floods, including facilities which serve such uses, be protected against flood damage throughout their intended life span. What's the cost to the development community, building community and homeowners regarding that Page 19 of 85 October 7, 2010 statement? MR. WILEY: It depends upon which way they choose to protect the structure. Most people elevate. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: How much of a cost differential is there with this versus what we have today? Is what we have today equal to this? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, On Page 3, under accessory structures, the third line, accessory structures should constitute a minnimal investment. How do you define the word minimal? MR. WILEY: You're not the fast person to ask that question. We talked about that at the Floodplain Management Committee. As you get over into the ordinance later on, you'll see that they do address what they consider to be a minimal structure. It's over near the very back of the ordinance where they give a square footage size, where they give a cost size. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Why don't we just put that in the definition, if it's already defined. MR. WILEY: They chose to not. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Who's they? MR. WILEY: The floodplain committee. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I thought this was added -- or this was their -- oh, the floodplain committee, okay. Well, this is a recommendation from them. And if we wanted to make sure everyone understood what minimal was intended to mean, it would be best if we put it right in the definition. Do you have any objection to that? MR. WILEY: Their discussion was over in, as you go toward the back of the ordinance, cost with -- the difference between a VE zone and AE zone. That's where some of the issue came up. So they chose to address the cost over there, not in the upfront definition statement. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: This is going to be a long meeting. Under area of shallow flooding, the insurance rate map in the second line with the base flood depths, it did say from one to three feet, now it says less than three feet. What's the significance of that change? MR. WILEY: Within the definition for shallow flooding where it says flood depths from one to three feet, the proposed Flood Insurance Rate Map that's coming out has extensive areas of AH zone, as you know. You've looked at them. A lot of those areas are less than one foot in depth, yet they are going to be put within the zone AH because of the methodology that we're required to use to take the base flood elevation until it touches the ground contour. So if we leave our definition here and say it's from one to three feet, it then throws a controversy in, well, what if my depth of flooding is less than one foot. So I did talk to FEMA Region 4 office in Atlanta. And that's where the note comes from, from Mr. Brad Loar. And they go from any depth of flooding up to three feet is considered as area of shallow flooding. So that's why I went and edited based upon the direct statement that I had from him. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But if they weren't considered an area of shallow flooding by this definition, and they were below one foot, which would put them outside the definition, would they still be in a zone of AO or AH? MR. WILEY: It would be in AH. We do not currently have any AH or AA zones in Collier County. We are proposed to have extensive areas of AH. We would still not be proposing to have AO zones. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: In the AH zone, where you would have less than one foot of flooding, would that change the valuations of any insurance criteria? MR. WILEY: It would not. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we'll move on to Pages 4 and 5. Anybody have any questions on Pages 4 and 5? Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Coastal high hazard area. Again, we have a different definition, and I believe a stricter definition. MR. WILEY: Yes, ma'am, it is. COMMISSIONER CARON: And why wouldn't we use it in this ordinance? Page 20 of 85 October 7, 2010 MR. WILEY: As we went through, this is the ordinance that was put forth through the model -- this is the definition put through the model ordinance. The comment here is for you to understand, this is an area where we, by using the model ordinance, technically weaken an existing restriction. We went through the floodplain committee, we also went to DSAC. Both of those organizations were willing to say let's weaken our ordinance. So we wanted to make sure you understood this is a position of weakening it in the ordinance, because there is a difference between the coastal high hazard area as defined by FEMA and the location of the CCCL. In many places -- COMMISSIONER CARON: I don't see a problem with that one. But -- and then down further under datum, do we even need to mention NGVD any longer? I mean, there's a note in here that we no longer support it. Why is that even necessary? You told them what -- MR. WILEY: Historically we are keeping track of the statement, because there are many, many existing structures which are based upon an NGVD elevation. So that's why we are continuing this reference, so people can see. If you have NGVD it does not mean you simply throw the elevation away. It's not supported but it's referenced so that people know you can then go to NAVD. NGVD is still technically supported. We cannot deny somebody whatever they need to submit. If they've got a historic elevation certificate, insurance agent has to accept it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on Pages 4 and 5? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer, did you have any? No? Pages 6 and 7? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Any other questions on -- I mean, questions on Pages 6 and 7? (No response.) MR. WILEY: Let me chime in here to address on Page 7 under floodproofing. You see that list of nine topics? Those are definitive criteria that we have put in to help people understand what is expected should someone choose to come in and floodproof a building. So that's added for clarification purposes here, that is not a part of the model ordinance. But the question has come up, well, if I floodproof, what is required. So we're trying to help people understand what is required. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I did have kind of a question about that. Because you are putting regulations in the definition. But Bob, aren't they also further down the road so -- I mean, there's a danger in putting regulations in the definitions of something, especially if you don't change it in both places. MR. WILEY: The criteria within the definition is put here so that we don't have to duplicate ourselves in the two different locations further back in the ordinance where floodproofing is discussed under two separate scenarios. So we chose to put it in the definition. In those areas it simply says if you choose to floodproof. At that point we felt we were better to put it with a definition everyone could understand up front. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: This would be the only place then. In number five you're describing that you have to remove water at a certain rate per thousand square feet. Do you think that's clear that that's the square footage that's below the flood elevation? In other words, if I had like a split level building, one part of it was below it, one part of it wasn't, certainly the intent is the part that's below it. Do you agree that's clear in there? MR. WILEY: Well, that's the square foot of the building at your foundation. If you have a split level building, means multi -story, you're only really concerned about the portion which is below the BFE. I think it's clear from the standpoint of it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And then number nine, normally we design these things so the flood waters can enter, but it's also important to allow it to leave without collapsing the walls. So do you think after the word enter we should add and leave? MR. WILEY: I have no problem adding that. Page 21 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. Because that can be a problem. It can collapse the wall by a negative pressure. We define floodway, then you note that there is no floodways in Collier. And then at the bottom we define floodway fringes, which means there's no floodway fringes in Collier either, correct? MR. WILEY: That is correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So is it a good idea to have that in there, or is it used in the code somewhere? MR. WILEY: It is not used anywhere else within our ordinance. However, this is one of those situations that we again approached FEMA. A floodway definition is a very vital part within the national FEMA concern. So I asked them, I said we don't have floodways, we never use the term in our ordinance, other than the definition. Why do we have to leave it in? Why can we not remove it? We know it's in the model ordinance, but we would like to remove it. And they were pretty blunt. They said, if you remove it, we'll reject your ordinance. So they're adamant of the definition being in to address completion of their standard program. So we left it in. But you don't have a fringe if you don't have the floodway to start with, you're correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Could we ever have a floodway? MR. WILEY: Yes. Any time we have an update to the Flood Insurance Rate Map there could be the creation of a floodway. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, thanks. I'm done. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anything else on six and seven? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If not, we'll move to eight and nine. We're still in definitions. Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, on the very bottom of the page, lowest adjacent grade. There FEMA wants you to leave it in and you've taken it out, so I guess they didn't tell you they'd reject the entire ordinance for that; is that why you're taking it out? MR. WILEY: I have a boss, he said take it out, so it's out. We'll see if it gets rejected or not by FEMA. To them the lowest adjacent grade is not as critical as the definition for floodway. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I have some questions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Highest definition. The highest adjacent grade, which is, I guess, the friend of lowest, it's prior to construction. Lowest was after completion and construction. And building codes were used to an adjacent grade after. So this is really confusing to me. So what you're saying is you come upon a site, you do improvements on it, yet you somehow have to track what that grade was against the building before the building was there. MR. WILEY: You really don't unless you're going to construct a structure within the approximate zone A portion of the flood hazard. When you look at the Flood Insurance Rate Map, along the coast you have the VE zones, then you have the AE zones, and then we go to Zone X, and then we have some D. But further out in the portions there's called an approximate zone A. And in those areas you do not have an established base flood elevation, by definition. And that is the area where you use the highest adjacent grade because you are basing your structure off of the highest adjacent grade before construction to estimate what is the local BFE that you would have to build to for the county to agree to give the building permit approval. So it's sort of -- think of it as though Collier County is different from most of the nation where FEMA deals with sloping topography and people actually modify the terrain to flatten out the ground to create a place to build a structure. Here we pile dirt up. So that's why we're sort of the reverse direction here. Typically you're scraping the grade down to create the flattened spot. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, I'll go with that. So essentially that would be in an area which we probably don't really -- do we have any of those areas, Bob? MR. WILEY: We do, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So they would be looking -- and there's no street in those areas, because the height would be set by the roadway that the site's accessed from. So you would -- Page 22 of 85 October 7, 2010 MR. WILEY: The elevation is set based upon your determination of the depth of the water that should be inundating the area at the one percent annual chance flood event. Now, usually that then is measured from existing ground surface, which is your highest adjacent grade. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Makes sense, okay. The hardship thing is a confusing -- the way it's -- the definition, does that come solely from -- it looks like it does. So that comes from FEMA. Because it -- MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- has some strange wording. You know, the community requires that the variance is exceptional. I mean, we've personified the community. Inconvenience, aesthetics consideration, physical handicaps, personal preferences or the disapproval of one neighbors (sic) likewise cannot as a rule qualify. I mean, what kind of wording is that? MR. WILEY: It's from FEMA. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And we have to keep it that way. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. You have to keep it that way if you want their happy approval. I'm not saying you can't reword it and have the County Attorney discuss the terminology with them, but -- MR. KLATZKOW: Bob, explain to the Planning Commission why it is that we're doing this. Why are we doing this? MR. WILEY: Why are we updating our ordinance? MR. KLATZKOW: Yes, explain to the Planning Commission what the purpose of doing this is. MR. WILEY: We're updating it to bring it into conformance with FEMA standard for local communities to have a Florida Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance. And that requires us to bring in some new definitions, some new terminology that they have developed over the course of a number of years. This happens to be one of them. MR. KLATZKOW: If we don't do this, what is the repercussion, if any? MR. WILEY: If we do not update our ordinance, by the time we take the preliminary Flood Insurance Rate Map, which is out for public review and comment and all that period, that will take us up in through probably the March, April time frame at the quickest maybe, but by the time that document is ready for adoption, if our ordinance is not updated and approved by FEMA, then they will declare that we have an insufficient ordinance. Well, you can't have a new Flood Insurance Rate Map adopted with an insufficient ordinance. So they will write us a letter and say you have 30 days to provide us a copy of your updated ordinance. And if you do not then we will consider removing you from the Flood Insurance Program. So they carry a fairly heavy hammer that they have indicated willingness to use. MR. KLATZKOW: We can be more strict than FEMA. MR, WILEY: Yes. MR. KLATZKOW: Okay. If we try to be less strict from FEMA we run this risk. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The Flood Insurance Program is what provides us with the ability to purchase flood insurance. And the flood insurance rates are controlled by who? MR. KLATZKOW: FEMA. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: By FEMA. So FEMA controls the flood insurance rates and they control the demand that they put on us to have to have those rates by these documents that now cause us to cause the local economy a substantial more amount of money. MR. KLATZKOW: I guess at the end of the day if you want to participate in the FEMA Flood Program you have to play by their rules. This is just part of their game. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But by participating it means we will still have to -- we end up as individuals having to buy insurance with the rates set by them. MR. KLATZKOW: Yes. MR. WILEY: The rates, sir, are -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a conflict of interest there? MR. KLATZKOW: It's the federal government, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's my point. MR. WILEY: But the rates are set by Congress. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That's even worse. MR. WILEY: I just wanted that for clarification. Page 23 of 85 October 7, 2010 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, I'm -- Brad, I think we left off on you. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: One more thing, Bob. It's new construction, just to understand. So what this is saying is that if you had a building built prior to the date shown and you added to that, is the building now -- after that date shown, is the building now new construction? MR. WILEY: It really -- this is getting quite complicated to answer this, but we'll try. You have a building which has a building permit that is approved prior to September 4th of '79. Now you wish to make an addition to it, is that what you're asking? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: An addition was made, let's say, 1990. MR. WILEY: Okay, an addition was made in 1990. If the building's location was within the special flood hazard area, it would have had to have had the addition constructed in conformance with the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance. Now, with that being said, it also comes into play how much is the value of the addition made to the building as to whether it exceeds 50 percent of the value of the existing building. If it does, that's called a substantial improvement. Then depending upon whether or not you have an exiting opening or you have to cut a hole through the wall, how you get to that addition, it is used to determine whether just the addition goes up to meet the current base flood elevation or whether the entire structure has to be elevated to meet the base flood elevation. So it's real convoluted, multiple pages within the manuals to sort of explain what I'm trying to say to you. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And that would have been dealt with at the time. The thing I'm trying to -- what is this phrase, the term also includes any subsequent improvements to such structures? Under -- it's the definition of new construction. I'm just not sure what that phrase means. Does that mean MR. WILEY: Well, if you have a building that -- say you built a building last year. Since that's after'79, and now -- and you built it in conformance with the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance, that's considered a new structure. So then you're going to add on to it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm done, thanks. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, at this point we're going to take a break. We'll come back to these pages at 10:15, with that 15 -- or actually it'll be a 12- minute break. (Brief recess.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we're there. Welcome back from the break, everyone. And when we went on break, we left off on Pages 32 and 33. (Laughter.) MR. WILEY: Motion for approval, good. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I wouldn't go that far. But that's a good assumption. MR. WILEY: I like that. Didn't we vote on that? I think you -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, there might be a few questions in between, so let's go back to Pages 8 and 9 and see if there's anything left from anybody. Melissa? COMMISSIONER AHERN: Since we removed the freeboard, do we have to keep that definition in there? MR. WILEY: Yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I would expect the reason why is if we ever want to institute freeboard in the future as a means of saving money on insurance rates, that definition would be useful. MR. WILEY: It is also used when you're talking about floodproofing and -- the one foot above the base flood elevation is not really freeboard, but it's a one -foot increase in elevation. If you don't want your building to be rated one foot below -- but we'll get to that later on as we get into the ordinance, you'll see where that -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, anybody else on Pages 8 and 9? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We'll go to Pages 10 and 11. Anybody have any questions on Pages 10 through I I? Melissa? COMMISSIONER AHERN: Under repetitive loss, the -- it's showing that the increased cost of compliance -- the maximum you can get is $30,000? Page 24 of 85 October 7, 2010 MR. WILEY: Within your Flood Insurance Program, each policy has a rider attached to it called increased cost of compliance. And that gives you $30,000 coverage above your amount of coverage you purchased with your premium for meeting local criteria. Now, what FEMA is wanting to do is set up a program where they are able to use the ICC coverage quicker into the program before a structure has to receive the 50 percent dollar value of substantial damage. So they want to do that by having local communities modify their ordinance so that instead of 50 percent you suddenly come up with an average claim of 25 percent to then declare the structure to be a repetitive loss structure and also to be substantially damaged so then they can bring into play the ICC coverage. Now, that's what was within the model ordinance. That was one of the editings that FEMA did to the State's ordinance. I did talk to the State Department of the Emergency Management. Joy Duperault advised that the State of Florida does not like that definition. She advises to go to our changed definition, which is FEMA's standard definition, not FEMA's new ICC program definition. So taking the State's direction, we have chosen to do so. COMMISSIONER AHERN: And we do have to have that provision in the local ordinance to require structures that are repetitively flooded but not substantially damaged to meet that requirement? MR. WILEY: Well, what -- the definition as we're proposing simply brings into play what the term repetitive loss means by your local ordinance. That's where it comes into play with how we are able to work within the Flood Insurance Program to document cases, and then essentially we're building a case history that is consistent with what FEMA's already building. We're not making it more restrictive than what it currently is by using the defuiition we're proposing. If we go to FEMA's editing of the model ordinance, it would be a much more restrictive definition and would encompass properties a lot quicker in the process. COMMISSIONER AHERN: In the -- under FEMA's ICC, they referenced that you do not qualify if you participate in an emergency program. MR. WILEY: That is correct. We are in a regular program of Collier County, have been since'79. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Okay, that's it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else on Page 10 and 11? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And I'm still -- I don't think I understand what you were trying to explain to -- or you did explain to Melissa. So what we're going to say is that a repetitive loss in Collier County is if within a 10 -year period you've had two $1,000 claims. MR. WILEY: Within any 10 -year window you'have been paid two $1,000 or greater value claims on your flood insurance, that's correct. It's not by owner, it's by structure. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But isn't that much, much more restrictive than what FEMA's wording is, the 25 percent of market value in that period? In other words, let's say I'm flooded and a car drives down the street fast and the only thing that happened to my house is a wave came in and ruined the carpet. That's going to put me into this program if it happens twice in 10 years, when essentially it didn't do any -- well, that's a finish and that may be the outcome. But why are you coming up with this thousand? What's the advantage to that as opposed to the FEMA wording? MR. WILEY: The way FEMA is wording it is for us to make is so that when you have flood insurance claims filed against a property, that instead of having a 50 percent value threshold to declare a structure to be substantially damaged, by changing the definition in repetitive loss and by changing the definition in your substantially damaged structure to where it would include a repetitive loss structure, you hit the number that suddenly over two claims of which the average is 25 percent of the value of the structure, then you get into being a repetitive loss structure quicker and you also get into a substantially damaged structure quicker, which has its own impacts. For a substantially damaged structure you have to bring the entire structure into compliance with the current base flood elevation. So instead of having a 50 percent threshold, suddenly you find yourself with a 25 percent value threshold. Page 25 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Then you cross that -- MR. WILEY: Well, the purpose here is for them to be able to use the ICC coverage within the policy to assist the homeowner who has received flood damage to mitigate the house, which in Collier County typically that means elevate the house. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It must be something I don't understand. Because what you're saying is you become a repetitive loss, you have to bring the house into compliance, the whole house. MR. WILEY: No, sir. To become substantially damaged. Repetitive loss is nothing more than simply a recordkeeping that we're doing right now. But FEMA wants us to change so that by becoming a repetitive loss structure it is also automatically then a substantially damaged structure to fit within the program they are trying to put together. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: How come my brain makes me think that's an equal sign? MR. WILEY: It isn't. Substantially damaged says you have 50 percent of the value of the structure in damage from flooding. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But you said in there that repetitive loss, FEMA is going to make it equal to substantially damaged. MR. WILEY: That's what FEMA -- between this definition and over in substantial damage, between the two definitions, that's where they were heading by editing the State's model ordinance. And the State does not agree with that. We did not agree with it either. When we made the ordinance, it's bare minimum. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So by you changing this to be two $1,000 events in a 10 -year period, how does that help us? MR. WILEY: Well, that goes to what we currently are right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But I think the question was how does that help us in comparison to the way it read. And Brad, I think I'm in the same train of thought you are. Let's use real numbers. Let's take a house for $100,000. MR. WILEY: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: A $100,000 home in a 10 -year period has two claims of, say, $1,000 each. They're repetitive loss under the way it's written now. A $100,000 home in a 10 -year period, under the way it was written, would have to have two claims exceeding 25 percent each in order to be repetitive; is that the way -- MR. WILEY: No, it was the average. So if you had one that was $40,000 claim and the other one was $2, your average was greater than 25 percent of the structure. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But in that example you'd have to have a claim that exceeded $25,000 for a $100,000 home accumulatively -- or averaged over a 10 -year period. That's substantially more of a value than $2,000 is over a 10 -year period. So how -- wouldn't we be better off with that 25 percent? MR. WILEY: Well, remember, if you're going to accept the 25 percent value, we also then have to change our definition for substantial damage. Because the two go together. When you go to this proposed definition by FEMA in the model ordinance, the two are interlinked. We did not like the impacts of suddenly having a house that had two flood insurance claims which averaged 25 percent of the value of the structure declaring the structure to be substantially damaged and requiring the entire structure be mitigated, wherein our threshold all along has been 50 percent of the value of the structure. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. Bob, here's the problem I think I'm having. There's two situations in which they really want you to fix your house. One is that if it's damaged more than 50 percent, and the building codes, everybody are supportive of that, then you've got a problem, we've got to start looking at this thing like bringing the whole house into compliance. True? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The other one is, hey, if within 10 years you're getting whacked with claim after claim, we've got a problem and maybe we've got to bring this whole house into compliance. True? MR. WILEY: Being placed on repetitive loss does not require you to bring the house into compliance -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: If you could -- MR. WILEY: -- simply by putting it on the repetitive loss list. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: If you cross out the -- Page 26 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: What's the trigger? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- the -- you know, they want you to add the term includes repetitive loss structures as defined herein. So in other words, FEMA wants you to do that. You know, the mitigation committee you and I sit on, we watch projects come through where they want us to do that. So in other words, the intent is that they don't want to have repetitive losses. And if a project is starting to become one, they want you to fix it. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And you're crossing that out. In other words, you're fighting repetitive loss being something that would require you to bring the whole building into compliance. MR. WILEY: What we're saying here is to take the ordinance to the bare bones minimum. Don't add in the criteria that FEMA has proposed in the State's model ordinance to take a repetitive loss structure and define it as being substantially damaged. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah. Now here's the danger, though. You're reducing the threshold for what is a repetitive loss, don't you agree, with the two $1,000 claims, 25 percent? MR. WILEY: That is current with what we have. What FEMA was proposing to go to the program to allow them to throw in the ICC coverage was to bring in the 25 percent value average between claims. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Now, down in substantial damage you're recommending we move in a line that states that a repetitive loss is going to be considered substantial damage. What if we don't lose -- what if they make us keep that and we're stuck with this $1,000 -- I mean, $1,000 is a very, very small claim. MR. WILEY: That's what I say, the two definitions within their ICC program are linked. If you're going to go with substantial damage as including repetitive loss structures, then your definition would use the average 25 percent value for the two claims. If it does not have a substantial damage, is -- if you have a repetitive loss structure but you're not saying that automatically makes it substantial damage, then you use the two $1,000 claims over a 10 -year period. So if you go with the definition as proposed by FEMA, which we struck out, you are going to be promoting the new ICC coverage program that they're bringing forward. But that is more restrictive than the bare minimum of FEMA's definition, which simply says it's a repetitive loss structure. But that does not make it a substantially damaged structure. So you go either way, but you don't get to take a piece of one and a piece of the other, because that conflicts with the program that FEMA has set up for ICC coverage. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'll trust you on that, or I'll have substantial damage to my brain here. Let's move on to another thing. But let me just ask you today, with the two 1,000, what does that mean? Let's say I had a house that had two $1,000 claims in the last 10 years. What does that mean to me? MR. WILEY: It means you get put on a list and every year I send you a letter and remind you that your house is a repetitive loss structure. I then have to include an analysis of all properties within a reasonable distance from you that are approximately the same elevation, subject to the same level of flooding. I have to send each of those houses a letter. So right now we're sending out over 3,000 letters a year. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I can imagine. Okay. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I've got a question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Melissa and then Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER AHERN: I just wanted to follow up on that. Between the direct loss and ICC coverage, the residential max is 250? So if you take out the $30,000 under ICC then you're basically maxed at $220,000 coverage for the residence. I think the -- part of the issue is if you fall under this and then become a substantial damage, this is not necessarily going to cover all of your cost. I mean, you know, if you're going to -- if you're forced to come into compliance and have to do stem wall, I mean, at some point your site costs are going to exceed $30,000, and then the balance of your house may not be covered. Is that a fair statement? I mean, if they're maxing at 250. MR. WILEY: I want to say it's a fair statement, but I'm not sure you and I are talking along the same line of thought here. Page 27 of 85 October 7, 2010 The ICC coverage is coverage above and beyond what you purchase in your premium. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Right. But under the ICC coverage it states the max combined ICC and direct loss coverage for residential is $250,000. MR. WILEY: That is correct. COMMISSIONER AHERN: And that's combined, so -- MR. WILEY: So if you have $250,000 worth of coverage on your house and the substantial -- the damage to repair the flooding that has occurred to your house comes out to be $250,000, right, you gain nothing from ICC. But if you have $100,000 worth of damage from flooding to your house, you have the $100,000 in damage plus the 30,000 to correct the mitigation effort it takes to elevate the house. So that is where it is additional above your flood insurance premium. Now, that's -- again, the max between the two is 250,000, but that's only if you've had 250,000 damage to your house. So where the ICC coverage comes in and gives you additional coverage, if you didn't really sustain quite that much damage as the 250, it gives you up to 30,000 more to correct the problem that caused the flooding. COMMISSIONER AHERN: The process to bring your house in compliance is different than just making repairs on your house. MR. WILEY: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER AHERN: You're not just picking up the house and throwing some block under it. MR. WILEY: I don't want anyone to think I'm giving the impression that ICC coverage makes you entirely whole. It is helpful. Now you understand why we don't want to see a lot more structures suddenly declared to be substantially damaged. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Right. And that was kind of my point of bringing it up. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Robert, the current ordinance is $1,000. Why can it not be 15,000, 5,000, 3,500? Why are we set at 1,000? MR. WILEY: FEMA's program clearly states that repetitive loss is when they pay two claims of $1,000 or more. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So it's their determination. MR. WILEY: It's their determination. It's what they have paid in the claim over any 10 -year window. Now, I will tell you that once you get on the repetitive loss list -- we have some on the county right now that have not flooded for many, many years but they stay on the list because there's been no mitigation done to that individual house. We haven't had rains occurring or storm surge occurring every year to keep flooding them back and forth. Plus some of them have been quite a bit of time since they've last flooded and the current owners -- the one gentleman called me up had no clue he'd bought a house which is on the repetitive loss list. And it had been there for years, but he did not know it. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So if I heard you correctly, every year letters go out to all of these, I think you said 3,000 people, roughly. MR. WILEY: There are two types of letters: The repetitive loss property itself gets one letter, and then we have to do an analysis, what's called a repetitive loss area wherein we take every repetitive loss property, they would have to look at every flood insurance claim that was filed for all properties anywhere in proximity to it. And then I get to make the judgment call how far was elevation change affecting, what kind of stone was it, similarity to storm, different storm. Big, long convoluted process to arrive at what we call the repetitive loss area, of which then I must send a letter to every person within that repetitive loss area, a letter once a year, and advise them that somewhere in close proximity to your house there is a repetitive loss property. I'm not allowed to tell them where it is, who it is, what it is, just say it does exist out there and you may want to give considerations that your property may be subject to similar type flooding, and this is just to inform you there is a National Flood Insurance Program and yada, yada, yada, here's some information the county has. So it's just a letter that goes out to make people aware that there is a flood insurance program available, and that not too far from you someone has filed some claims. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And the ordinance that we're using, the model ordinance, that means that the data, the $1,000 was in there from FEMA right from the get -go? Page 28 of 85 October 7, 2010 MR. WILEY: What we're proposing -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No, you said that it's the $1,000 is the stipulation by FEMA. MR. WILEY: Right. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'm trying to find out whether or not our ordinance preceded any of this revision business that's going on with FEMA and whether or not we had adopted the 1,000 or that was an adoption that went back years and years ago. MR. WILEY: This has been in effect for years and years, but quite frankly, I could not tell you the exact years -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: The same $1,000? MR. WILEY: I cannot tell you the exact year from our ordinance to that one. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: The reason I ask that question is, if you think about it, if it was 25 years old, $1,000 had a greater value that many years ago. And maybe it's time for us to look at that or question FEMA on that notion. Otherwise I find what Brad pointed out was very real. A person -- I mean, this is a bureaucracy situation. A person gets into the repetitive thing, they get a letter every year which they promptly throw away. We spend perhaps thousands of dollars and a lot of valuable time reminding people of something that they have no anticipation of I just think maybe it needs to be qualified further. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Klatzkow? MR. KLATZKOW: Just for clarification, Robert, repetitive loss, I don't find that in the model ordinance as a defined term. That's something we put in there? Because I do have the model ordinance in front of me. MR. WILEY: Right. I'm looking at the underlined strike - through -- MR. KLATZKOW: No, I'm looking at the model ordinance. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But Jeff, it's an underlined thing given, so it is from the model ordinance. MR. KLATZKOW: Except I'm looking at the model ordinance and it doesn't have repetitive loss as a defined term. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Our copy has. Page 12 it's showing repetitive. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, that's not nice. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, wait a minute, now. Oh, yeah, on Page 12 -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Oh, it says optional. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's an optional. It's an optional -- MR. KLATZKOW: I'm just saying, I'm looking at the model ordinance online, it does not have it as a defined term. And my question is, is this our term that we've put into there or -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's what he's saying. He's saying it's been there for years. MR. WILEY: It's our term that we're using -- the existing FEMA definition for repetitive loss, we are not using their optional 25 percent value. They want us to have the definition within the ordinance, but we're going and using the existing definition FEMA's using now and not a new program that is coming forward, which is reflected within the State's model ordinance. MR. KLATZKOW: We need to come back to this, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I agree. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I have another question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead. Bob, are you finished? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Yeah. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: New topic. Okay, structure, you're crossing through principally. So what you're essentially saying though, if I have a structure that has a basement, it's not a structure. In other words, why do you want to get rid of the word principal? Because what you will do then is if any part of the structure is below grade, ground, which is not a good term for grade, but anyway, it would no longer be considered a structure. So I think I would leave it in. Page 29 of 85 October 7, 2010 MR. WILEY: I would agree with you. Pm including revisions made by committee, so -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Poor Bob. MR. WILEY: So what is the direction here? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Leave it in, unless anybody on this board objects to it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think the unpredictable result is somebody with a basement or somebody with a sunken part of a waterproofed area would be eliminated as a structure. Not a good idea. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, anything else on Pages 10 and 1 I? COMMISSIONER AHERN: Are we going to come back to the substantial damage, along with the -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're going to come back to the repetitive loss. Yes, I think what's going to happen, and then we'll probably go through a lot more of this document, the fact I am not getting responses to some of my questions leads me to believe there may need to be some time to think about them. And the County Attorney pointed out one concern they have that could be substantial. So I think what we'll probably do today is get all of our points on record with Robert and ask that he consider any changes that we recommend and then come back with a final document to review. But we'll see as the day goes on to make sure we're still heading in that direction. Robert, you had said that under the repetitive loss criteria you've have to send out mailings to neighbors and you have to keep track of things and repeatedly send them out for I guess where these issues occur. Is that -- can you explain to me how that happens? MR. WILEY: Through the county's participation within the community rating system, the CRS program, we are required to provide notifications on certain different things. And repetitive loss program is one of those in the CRS program that we've said we would do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Have we been doing that all along? MR. WILEY: As far as I know we have. Now, the issue of repetitive loss area did not come up until a couple of years ago. But rep. loss properties themselves have been receiving letters for a number of years. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If a house had a repetitive loss damage and it qualified as repetitive, one was in year one, another was in year 10, and they got to the 11th year, does that first year one drop off so they're no longer repetitive loss? MR. WILEY: No, sir. They stay a rep. loss structure until corrective action is taken to the house, it's called mitigation, so that it would relieve the cause for the flooding that created the two paid flood claims. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, the way that this reads, it says at least two paid flood losses of more than 1,000 each in any 10 -year period. So really, you're saying in the life of the structure, not in a 10 -year period, aren't you? MR. WILEY: No, we're talking about within any 10 -year period. Now, that 10 -year period may have occurred 20 year ago. But within that 10 -year period the two claims were paid and nothing has been done to alleviate the potential for flooding since then. So there may have been 20 years expired since then, but that original I0 -year period still created the rep. loss property. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So once you get on the black list you're on forever, you can never get off. MR. WILEY: That is not correct. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, then how do we get off that repetitive, other than having to spend more money to repair something that cost $2,000 over 10 years? MR. WILEY: For the properties we have in Collier County that were rep. loss and are no longer rep. loss, we have situations where the building was demolished and a new structure was built. (Laughter.) MR. WILEY: Well, you're asking, so I'm telling -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, but since you're being so specific, and I'm glad you are, that goes back to my findings of fact in the beginning, I don't believe there's enough specificity there. So I understand where you're going, Robert, but I just -- and I know it's not your fault, I know this is a federal rule of some kind, but it's pretty absurd that a building can sustain $2,000 in damage over a 10 -year period 40 years ago and because they did they're forever going to be penalized for that as they go forward in the future. It's just amazing. The more we read this, the more we learn. MR. WILEY: I didn't say I disagreed with you, sir, I'm just -- Page 30 of 85 October 7, 2010 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I know you don't. I'm not saying you do. I just think it's amazing. It's astounding that it can be done this way. Okay, Pages -- COMMISSIONER EBERT: I do -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Diane. COMMISSIONER EBERT: I have one quick question from what you were saying before. You were saying that you can notify people that someone in the area, but you can't say who that person was whose house was flooded. How do you know if somebody goes in to buy a home? How do the people coming in, like you just said, this person never knew, is there a way that people can find out? MR. WILEY: I would have to ask the County Attorney, is there a way you can find out someone's historical flood insurance claims? I don't know how they would know. MR. KLATZKOW: I don't know off the top of my head. MR. WILEY: So it's all considered confidential information. We can't release it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But you can penalize people for it. COMMISSIONER EBERT: But you can penalize. In other words, a house is for sale, somebody does not know, they go in and buy it, and now all of a sudden they're penalized because they bought that house. You're right, it does not make sense. MR. WILEY: There's no penalty to being a rep, loss structure and being on the list. It doesn't increase your flood insurance claims. You're paying the same rate as if you'd never flooded because those are all set by Congress. All it does, it puts you on a list that allows you to be able to apply to FEMA for certain assistance grants should you flood again. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else have any questions on Pages 10 -- Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Bob, when you're trying to figure out the house flooding, the remedy, is it always on the site that the house was on? What if -- if I live in a neighborhood and here come the fill pads, isn't it the -- might not be my problem. But do you remedy that or -- never mind, let's move on. MR. WILEY: Well, just to help you understand, some issues that are there, things such as through the stormwater management program of constructing improved drainage facilities to lower the elevation of the 100 -year storm event, that is an acceptable form of mitigation. So there's more than one way to correct the problem. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Pages 12 and 13, anybody have anything on -- we're still on definitions. Eventually we'll get into the document. Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The document's easy, it's the definitions. Wet season water table elevation. What is the wet season? When do we -- there are communities that tell you they need a water table measurement at a certain time. Do we have anything like that or -- MR. WILEY: Not that I'm aware of. We just go by what is your wet season water table. Every engineer, every development goes through the same process to determine what it is at peak of the wet season, August, September, where are your water elevations. Long term, not year by year. It's fairly well documented by different criteria. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. But we don't have, like I said, some communities say it has to be taken in October, which is their -- okay. So how do we know that data? Because that is important, especially with septic designs and stuff. So — MR. WILEY: How do they know it now -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- somebody just has to -- how do they know it now? MR. WILEY: It's based upon -- you've got environmental factors, you've got geologic factors. I mean your different people are involved in establishing what is the wet season water table. Any time you get a development permit approval through the South Florida Water Management District you have to identify the wet season water table. It's a standard criteria that everyone's using. This doesn't change that, it just brings it into play to help everyone understood what you do within the approximate zone A. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And what piece of data do you get from that? Do you get something in the data, the NAVD, is that what you're looking for? Page 31 of 85 October 7, 2010 MR. WILEY: You do get an elevation from it yes, sir. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: In a NAVD elevation. MR. WILEY: It could be NAVD, it could be NGVD. New elevations will be NAVD. But you could have an old one. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But it's not something like two feet below grade, it's a datum. MR. WILEY: I guess it could be two feet below grade, it could be two feet above grade. It just depends upon your location. For instance, wet season water table in the midst of a Big Cypress head, it's above grade. You can go look at the lichen lines right on the side of the tree. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But this is saying the wet season table elevation. How is that answer given to you? Is it the NAVD or is it two feet below grade? I mean, in other words, you're looking for an elevation, how does -- MR. WILEY: It is given in an elevation. It is provided -- what do you want to call it, NAVD, NGVD. But it is on a survey datum. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Should we add that to the definition that it's -- in other words, you're describing what it is. So should you not tell what that answer should be or -- because if you read this thing, it is kind of confusing as to -- it describes what it is. It's somewhere underground there's water saturating. And yes, that's good. But it doesn't -- you know, how the answer should be is not clear to me. MR. WILEY: So how do you want to edit it? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think an NAVD would be perfect. Because then if there's surveys and future data on that site you would be able to equate it. MR. WILEY: So if after the word elevation, you'll say the elevation, parenthesis, NAVD, closed parenthesis, and then keep going, is that what you're looking for? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yes. You see my point? Because you're not clear as to -- you know, you're describing a condition, but we really should have that elevation data. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Melissa? COMMISSIONER AHERN: I was just going to clarify, the definition that's pulling from 64.E is based on the health code, and you have to auger 72 inches and then your water table is determined based on the soils and then the lichen lines and so forth. So then it is given in a calculation of minus six or minus eight or plus 10 or whatever it is below or under grade. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Anybody else have any questions on 12 and 13? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If not, then we'll move on to 14 and 15. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I have some. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Schiffer. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I mean, I like -- the interpretation, I like this one. Just a statement. Liberally construed in favor of the governing body. I like that. Anyway, penalties: These are pretty tough penalties. I mean, 1,000 bucks a day. A repeat offender, $5,000 a day. And you know what, these aren't like flames coming out of the wall at a nursery school. These are, you know, flood deficiencies that are -- you know, they're going to be difficult to remedy. I mean, obviously you want to be tough about it, but essentially the people are being punished by insurance or by lack of insurance or — so how do these remedies come about? And why are they so tough? I mean, are they -- it's Jeffs fault? MR. WILEY: This is language that was put into the ordinance by the County Attorney's Office. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: They're going to be very difficult to remedy. The remedy, like we said, could be, you know, a stormwater sewer system in the neighborhood. So I -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What was the model ordinance language for penalties? Was it as severe as -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Well, the model ordinance had criminal penalties. And this takes criminal penalties out of it, so I think we're getting -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: We're moving forward. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: What are you in for? Well, I violated the flood ordinance. Page 32 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER CARON: Seriously. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Oh, God. COMMISSIONER CARON: In addition to the criminal penalties provided. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Very sorry, Cherie', we're I'm getting a little out of order, but it's just too much. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And you thought you had foreclosures before. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Anyway, that seems -- if it has to be there, it has to be there. But it does seem tough. And obviously it's a no more than, so I guess some rascal could really deserve that, but I can't picture it. In your permit procedures, you're describing how the plans, they have to be in duplicate. Well, you know, actually, the plans have to be more than duplicate. So is it a good idea to get into permitting at the micro level or should you be saying things, you know, as per, you know, something, the requirements of the building department? You see what I mean, Bob? Down at the bottom, permit procedures, the following plans in duplicate, to scale. I mean, the county would require more than two, so — no comment? MR. WILEY: This was just the language I received, so I -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Well, I mean, it should say something, you know, copies as per something or other. That's -- this is where Nick would be good to be here to tell us. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I kind of wanted to ask Nick. And Robert, maybe you have the answer. How do we currently meet the intentions of A, section four on Page 15? How is the process at the county currently doing this? MR. WILEY: When an applicant submits for a building permit, they're providing the sets of plans, they're providing the information that's needed here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Then all the information here is not needed in this ordinance because it's already required to be provided by another; is that right? MR. WILEY: This is the basis upon which it requires us to provide it. It doesn't necessarily specify all the details of how many copies of a plan or something. But it says you're going to provide certain information at a minimum. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But didn't you just say it's already being provided? It's already done, right? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir, it is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But it's done because it's required to supply for building permit under regular standards that we have, like our building permit standards, our Land Development Code and other processes. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir, it is. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is there a reason then we need to have it in this ordinance as well? Because if we have to change it in one, we have to go back and find it in every -- MR. WILEY: Well, yeah. MR. KLATZKOW: Let's put this on the list of things to come back to. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Jeff, my concern is by duplicating it -- MR. KLATZKOW: I fully appreciate your concern. Duplication's a bad idea. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anything else on Pages 14 and 15? Mr. Wiley? MR. WILEY: Well, let me just address the question, because I did look it up within the model ordinance. Penalties for violation. What it said was there, any person who violates this ordinance or fails to comply with any of its requirements shall upon adjudication therefore be fined not more than $500, and in addition shall pay all costs and expenses. So it's a little bit different than the terminology that was used in the original model ordinance. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Pages 14 and 15, anything else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Robert, on A on Page 14, the additional language, it previously read: This ordinance shall apply to all areas of special flood hazard. Now, that is limiting the ordinance to those areas that are special flood hazard. The way it reads now, it says: This ordinance shall apply to all areas including areas of special flood hazard. Now, would that mean then that it broadened the scope of this ordinance by moving it to every place in the county, whether they were a special flood hazard or not? Page 33 of 85 October 7, 2010 MR. WILEY: Yes, sir, it does. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Why would we do that? MR. WILEY: It's explained there in the comment note to the side, that has to do with the criteria that we currently had in ordinance, was just put back in the ordinance, that we're getting ready to repeal and amend by this one, that most commonly we think of in Golden Gate Estates, but it's also the older platted subdivisions where you had the minimum 18 inches above crown or road if it was paved, 24 inches if it was unpaved. Well, that many might be in a Zone X or a Zone D. The D's are going away but you still may have Zone X's. But that still is a minimum criteria within Collier County. If we limit this ordinance to only areas of flood hazard area, then you're in a Zone X. Then the county's minimum elevation criteria, which is incorporated within this ordinance, would not be applicable. So that's where the change was to bring it into across the board without the county. Now, the reason we're bringing it in is it was previously the minimum -- excuse me -- the minimum elevation of 18 inches was in a different ordinance. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You want a drink of water? MR. WILEY: No, I'll get over it in a minute here. The ordinance was repealed years ago, about a year and a half, two years, something like that. We just brought it back in before the Board of County Commissioners and we put it as an amendment into the existing Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance. So to keep that criteria consistent we also have it in this document. But then to make it countywide, we had to add that phrase in here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Back to one of your earlier statements, and I try to remember what you had said, you use the example of Golden Gate Estates, that if there was an area in Golden Gate Estates that didn't have a paved road and was in the flood Zone X, they wouldn't have any criteria on which to set their floor elevation; is that what that means? Is that what you're trying to say? MR. WILEY: If we had the 18 -inch criteria established in another ordinance of the county, which is how we used to have it, you then -- that would not affect this ordinance. But because the most recent bringing of that criteria back into effect in Collier County placed it as an amendment into the existing Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance, then we need to make this ordinance cover all areas of the county. MR. KLATZKOW: You guys accidentally took it out, then you told us to throw it into this ordinance, and you're saying it has to be now countywide because you put this into this ordinance; is that what you're saying? MR. WILEY: I don't know how it got taken out that the old ordinance got repealed. I was not involved in that. But because it did get put back into this existing ordinance -- MR. KLATZKOW: At your department's request. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. MR. KLATZKOW: Okay. And now you're telling me because at your department's request you put this in here, you now have to make this ordinance from countywide. Why don't you just take the 18 -inch crown and put it somewhere else? MR. WILEY: We can. If you want to run another ordinance, we can do that. MR. KLATZKOW: Geez, Robert, is that the only reason why this is countywide? MR. WILEY: The reason for this countywide statement in here would be to allow that to have an effect, yes, sir. MR. KLATZKOW: So you put this in here, then you say we have to have it in here because of this 18 -inch requirement you put in here? MR. WILEY: Now, let's look through the whole purpose of this ordinance. If you're outside of the special flood hazard area, there's no other criteria within this ordinance that is applicable. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But isn't this ordinance supposed to be for the flood zone? I mean, it's a Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance. Why would we want to put development standards that really aren't related to flood damage prevention in an ordinance that's written for flood damage prevention when there are development standards that should be part of a Land Development Code or a building code or one of the other codes? Brad, you're familiar with building codes. If we didn't put those two words in A, including areas, you as an architect, would you then have relinquished any requirement to put buildings 18 inches above the crown of the road? Page 34 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No, the building codes cover these same things. But I'm not sure -- the 18 inches I think is a local requirement. I mean, all counties have a minimum height above a road if there's no firm elevation. So we'd have to have that 18 somewhere. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, but I -- I'm suggesting -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And the 24 -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- don't you deal with it? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: It's not in the building code. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's not in the building code. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No. MR. KLATZKOW: Used to be. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think it's one of these issues -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I could verify that -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- we need to do some research and come back on. Melissa? COMMISSIONER AHERN: This came up, I believe it was originally in an ordinance that was more related to environmental. And when they repealed that ordinance it was realized this really shouldn't have been there to begin with. And there was a discussion with the building department. I recommended maybe they add this to the fill pad ordinance because they do directly relate. Once you go over the 18 inches with fill pads, then you have to go stem wall. But there was a request for it to go in here. But I think that's how it originally got deleted and maybe not addressed. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, Robert, between you and the County Attorney's office, when this comes back for a final reading, can you guys take a look at that, moving that language into a more appropriate, if there is a more appropriate, ordinance? Well, let's just provide the direction. When this comes back for re- reading, please look at that and determine if there's a better place to put it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm not so sure this isn't a good place, though, because it is due to flood requirements that we have those elevations. So why would it not be a good location for it then? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm just worried as to what it encompasses and what it means in relationship to how this ordinance is written versus the minimums if you're not in a flood hazard area. See, if you're not in a flood hazard area and you don't have to abide by this ordinance, why are we dragging the whole county into it, then? That's my concern. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And very much my concern as well. COMMISSIONER EBERT: I have a question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Ms. Ebert. COMMISSIONER EBERT: I was in an X Zone, and now I have to have insurance because the AH Zone. And so when you're including all areas here, you are affecting all of Collier County. What the government I think is trying to tell you is all of Florida needs flood insurance. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Mark, a thought on that. Maybe in the beginning what we can do when we do describe where this applies and the scope, you could take out those areas, put a qualification of just those two requirements and then get on with it for the county that needs it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think a clean-up would be helpful. Go ahead, Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: What you say is so. But by including this in here, I'm thinking of condominiums that will have a flood for whatever reason, maybe because their little lake overflowed. And then now they're going to get their repetitive letters, and if they get into another situation they may be $1,000 a day, and for stuff that just doesn't make any sense in the way that we're scoping it. The way I understand it, anyway. MR. KLATZKOW: We're doing this because FEMA wants us to do this. My recommendation is you make this as narrow as possible to comply with FEMA and no more. Page 35 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, the difficulty for me is not knowing exactly what -- I mean, FEMA wants everything. And how — MR. KLATZKOW: No, they don't want everything -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: They don't? Well, I'm getting the impression from Mr. Wiley that they want everything. Maybe I'm misunderstanding. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And Bob, I think if your lake overflows, that's a flood. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I do agree. I'm not questioning that. But I'm just thinking about the implications of it for the entire county and what it brings into. It means that all of these factors in this ordinance then apply everywhere. And I think we're doing a disservice by introducing that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Yeah, I think it's really important to keep these things as simple as possible and as single purposed as possible. Otherwise we get into these situations where nobody knows how this happened or nobody can quite remember, nobody's willing to admit how something happened and came about. And so keeping it narrow and simple has got to be the best course for everybody. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We sure haven't been there so far today. Okay, 14 and 15. Let's move on to 16 and 17. Anybody have any questions on 16 and 17? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer, then Ms. Ahem. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Page 16, LE, where you're describing certification by an architect or registered engineer. First of all -- and Jeff, you can do it -- when you use the term -- and they've crossed out the term registered professional architect. When they say registered engineer or architect, does that legally mean that the architect is registered? MR. KLATZKOW: What section are you on, Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm I.E. It happens in multiple areas where they crossed out. Before they used to say a registered professional engineer or registered professional architect. They've eliminated the definition of architect and engineer from it. That's kind of okay, but -- in other words, if it says registered engineer or architect, I'm not sure the phrase is good. Does it mean that the architect is registered? MR. KLATZKOW: Do you want the architect to be registered? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I think the state does, yeah. In other words, legally does that registered apply to -- when you use the word or. It's a Boolean logic thing. I'm not sure. In other words, if you stay registered engineer or chef, does mean that the chef has to be registered to do this? MR. KLATZKOW: I think for clarity purposes -- I do think the architect has to be registered. But for purposes of clarity, I don't have an issue if you threw in the word registered before architect. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: In other words, they could say certification from an engineer or architect. I mean, there used to be a definition of what an engineer or architect was. They crossed it out. And that -- maybe the easiest thing to do is put that back and then you could use the word architect and engineer without getting involved in professional, registered and all that other stuff. But a thought, and it happens throughout this thing, they use registered engineer or architect. And then on that same thing, there's one thing in there that's kind of violating our practice act, is it says that they have developed, which we have to develop our work before we certify it, and/or review a structural design. That means we didn't have to do the work. And you're allowing me to sign somebody else's or review somebody else's work. And that's against the practice act for both of those professions. So the way it was before was kind of a little bit where you had to have a certificate from us and you didn't get into how we did the work or whether we did the work. Do you see what I mean? You're actually saying that I could -- Paul could be an engineer, he could design it but I could take his paperwork and review it and sign and seal it and you'll be happy. But the state wouldn't. Anyway. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Robert, when someone on the board suggests a language change, if you're in agreement with that language change or disagreement, let us know. And someone needs to be taking notes that these Page 36 of 85 October 7, 2010 changes we're suggesting need to be made so that this ordinance goes forward in a manner like it came from DSAC, with their changes. You don't comment sometimes. Is there -- MR. WILEY: I'm writing my notes. I put the word registered with a question mark before the word architect and I have add definitions. It's in my -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, is that meaning that you're going to make that change then? MR. WILEY: I will talk to the County Attorney about it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We're used to a little more dialogue back and forth with staff members. And it would be helpful -- it would move us forward faster too if you would say, okay, that's a good idea or do you have a suggested language change, and then you say okay and we go forward. That just helps get the meeting going. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: We have to know the right question to ask with Robert, I think, in order to get him to be responsive. That's his M.O. MR. WILEY: I'm trying to not interrupt, sir, while the conversation was going on. I thought I'd wait till he finished. I would support putting a good definition for engineer and architect both in the definition sections so it clearly says registered professional engineer, registered professional architect. If you put the definitions in I think that's a better way to go a it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And it was crossed out. There was one. MR. KLATZKOW: I mean, are you guys all state licensed? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, have to be. You can't hold yourself out as an architect without any license. MR. KLATZKOW: We could just throw in the word state licensed. I'm not sure what registered means. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: In other words, there's is a lot of places where you use -- the intent is that an architect or engineer does something. So rather than load that up with words, if you had a definition of what architect and engineer means, then you could use the word architect and engineer. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir, I agree with that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Ahern, you were next, and then Ms. Caron. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Under construction stage, it makes reference that you have to submit to the floodplain administrator a certification, and then gives the process. And at the bottom it says failure to submit, you can receive a stop work order. Is there a time frame for that submittal? MR. WILEY: Well, I understand it right now you've got a 10 -day window to do that. But I'm not certain if we want to state that in this ordinance. That's within the building department and that's your -- COMMISSIONER AHERN: And that be stated there. MR. WILEY: They're using a 10 -day window is all I know right now, to get your -- and if you do any work COMMISSIONER AHERN: So you just -- like a spot survey. MR. WILEY: It's just your spot survey, that's what this is referencing, yes, ma'am. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Actually, I think it's going to happen. All I was going to suggest is I think we need to make a decision about what we want to recommend. So I believe it's the consensus on this board to add back in a definition for architect and engineer so that these terms don't have to be -- aren't confusing in the text. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Sure. COMMISSIONER CARON: Is that correct? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, that's correct. And Donna, the only reason I hadn't -- I figured if anybody on the board objected to something that was discussed we'd speak out. But we could work it both ways. MR. KLATZKOW: So, let's just for clarity, so it is the will of the Planning Commission to direct staff to put back in definitions for architect and engineer. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Be my view, yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. Page 37 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER CARON: Some sort of definition. And we haven't given you that -- MR. KLATZKOW: And I see pretty much everybody shaking their head yes, Robert. So that's the direction. MR. WILEY: That's what I have in my notes, yes, add definition in. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I want to bring you back on Page -- well, to E under application stage, the elevation in relation -- COMMISSIONER EBERT: What page? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: On 16 on the DSAC approved draft. You then use in that, the last sentence in there, you use the practice in coastal high hazard areas. But in another part where we had a discussion, it was associated with this ordinance would be intended to be for the entire county. So is that in contradiction? If you were to have the entire county covered by the ordinance, would you be referencing something very limiting? MR. WILEY: I'm not finding the location of which you're speaking right now, sir. I'm trying to -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, it would be under -- the title is permit procedures. MR. WILEY: Okay. And so you're on Page 16 under E, right? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That would be correct. And it would be the last -- it would be the end of the paragraph there where it says: With accepted standards -- accepted standards of practice in coastal high hazard areas. I'm just trying to ascertain whether or not we have a conflict. I have no objection to the relevance of coastal high hazard areas. But you remember you broadened this thing to the entire county. And if that were to remain in fact, this then might not be applicable. MR. WILEY: Well, this is a particular certification that is addressing an elevation within the coastal high hazard area where you have to go to the bottom of the lowest horizontal member. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So I'm in error then, then this is only applicable to the coastal high hazard area. MR. WILEY: That's the only one where you have to provide the elevation for the bottom for the lowest horizontal member. That's why this is worded this way. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: All right, then, I was under a misapprehension. I was -- what happens when people want to have an exception, they'd like to have an exception to the determination of FEMA map and they hire a surveyor. Don't they have to submit some kind of a certification or whatever format is applicable to make that exception valid or possibly valid? MR. WILEY: By exception, are you saying they're wanting to apply for a variance or they -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay, call it a variance, I don't know the appropriate terminology yet, because— MR. WILEY: So they want to construct something that does not comply with the established flood zone elevation. That would require the variance application that has to then be processed through the Board of Zoning Appeals, which is the Board of County Commissioners. And if they approve it then that approval goes forward, we must notify FEMA of the approved variance and they get the building permit. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: This is something that's even more challenging then. So in other words, if somebody wishes to have an exception or, as you call it, a variance, they don't want to be considered within the flood zone, and they hire a surveyor to prove that and the surveyor does not give an elevation certificate, that's not -- MR. WILEY: You're saying to not be considered within the flood zone. You mean -- you're saying you want the -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's why I use the exception, exception to the generality. MR. WILEY: Okay, the map shows them as being within, let's say, an AE flood zone and you're saying, no, I'm X. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's what I'm trying to tell you. So wouldn't the surveyor -- MR. WILEY: That's not the issue here. The surveyor, they would submit the elevation certificate. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That's what I thought. MR. WILEY: Yeah. That's a totally separate issue from what this is discussing here, sir. Page 38 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay. But it does open up that other area of question having to do with -- I had no idea that a person would have to then go to, what did you say, board of zoning appeals? MR. WILEY: If you wish to apply for a variance. In this situation here, you're in the coastal high hazard area, so you're in the VE flood zone, and you're wanting to build, let's say you're wanting to build a house slab on grade because you like the view from the lower elevation. But within a VE zone you have to have an elevated structure so water can pass beneath it. If you wanted to pursue the variance, you would take it to the Board of County Commissioners for their consideration. But that's different than what you were talking about as saying the property is outside of the designated special flood hazard area. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Thank you. But I think you're also limiting what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking about building a new structure, I was thinking about a structure that already exists and a person looking to get out of being designated as a flood -- potential flooded area. MR. WILEY: Okay. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: All right. MR. WILEY: That process -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I had no idea that -- MR. WILEY: -- is called a letter of map amendment. And of course being FEMA, they abbreviate it L- O -M -A. And that is a process that you can submit the elevation certificate, the mapping that it takes to identify where your property is, you submit that information directly to FEMA, there is no cost for you to do so to FEMA, and they review it and approve it. It comes back with your approval letter. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: That is important to know. Thank you. That was important for me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: For members of the audience waiting for the Watershed Management Plan, it is intuitively obvious to me right now we're not going to get there before lunch. So if you all want to have a longer lunch, feel free to leave and come back, because by the time we resume from lunch, it will probably be -- the earliest it will probably be is 12:45 but it may be 1:00. And you're more than welcome to come back then and enjoy the rest of the show. But right now I don't think we're going to get to you this morning, so if that helps any of you. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Rest of the show. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Page 16 and 17. Melissa? COMMISSIONER AHERN: On the bottom of Page 17, it says interpret the exact locations of the boundaries. And then it goes on, it says: The administrator shall make the necessary interpretations. Interpret based on what? MR. WILEY: When you look at a Flood Insurance Rate Map, you have to locate your property on it to determine what is the flood zone and what is the elevation of the flood zone. So the ordinance basically gives the floodplain administrator as appointed by the county manager the authority to make the decision are you in such and such a zone, such an elevation, or are you on the other side of the line. So it gives the decision to the administrator to make that call. And most of the people don't question it, it's pretty obvious. But if someone should question it, there is the process and you can go through to appeal that decision. COMMISSIONER AHERN: So there's no guideline that --it just seems very vague. MR. WILEY: I mean, you look at your Flood Insurance Rate Map and here's your property. You have to identify the proposed building, is it going to be in a flood zone such and such or not -- COMMISSIONER AHERN: Right, but this is contradicting between actual fill -- the way it reads is that there's discrepancies between the map boundaries and actual field conditions. MR. WILEY: Right, right. That has to do with the elevation which we're speaking. When you draw the location of the line on the map, it's from aerial position looking down. In the FEMA definitions that we have to live by, elevation supercedes horizontal location. So if you have a piece of property -- and it doesn't happen that often around here because we are flat, but if you have a situation where a line is drawn and it would show the house itself is supposed to be in a flood Zone X, the Page 39 of 85 October 7, 2010 proposed house is in a flood Zone X, but adjacent to it you know that your base flood elevation is 10, and you come in and your natural ground is sitting there at nine, well, it's pretty obvious that the horizontal location of the line was drawn incorrectly and the floodplain administrator would at that point declare the property is within a special flood hazard area and you must comply. Because you're clearly in an elevation which is below the mapped base flood elevation. So that's where he makes that call. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Okay MR. WILEY: And reverse also, you might be higher. COMMISSIONER AHERN: That was what I was afraid of. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Bob, on 17, paren four, you use the word assure. I think that's kind of a perfect word. Maybe verify would be better. I mean, I don't think you'd want the administrator's job to assure anything, just to verify that that is -- that's up to Jeff. It's always dangerous to use the word assure, because that means it's got to happen and you're the guy to make it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody have any objection to that? Okay. MR. WILEY: Change it to verify? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I'd also like to -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Mr. Murray. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Robert, on 17 we already discussed this, the interpret the exact location of the boundaries and so forth. Again, inasmuch as you've broadened this ordinance to all areas of Collier County, do I interpret this sentence, this paragraph to mean only for the special flood hazard areas or is this applicable then to all of the areas of the county? MR. WILEY: Well, it says he's interpreting the exact location of the boundaries of the areas of special flood hazard. That is your special flood hazard area. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: So you're limiting it by that sentence or paragraph, you're limiting it, right? MR. WILEY: You have a boundary between the special flood hazard area and the flood Zone X, which is not special flood hazard area. Now, let's try to go through a bit of FEMA lingo here quickly. Every square inch of Collier County is within some type of a flood zone. Special flood hazard area is all zones that start with the letter A or the letter V. Those flood zones that are outside the special flood hazard area include Zone X and currently Zone D, although we know D is going to be going away as we go through time here. So what they're saying is determining the boundary of the special flood hazard area, within the special flood hazard area those are your areas that start with the letter A and V. You also have different elevation criteria. Along the coastal surge areas you have the whole region for an AE -10, an AE -11, whatever, everything has an elevation. He would also make the determination upon the location of that distinction, even though you're within the special flood hazard area. So he makes the boundary call when you're close to it, is what this is -- so it gives someone the decision - making power. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: If you were to have a map created that would show special flood hazard areas, would they be distinctive from the rest of the county? Because you said practically every square inch of this county is potential flood zone, which I could understand. But is there any way of distinguishing that? I mean, I know we have maps that have X's and A and whatever, but -- MR. WILEY: That is your distinguishment right there, it has the X or the A — COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And the boundaries are clear, there's no -- I'm trying to remember what we saw because it was a long time ago. I don't think it was in color. I remember Mr. Schmitt showing us a rather large document that showed areas. But you may not have seen that. I guess what I'm trying to relate to is I keep on trying to balance where you've wanted to include all of Collier County, and yet in many instances this is really very limited in its intent originally. MR. WILEY: The vast majority of the ordinance is very limited to those areas within a special flood hazard area. The additional of that language was simply because we have added into the existing ordinance the elevation, Page 40 of 85 October 7, 2010 minimum elevation above crown in the platted subdivisions. While those may not be within a special flood hazard area, so to include that within any ordinance we expanded the area. But the criteria that is applicable only within a special flood hazard area does not apply outside of the special flood hazard areas. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Okay, I just want you to understand the basis for my questions, probably all of them in the future as we go forward. Every one of these things where it requires somebody, whether it's your job or somebody else that works with you or for you who is responsible for making interpretations or determining whether somebody goes before the BZA or whatever they do, this opens up a whole new world of activity. And I think that's one of the things where I understand a certain level of activity is required. My concerns are, and I'm going to be asking those questions that way, is are we broadening this activity unnecessarily, okay? And I would like your response when I ask that question, more than just whatever FEMA says, what is logical for Collier County as well, if you wouldn't mind. MR. WILEY: It's my understanding about the ordinance is we are not broadening what we're already doing right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: On top of Page 17, Robert, there's a parenthetical two. It says review all development permits including the review of certified plans and specifications for compliance to assure that permit requirements of this ordinance have been satisfied. Now -- and it goes somewhat to Mr. Murray's question, by saying all development permits. First of all, does that mean all permits whether they're in the special flood hazard areas or not? Because it says all development permits. MR. WILEY: Yes, sir, it does. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: So if I want to put a ceiling fan in a bedroom, you guys have to sign off on that? MR. WILEY: You have to right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I mean the floodplain administrator as defined on Page 16, Item B, duties of the floodplain administrator. So whoever that guy is, he's got to review my plans for a ceiling fan and he's got to say it isn't impacted by this ordinance. Is that where we're going? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. And that's what we're doing already. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, who is the floodplain administrator? It's got to be a designee, so who is it? MR. WILEY: As far as I understand right now, it is Nick Casalanguida. MR. KLATZKOW: No, no, I thought that was your guy -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick doesn't review plans. MR. WILEY: Wait a second. He is the administrator. He then assigns it to staff beneath him. It's the same as when it was Joe Schmitt. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But it has to be county manager or designee. So everybody is designated, is that the way it works? MR. WILEY: No, no. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Bob, isn't it Jim Turner? Isn't Turner -- MR. WILEY: No, he is not the floodplain administrator. Right now Nick Casalanguida is acting in that position. MR. KLATZKOW: Who does the day -to -day administration of this ordinance, Bob? MR. WILEY: Staff, underneath Nick. MR, KLATZKOW: And who is that? MR. WILEY: It would be everybody in the Building Department. I can't name them all, sir. MR. KLATZKOW: Okay. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ray, the next time we do meet on this, because there's going to be another meeting, would you make sure it's scheduled the day Nick is not going to be somewhere else? MR. WILEY: He indicated to me he was going to be here today, so I was surprised too. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I understand. I'm not blaming you for that. I just want to make sure that the next time we talk about this he is here, because we certainly would like some clarification. And it is outside maybe of all the things that you do, because Nick is the department head, so I'd sure like to Page 41 of 85 October 7, 2010 hear his comments on how this is delineated, who handles it. And it says, after the word permits, and this was added language, including the review of certified plans and specifications for compliance. What significance does that addition add to the statement regarding the review of all development permits? What does it -- I mean, if it's all development permits, it's going to be ones that are certified or not, for whatever that means, and specifications for compliance whether they are or not, for whatever that means. So what is all that language being added for; do we know? MR. WILEY: If you look further down on the page, under paren eight, which is shown as stricken through, all we did is we took that paren eight and split it up to put it into areas where it was felt more applicable for addressing the issue rather than lumping it all in that one eight. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But if the criteria is to review all development permits, are there certified plans and specifications for compliance that are outside of the -- all development permits? I mean, you're going to catch it by the phraseology of all development permits, so why are we restating it as though that isn't going to catch everything? Is it intended to catch everything or not? MR. WILEY: It's basically just putting in the ordinance what we're doing right now. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. I don't seethe need for the highlighted language is what it boils down to. And I don't know what it adds to the sentence. You're either doing all the permits or you're not. If you are, they're going to be ones that include the ones that are certified and the specifications for compliance, would they not? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And he says that everybody in CDES, or formerly CDES, anybody who reviews plans reviews them, so it's -- you don't even need the first part of the sentence, if that's the case. If everybody has the technical skill to do it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think Nick's going to clarify that to us. Go ahead, Ms. Caron. COMMISSIONER CARON: It's just strange, they took that first sentence in number eight and put it up in — incorporated it in number two. Then they took the rest of the paragraph eight and put it over on Page 20 under -- as number 15, so -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Donna, that's interesting, yeah. COMMISSIONER CARON: -- the deal is that what you're trying to do here is distinguish duties -- general duties and responsibilities in one section and then get -- what's this heading? These are the standards that you have to go by? MR. WILEY: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER CARON: In -- it starts on Page 18 under provisions for flood hazard reduction, general standards. So I don't know that that language is important either. I think what they were trying to do here, if I get this whole splitting everything up, was again to make -- give a list of sort of generic duties in this first section and then delineate the standards. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: But see, I think in the first sentence in eight was the qualifying sentence to which the rest of the paragraph applied. So what you did is you took out the qualifying sentence, threw it up into number two and took the application for that qualification and moved it to Page 20 and added it as number 15. Was that the intent of what FEMA was trying to do or whoever was trying to do when this was originally written? MR. WILEY: Well, that's the result of direction I was given from staff, my supervisor, to move things around and split it up. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, who is your supervisor? MR. WILEY: Bill Lorenz. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And his supervisor is? MR. WILEY: Nick Casalanguida, CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Nick's fault again. COMMISSIONER CARON: Well, Bill is here, if you want to ask Bill. So let's ask Bill what — CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it's easier with Nick not being here today, we can just blame everything on Nick. MR. WILEY: Well, we can blame Stan Chrzanowski then, since he's retired. We can blame everything on Page 42 of 85 October 7, 2010 him. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: He'll be happy to hear that. I think rather than get into debate on this, would you guys take a look at that so when it comes back we either have an answer or we've unglued it and moved it back where it's supposed to be or done something. Because I think Donna's point is right, and you certainly have a qualifying sentence to begin with that the rest of the paragraph follows, and when you split them up I don't know if you're getting the same meaning or intent out of that entire paragraph. But back on number two, another issue that certainly would be important to know is if we -- if this is left in as all areas of the county, then all development permits would have to be reviewed by -- at this level for all areas of the county, regardless of whether in special flood hazard or not, which leads to Mr. Murray's point that he's made. So I really think that's a concern and one that we'll definitely have to revisit. Pages 18 and 19, anybody have any questions on Pages 18 and 19? COMMISSIONER AHERN: I do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Go ahead, Melissa. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Page 19, number seven and eight, both are referencing septic systems. These fall under the administrative code under 64. Do we need to also have them in here? And if we need them in here, should we at least designate what codes they fall under? MR. WILEY: Well, we're supposed to address these issues in our ordinance so that FEMA knows we have addressed them. As to whether or not you want to reference any other state code, we have the ability to do so. It just doesn't have to be to meet FEMA's minimum. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Okay. Again, it's just vague by saying shall be located and constructed to avoid impairment during flooding. It just seems to leave it up to interpretation, when there are specific health codes that address these issues. MR. WILEY: Again, we can be more specific if you want us to do so. But this is the bare minimum to address -- FEMA wants to make sure we are at least giving this review when we review a building permit. COMMISSIONER AHERN: So they just want to see this in here. MR. WILEY: They want to see it in there, yes, ma'am. But if you wanted to tighten it up, we can add some more specificity to it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I think what Melissa's saying is we have some codes that already tell us how to do this. And since this is required by this ordinance as well, if we reference to those codes it would make it a nice neat package for someone reading it. And that might just be helpful, not necessarily tightening it up, it might just say this is what we're asking and here's where you go to read about it. Is that -- okay. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Right. At least you have something to reference instead of trying to just make that determination on your own. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, anybody else on Pages 8 -- Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: No, I think that makes sense, because even if it's a simple statement that criteria for following these can be found in the building code or the Land Development Code or whenever it can be found. It just can be a general statement. You don't have to cite every piece of code that you have to go and read in order to find those standards, but just tell people where to go to reference. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We have three of them; I think it's six, seven and eight. One is water supply and the other two are sanitary and disposal, so -- On 18 and 19, anybody else? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Up on top, on two and three, the same language was added, as supported by the current Florida Building Code and FEMA technical bulletin. Are they consistent? Do we have any conflicts between -- by adding that as a reference does one conflict with the other? Do we know that they're consistent in regards to what they're referencing? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: They should not. I mean, we -- MR. WILEY: They ought to be consistent with each other, but I'm not going to stand here and say that they definitely are, because I've not read everything on them. The Florida Building Code should not be getting you into a situation that violates any kind of a FEMA technical bulletin that I know of. But I really can't say for certainty on Page 43 of 85 October 7, 2010 that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Could you do construction, say, in number two or three? Could you do any new construction or substantial improvements in Collier County that are not supported by the Florida Building Code? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: No. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then why would we have the language? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: There are a lot of these requirements especially coming up that are in the building code. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right, but do we need to reference the building code for each one of them as we do here if they can't be done without the support of the Building Code in the first place? If we start that process, do we have to follow it through then on basically every paragraph? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The question would be who would be naive enough to not realize you have to go to the building code to build something new. MR. WILEY: But if you think about it, that's the very same issue you just mentioned in six, seven and eight, wanting me to reference other codes. And we didn't there -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: The other codes that we're referencing are specific ordinances that we have in Collier County. Building code is a statewide act. I'm not sure that they're the same. Someone could read this, and everybody would know most likely if they're building that there's a building code. But not everybody may know that six, seven and eight are addressed by local ordinances. That's the difference I saw. But if it isn't relevant, I'm not going to live or die on that issue. I just didn't know if it was necessary. Well, then, let's move on to Page -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Maybe it's only necessary to reference the FEMA technical bulletin. Because I think absent that they may not know that that's relevant, if that's what you're intending to try to get across. MR. WILEY: Well, in discussions that had occurred, the question simply came up, well, how do you know what is meant by resistance to flood damage. So that's why we tried to clarify you can go to the building code or these technical bulletins to get some understanding of what is meant by that. So -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: From my point of view, and I fully support the concept that we don't need to repeat what is already unknown or should be known, but the FEMA technical bulletin may have -- it may be important to somehow cite that. So I'm with you in that regard, and that's where I'm thinking you might -- otherwise get rid of it entirely. If -- the technical bulletin, does it ever subordinate the Florida Building Code? MR. WILEY: Not that I know of COMMISSIONER MURRAY: But you said that they should run in parallel in terms of what they seek to achieve. MR. WILEY: That's the intention, but I said I can't -- COMMISSIONER MURRAY: But the manner of getting there might be considerably different. MR. WILEY: Since I've not read the entire Florida Building Code or every technical bulletin I don't know if there's ever any conflict or not is all I was saying there. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I know you probably haven't committed it to memory, but I feel certain over the course of time you've had occasion to read extractions from both of those. MR. WILEY: From both of them, extractions, yes, sir. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: And you probably detected some variation. MR. WILEY: The technical bulletin tends to be less restrictive than the building code when you really look at it. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Well, then take it out. Because if our building code is better, that should suffice. MR. WILEY: But again, the building code doesn't necessarily address every issue that FEMA considers as an option that they would consider as appropriate. So they tend to address things a little bit differently. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: There's more uncertainty as we go along. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think it's probably hamlless to leave it like it is, and we'll just continue on. Pages 20 and 21. Anybody? Page 44 of 85 October 7, 2010 Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Under 12.0 on Page 20, a line was added at the end that says as provided by appropriate agencies which have appropriate jurisdiction. I'm just not sure what kind of wiggle room that is or who these appropriate people are. But it seems a strange line. MR. WILEY: Well, this came from DSAC, and their concern was -- COMMISSIONER CARON: That doesn't mean it's not strange. MR. WILEY: I really don't want to answer the question in that direction. I was telling you where it came from. Their concern was who's providing any kind of direction at all. And the question comes up, is it the Water Management District, was it Army Corps, various agencies. They just threw out a generic statement that says whoever addresses drainage for that particular issue, that's what you'll go by. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Does the language that's been added though enhance anything that isn't already known without it being there? You basically have to abide by whatever agencies overrule what area you're working in, so why add that language to make it sound as -- I mean, it's rather confusing language. MR. WILEY: I agree with you, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Let's take it out -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: --well, unless there's an objection, let's just drop that little addition where it's starting with the word "as". Anybody else on Pages -- Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: And then down below in 13, and I want to just address the comment at the side, it says that Collier County requires a technically higher requirement. I don't want us to have conflicting language, so if ours is stricter, whatever we use should be in here if we're already requiring it. Thirteen. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: It's actually 12.C, I think. MR. WILEY: That's referencing up in the 12.0 area is what that comment is about. COMMISSIONER CARON: Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I thought it was -- all right. Well, regardless, the same applies, whichever one it is. And you're right, it is C. But if we have a stricter requirement already in our rules and our regulations, then we need to put it here so we don't have conflicting language appearing one way in one place and another in another place. MR. WILEY: Let me explain. The stricter language is in the existing Floodplain Damage Prevention Ordinance. This will replace it. So this comment's here to let you see this is another location where we are weakening existing requirements. COMMISSIONER CARON: And why is that a good thing for Collier County? MR. WILEY: I didn't say it was. We have taken this to the point that we have made it, as I've been given direction to, the absolute minimum that it takes to meet FEMA's requirements as close as we can to the state model ordinance. That was an existing condition within our ordinance which exceeded the state model ordinance, so therefore we removed it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Are there conditions in this new ordinance that we're reviewing today that are in excess of the current existing ordinance that we have? MR. WILEY: I cannot think of any. If we come across them -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Then why are we adopting it? Why are we looking at changing then? I mean, if there's no reason to change because we're not making it any better, why are we even bothering? MR. WILEY: There are changes within it. They're not more restrictive, but there are changes within it for updating purposes. Some definitions have changed, things of that nature. But to the regulated community, I'm not thinking of anything right now that is more restrictive than what we are currently doing. If we come across something and it jogs my memory, I'll let you know. But our intention was to strip it to the bare bones. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, COMMISSIONER AHERN: We'll come to that on Page 27. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Twenty -one. Page 45 of 85 October 7, 2010 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, yeah, okay, we'll finish up on these two pages, then we'll go for our lunch break. Go ahead, Brad. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Bob, 16, 21. Sixteen essentially is describing the minimum elevations, yet in B you actually state that the plans should show construction of the lowest floor elevation meets the criteria listed below. That's a requirement. I don't think you should put that requirement in this situation. I think this has really defined the base flood elevation; don't you agree? In other words, there are a lot of circumstances, commercial, and when we come back from lunch in the next pages we'll get into some where people build below the base flood elevation. But this is essentially telling you how to establish the base flood elevation, the BFE. So what my thought is, can we get rid of the -- the plans should show it, but what you're saying is plans shall show the construction of the lowest finished floor meets the elevation listed below. And that's not exactly I think what we're doing here. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Isn't this part of the section we're looking at possibly removing? MR. WILEY: Yes, it is. This is the text that was added in from the old ordinance, which was deleted and it's been added back in. And Jeff, I want to say the last Board meeting, is that correct, where this was on? Either the last or the one before, it was very recently here. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: But let me ask you this: If somebody wanted to define the BFE, this is the criteria they would have to review; true or false? MR. WILEY: This goes for your building pad, that's correct. I think you're referencing the issue of a nonresidential structure where you want to floodproof and construct below BFE. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Seeing the fact that you added the requirement that the lowest finished floor has to meet it. And I don't think that's the case. And then the other thing is that you note where conflicts exist. And in building code land, we deal with conflicts between codes. A conflict is when you can't meet the two codes. But there's a difference here. So I think I would rather change the word conflicts to difference and then -- and obviously the most restrictive would apply. But I do think you should rework that and get rid of the requirement that the lowest finished floor is in there. Now, if you take the whole thing out, I guess that achieves both of those. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And the suggestion earlier to put this in an ordinance where it would be more appropriate so it doesn't cover all the county, I think that's the discussion that we probably need to have you and the County Attorney research and come back with a recommendation on where that language would best fall. MR. WILEY: That's what we had discussed earlier, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Right, I know. I'm just saying so -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: We wouldn't see the ordinance, so it would be good if those changes were made, just to -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. So the changes are noted so that when you and the County Attorney discuss this, we can hopefully see that language appear more appropriately somewhere else with those changes within it. Anything else on Pages 20 and 21 before we break for lunch? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And we're so close to 1:00 coming back, let's just come back at 1:00 and have a longer lunch. And we'll resume at 1:00 where we left off. It will be on Page 22. (Luncheon recess.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, we're back from lunch. And before we start, I want to kind of figure out this afternoon. Because we have to finish the flood management ordinance, which we're about a little over halfway through it. So it's still going to take a little time. And we have the watershed plan workshop scheduled to come up. There are some people here for that watershed shop (sic). I need to ask Mac how much time your presentation will take. I'm not trying to end the meeting, I'm trying to see if I need to move things around a little bit. Because we have some time limitations with Jennifer, so -- MR. HATCHER: Mac Hatcher, Stormwater and Environmental Planning. I would anticipate that our presentation will take about an hour and a half. And of course we would like to Page 46 of 85 October 7, 2010 address any immediate questions that you all have. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, what I was going to suggest we do is, during the workshop, through your presentation, after your presentation, we go to public participation first, then have you rebut the public presentation so then we have a basis on which to ask our questions that's more comprehensive and maybe minimize the amount of questions we're going to have during our workshop phase, at least learn more that way. But therein lies a problem. And Jennifer, if you don't mind, could you tell us how much time you are going to need for your -- because you had asked for a presentation, and I said that would be fine. You need to use the mic. I'm sorry. MS. HECKER: Jennifer Hecker, for The Conservancy of Southwest Florida. I prepared about a 30- minute Power Point. I can try to go through it quicker, or if there's questions that might take a bit longer. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, it's a workshop and we're probably going to have questions. But I want to make sure that we get as thorough of a review of this -- this is a plan that's been in the works for over a decade, so it's important we get everybody's input. You have a time constraint this afternoon? MS. HECKER: Just that we have a Conservancy board meeting this afternoon and I was needing to leave at 3:00 in order to attend that. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. It's important that we get your input. I know you've prepared a lot, we've read some detailed correspondence that you've provided. I'm trying to figure out how to fit it all in before 3:00. I didn't know at the time -- at the time I talked to you originally, I had not -- this was a month ago, I didn't know that the flood ordinance was going to be this time - consuming ahead of time. So with that in mind, Mr. Wiley, are you going to be here all afternoon or were you -- did you have anything scheduled for yourself later this afternoon? MR. WILEY: As long as I'm out of here by 8:00 tonight. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, I can guarantee that's going to happen. What I would suggest, with this board's permission, that we kind of change gears right now and go into the Watershed Management Plan and then from that point go into the public participation and then go back to the floodplain -- flood control. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Here here. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Is that satisfactory to everybody? COMMISSIONER EBERT: Yes. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Mr. Willey, does that work for you? MR. WILEY: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Appreciate your cooperation. And that will kind of move us ahead in the right direction, and we'll start there and we'll start with Mac Hatchet's presentation for the Watershed Management Plan. Now, there are some members of the public I know that want to speak on this besides Jennifer, and I don't know why they're not here, but I think I told everybody 1:00 at the latest. So we'll just have to proceed and they'll jump in when they get here. ** *Now, this is an opening of the workshop to discuss the Watershed Management Plan. So it's not one in which we would be making any motions or any decisions but just getting input and providing direction to the extent we need to. Go ahead, Mac. MR, HATCHER: Mac Hatcher with Stormwater and Environmental Planning. And yeah, what we would like to do this afternoon is provide a brief overview of where we are on the Watershed Management Plan development. We provided you all with all the technical memos that we've gotten to date. We would like to go through those technical memos and then just a little bit further than that and brief you all on the alternatives that are being developed. Okay, the objectives of the watershed plans are to protect the water resources of the county. And what we're talking about here is surface waters, estuaries and groundwater. Page 47 of 85 October 7, 2010 We've known through other studies for quite some time that the discharges to the estuaries are getting too much water, and we want to try to move towards predevelopment discharge rates. We want to improve the water quality in the developed areas, and we also want to address any flooding and water supply issues. So the specific tasks that we're going through to develop the plans, the first task in this phase of the project was to update the Big Cypress Basin model. And it has been updated with 2007 land cover, the new LIDAR data, updated, the groundwater conditions, and it's basically a new model. We are evaluating the existing conditions within the watersheds from a water quantity standpoint with the model, we've reviewed the water quality data that we have to date, and also we've developed a functional assessment to rate the habitat natural resources. The next step in the process was to define performance measures. And we have performance measures to address water quantity, water quality and flooding, the aquifer storage and also changes to the habitat. The next step in the process is to develop the alternatives. Then we will evaluate the alternatives with the performance measures. And finally, for your December meeting we hope to bring the watershed plans to you for discussions and recommendations. And I have here today the PBS &J team that's developing the plans. And at this point rm going to turn it over to Dave Tomasko. MR. TOMASKO: For the record, Dave Tomasko. I'm manager of the watershed resource and assessment team of PBS &J Atkins. The priority watersheds that we're going to talk about are consistent with DEP's WBID's, which were used in the TMDL programs. What we've done is we've -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: You're going to have to -- when you first start out with your acronyms, there are a lot of people on this panel that are new. Would you just kind of say them -- MR. TOMASKO: No problem. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- for the first time say them out and then just tell us what the acronym is, so we're familiar with it. MR. TAMASKO: Sure, no problem. WBID is a water body identification designation. So for example, within Cocohatchee Corkscrew watershed there are a number of subbasins, smaller, you know, portions of that watershed. And what we've done is we've aggregated the unit that DEP uses to characterize water quality into these larger subbasins. So when we talk about Cocohatchee Corkscrew, Golden Gate and Rookery Bay we are using an outline that is consistent with how DEP characterizes water quality. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: DEP is the Environmental Protection Agency? MR. TAMASKO: Florida Department of Environmental Protection. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Well, see, fast time is helpful. MR. TAMASKO: Sorry. Apologize about that. And so we characterize water quality within the watersheds and then in the estuaries. And we didn't do it in a vacuum, we did it within the guidance that DEP gives you for the TMDL program. The TMDL program is total maximum daily load. It's how the State of Florida determines whether or not you have a healthy estuary. Let me just point out this one thing. It only focuses on water quality, it uses standards that don't always make a lot of sense, but it is the a priori, it is the default way that DEP determines whether or not a place is problematic or not. And there are some issues, particularly in Collier County, that we have to work through. But we did analyze the water quality, not in the way that you do in academia, we did it in a way that's relevant to Collier County as you work your way through the TMDL program, which we'll discuss in greater detail. So one of the things I'm going to talk about here is how this all kind of gets towards identifying potential projects. You know, as Mac talked about, there are places where we've got too much water. There are places where we have too little water. The types of projects that we think that can address hydrologic alterations all have a water quality component. So if, for example, you found that your watershed drains off water too quickly and you want to hold the water on the landscape for longer, that does a couple of benefits: It helps to restore the natural systems you got here, it helps Page 48 of 85 October 7, 2010 to infiltrate water into the groundwater, it helps protect water supplies, whether they're private or whether they're a public water supply; and it helps to address some of the problems that we have of too much water that goes into our estuaries in wet season and too little in the dry season. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I'm sorry for interrupting you with all these rules, but you have to go a little slower. Cherie' has to write -- type everything you say, so it's got to take a little bit easier. MR. TAMASKO: Throw your pen at me as well. THE COURT REPORTER: If you could spell your last name for me, please. MR. TOMASKO: T -O -M, as in Mark, A- S -K-O. So the first thing we did is we went through existing conditions. You don't really know where you want to go until you figure out where you are. So we did an assessment of the existing conditions. So what is the land use like, what is the water quantity coming off these different watersheds, what is the water quality. And I'm going to spend a little time on the water quality in particular, because it has an awful lot of relevance to Collier County as you work through the TMDL program. I think at this time I'm going to turn it over to Peter. I'll be back when we start talking about the water quality in particular, but the model component is Peter's bailiwick. MR. DeGOLIAN: Okay. Thank you. For the record, my name is Peter DeGolian with PBS &J. It's D -E, capital G- O- L- I -A -N. The model we're using is consistent with what the Big Cypress Basin and South Florida Water Management District have used on previous studies in Collier County, which were both the Big Cypress Basin model and the Picayune Strand restoration project model, the PSRP. It's what they call MIKE SHE, which is -- it's a model developed by the Danish Hydrologic Institute that includes all components of the hydrologic cycle, both the surface water, groundwater infiltration, evapotranspiration, irrigation routines and, you know, just all components. And we used -- we updated the model to include rainfall and precipitation and evapotranspiration data through 2007, which is as much of the data as was available from the NEXRAD, which is the national weather bureau. So we updated the model, recalibrated, and some of the results we got -- and I'm not going to get into all the details of everything that goes into the model, but I did want to talk about some of the results in particular from the surface water budget, and we'll also look at the groundwater budget. And these are really interesting, because if we look at each of the watersheds, we see that the evapotranspiration in each of the watersheds is consistent across each year of the simulation; whereas, the rainfall may vary pretty greatly, depending on what was going on that year. But the interesting thing is the surface water outflow is greatly influenced by the amount of rainfall, as is the infiltration to groundwater. And if we look at the groundwater budgets in here, and this is again for each of the watersheds, we see that during the wet season there's a lot of additional storage going on in groundwater. It's raining and the water is infiltrating in and staying in the groundwater zone; whereas, in the dry season we see it being drawn out of the groundwater for irrigation supply and potable water supply. And this is again occurring in all of the watersheds. In Golden Gate, I would like to point this out to you in particular, looking at the surface water transfer. What we're talking about there is the movement of water out of the groundwater aquifer system into the canal network. And we're seeing that in all times of the year there's a large component of water that's leaving groundwater into the canal network, and that's a function of the density of the canals relative to groundwater. And that's their -- the canal network is most dense in the Golden Gate watershed. The other thing we wanted to look at was trying to get to this idea of how much flow is going to each of the estuaries relative to what was in a predevelopment or natural systems condition. And we looked at this two different ways. There was a natural systems model, NSM, that was developed as part of the Picayune Strand project by the Corps of Engineers. And we took that model and we compared that against the existing conditions model, the ECM, that we've just recently done, and did kind of a -- they were different model simulation periods. We couldn't do a direct comparison but we kind of calculated an average year of flow from each of the watersheds into Rookery Bay, into Naples Bay, into Wiggins Pass estuary and into the Ten Thousand Islands, and did a subtraction, if you will, to deternrine what the difference is between the two predicted results from each of the models. Page 49 of 85 October 7, 2010 And another thing we did to kind of check ourselves to make sure and validate the use of the models for our evaluations was we did an analysis based on salinity and flow relationships at each of the watersheds. So we took flow data, measured flow data from, like, Cocohatchee One structure that the Water Management District maintains and operates and they have a long record of flow data through there. And we compared that against salinity values that are measured just downstream of that in the Wiggins Pass estuary, and calculated a flow salinity relationship in that watershed. And then we said well, what should the salinity values be based on a reference watershed. Got those values, looked at them, plugged these reference value salinities into this equation, and were able to calculate what the flow should be in dry season or wet season for each of the watersheds. And so we had a different set of calculations there. And this first graph I'm showing you is a comparison of the two models, where we subtracted the natural systems model flow, predicted flow from the existing conditions model flow for each of the watersheds. And we can see that in particular for the Naples Bay, Golden Gate watershed we're seeing an excess of flow in all times of the year, both wet season and dry season. Whereas in Rookery Bay, the Henderson Creek watershed we're seeing a deficit of flow in all times of the year. And it was interesting that in the Wiggins Pass, Cocohatchee watershed, the total volume of flow that's going out is about correct in comparison to the NSM. But the timing of the flows is inconsistent. We're getting a little bit too much in the wet season, not enough in the dry season. We need to try and identify projects or policies that will help us better balance that need. And similarly, we see that in the Ten Thousand Islands watershed also, which is coming out of the Faka Union, Fakahatchee and the Okaloacoochee Slough watersheds. This graph actually shows a comparison of the two methodologies and the results we got. And you can see that they're very similar in the types of results for each of the methods. So this really helped us to say okay, we're going to be good to use this idea of comparing our model results. And if we simulate our proposed projects and things within our model we can compare them against the natural systems model and get an accurate assessment of what's going on. And so we were very pleased that these results came out very comparable to each other. So in general, from the existing condition perspective, you know, we did validate that the comparison of the flow surplus deficit calculations using the model is a good thing that we can use to define the performance measures and to evaluate alternatives going forward. But we also need to understand that we have to understand the limitations of these calculation methods. You know, it is a model, its a mathematical computation. And we have to understand the limitations of that as we do our assessments and work those into our evaluation of the projects and development of the performance measures. So I'm now going to give the ball back to Dave and let him continue with the water quality discussion. MR. TOMASKO; Thanks. Again, for the record, Dave Tomasko with PBS &J. I think it's really important for you to understand the hydrologic modifications that have occurred when we start talking about water quality. And in essence you're seeing in a place like Cocohatchee too much in the wet season, too little in the dry season. Rookery Bay has too little flow both in wet and the dry seasons, because a large portion of Rookery Bay's watershed was rerouted towards Naples Bay, Golden Gate. And that's why Naples Bay receives too much water, Rookery Bay receives too little water, based on a comparison of what the water is now versus what it should be. Faka Union has very well documented an excess of water in the wet season. But what's also the fact is there's too little in the dry season. And Fakahatchee has its own issues, but for the most part Fakahatchee has been cited as sort of the reference watershed that we do a lot of our comparisons for. But you have to understand the hydrological modifications that have occurred before you can actually start understanding the water quality implications. Because the State of Florida uses a technique for characterizing the health of estuaries that specifically focuses on nutrients and really doesn't have an awful lot of upfront ability to consider other issues. So if you're familiar with the TMDL process or not, let me just walk you through this, because it does have an awful lot to do with Collier County. It's a five -step process. It's laid out by the Department of Environmental Protection. And the first part is assessing the water quality of the surface waters, do they meet existing standards. There are some locations in Collier County where the data never went into the data repository that they use to assess water quality. So not every system's been assessed. Page 50 of 85 October 7, 2010 If you don't collect your own data, someone's going to come down and collect it for you, because the State is not allowed to say I don't know, there's no data. So the best thing to do is to collect your own data to make sure you that have enough data at the right locations. Then you compare that data set against existing State standards. And some of the standards make a lot of sense, some of the standards don't make a lot of sense. DEP knows this as well. They have an oxygen standard which is quite problematic. But they compare your water quality to the standard. And then if it doesn't meet that standard, there's usually not a break where you get to say well, I wonder why it's not meeting it. The next step in the process is establishing a total maximum daily load, which means you use a computer model to figure out the causative factor, why do I have a high such low DO, which do I have such high chlorophyll, which is a measure of how green the water is. Then they'll calculate a load reduction that you're supposed to undertake. Every model has got its strengths, every model's got its weaknesses. Some of these models are built on data where no one's ever collected anything within that particular location. But that model gives you your TMDL. And some of them are rather extreme. Now, a TMDL doesn't mean that you next build a project, because some of them are so problematic that frankly you shouldn't do anything except figure out what your real problem is. There are TMDL's that have not been adopted because it's been easy to show that there are lots of problems with it. But once a TMDL is set, the next stage is usually what's called a BMAP, a basin management action plan. And that's where local governments, for example, obligate themselves to spending the money to get rid of houses on septic tanks, do stormwater retrofits, pull off the 30 percent load reduction for, you know, an entire watershed, that sort of stuff. And then you implement. That's the process as it's defined in DEP. And that's something to be familiar with, because each step along this line is a monetary obligation for someone. And particularly implementing the BMAP process is an obligation for Collier County. So here's your impairments throughout Collier County as listed in the last time the DEP -- the DEP updates these on a regular basis as well. But there's 15 what I call WBID impairment combinations. And WBID is again a water body identification -- it's just basically, like the WBID for 3259W means Lake Trafford. So Lake Trafford is declared impaired for dissolved oxygen, mercury and nutrients; Cocohatchee for dissolved oxygen; Corkscrew Marsh, dissolved oxygen. You can see that the number one impairment that's out there is dissolved oxygen. You also have impairments for bacteria and you have impairments for iron. If we summarize this, Lake Trafford has the most impairments. Lake Trafford has the most problematic water quality. One of the issues here is that assessment was done with water quality before Lake Trafford was dredged. There is evidence that Lake Trafford has had a pretty substantial improvement in water quality. I'm not saying it's going to be unimpaired, but Lake Trafford's water quality has improved. The model that was done to get you the load reductions for Lake Trafford was done in the -- under conditions that don't exist anymore. So at a minimum, Lake Trafford TMDL should be revisited because they used a model that was calibrated with water quality data before the dredging. Now the dredging's taken place, the water quality may not meet state standards, but it's not going to necessarily be appropriate to run that model to figure out what you have to do for Lake Trafford, North Golden Gate and Fakahatchee Strand had the second highest number of impairments. And that's the Fakahatchee Strand. That's basically -- you know, 80 percent of Fakahatchee Strand's watershed is wetlands. And yet it had the second greatest number of impairments. The most common impairment was for dissolved oxygen. So nine of the 15 impairments were for low dissolved oxygen. And we think that's problematic. The State of Florida knows that that's problematic. I tried to use an analogy that makes sense, but if you're familiar with Clyde Butcher photos, right, he goes out in the middle of Fakahatchee, takes pictures of like cypress trees, you know, ghost orchids, everything like that. The water in most of those locations would fail the State of Florida's dissolved oxygen standard because the State of Florida's oxygen standard has problems. They know it has problems. They've come up with alternative criteria for the Everglades knowing that it has Page 51 of 85 October 7, 2010 problems. We did a review of the Gordon River extension, which also has a TMDL. There are load reductions called for in the Gordon River TMDL. But what we found is the reference sites that they used to figure out what should nutrient concentrations be, the reference sites failed the DO standard as well. So if it's a reference site that DEP uses to figure out what nutrient concentrations would be because they're away from human impact, and they also fail the dissolved oxygen standard, then it kind of makes you wonder whether or not the standard itself is problematic. And that's the case. There needs to be some dialogue on getting a dissolved oxygen standard that makes sense for Collier County. Iron was the second most common impairment. It was found to be an issue in north Golden Gate and Baron River Canal. We believe that part of that iron impairment is perhaps related to groundwater, which makes up a large portion of the water, particularly in the dry season in the Golden Gate canal area. And we've noted this before in places up in Northport. Surficial aquifer can be rich in iron and therefore that makes a big difference about what you should do to deal with your iron impairment. If you think that building a giant pond to treat stormwater is going to get rid of iron, when iron is really coming in from the canals bleeding groundwater, which also by the way doesn't have much oxygen in it, then you may be chasing the wrong thing to deal with the impairment that you've got. But you can see that water quality becomes a big part of the types of projects we think that make sense. For the estuaries themselves, Naples Bay had the greatest number of impairments. Naples Bay was found to be impaired by fecal coliforrn bacteria, by iron and by copper. The iron could be associated with the groundwater influence from its highly urbanized watershed; a lot of canals that drain a lot of groundwater with low oxygen and quite a bit of iron. The copper has been looked at for a long time by Collier County staff, and it's believed that the copper has perhaps a large role in maybe some of the treatment of ponds for algae. If you have a pond that has an alga - bloom, one of the first things that's done is to treat it with copper sulfate. In that sense, better treating the water before it gets into the pond can reduce the problems for the pond, can reduce the use of copper sulfate and thus actually help the estuary. But there's other sources of copper as well. As cars break down, there's components of cars that can actually add to the copper as well. But from work that's been done in a little bit greater detail, it does appear that herbicide use, particularly for algicides trying to get rid of algae appears to be probably the most important copper source. For Rookery Bay, it had the second highest number of impairments. And this is particularly interesting because Rookery Bay frankly is viewed by many people as one of the more pristine watersheds. It certainly doesn't have the watershed that it used to have naturally. A lot of its watershed now flows to Golden Gate, Naples Bay. But within at least the immediate environment, it's got a pretty nice - looking natural landscape. But it's been impaired for dissolved oxygen, nutrients and bacteria. The bacteria impairment in estuaries is based in part on a higher standard. Your waters are classified for shellfish harvesting. And the amount of bacteria for shellfish harvesting that you can have is a lot lower than for bodily contact. So if you're just talking about swimming in a lake, you can handle more bacteria than if you're going to be in an area where oysters could be harvested, because oysters and clams will filter feed and they can accumulate bacteria. So a lot of your estuarine impairments are related to a more stringent standard. I'm not saying that's an appropriate standard, but it's a harder standard to meet. It's about 10 percent the value that you have for recreational bodily contact. The impairment for nutrients is something we've discussed with Collier County staff. It was based on one - year's sampling. Rookery Bay's been sampled for years by lots of folks who go out into Rookery Bay. But in the year 2006 suddenly the numbers looked a lot higher. And what we did is we looked at the water quality stations in the year 2006 and it looks like whoever was sampling in the year 2006 didn't have a boat and they went to the docks and they went to the roadside places. And Mac is very familiar with this. But, you know, our conclusion was that Rookery Bay wasn't impaired, that it met the water quality standard for how green the water is every year except for the year when whoever that was started taking those samples. And that we think is a really important point. That doesn't mean there's not an issue in Rookery Bay, but it does mean when only one group one year finds Page 52 of 85 October 7, 2010 a chlorophyll standard that's exceeded, maybe that's not exactly the right place to be sampling and call it Rookery Bay. The thing about a WBID is I can have a ditch that goes alongside a road that's a saltwater ditch, because it's lined with mangroves, and that's characterized as Rookery Bay, as well as a spot that's out in the middle of Rookery Bay. So these groupings of locations is so broad that people can talk about Rookery Bay and mean completely different things. Someone's talking about the bay, someone's talking about a ditch that runs next to the boat ramp. The most common impairments that we see in the estuary were for dissolved oxygen, which we think is problematic. It's very likely, and DEP -- I'm on DEP's numeric nutrient criteria technical advisory task force for estuaries, and we've discussed this in great detail up in Tallahassee last week. The dissolved oxygen criteria is problematic. DEP actually used a DO data set from Collier County from Fakahatchee to argue that their own standard doesn't make sense. So that's something that DEP realizes as well. The bacteria standard is what it is, but it is important to know as well that fecal coliform bacteria don't necessarily come from humans. They don't even necessarily come from animals. And Collier County has got staff that's worked very hard on this. This is a topic that is really important. It's important for Collier County to go after those sources of bacteria that are likely associated with humans. And they have found locations where the bacteria were coming from humans and it was a septic tank with a guy who had a bucket next to it. Apparently when it backed up he would kind of do his own sort of maintenance. But at the same time there are lots of places where bacteria levels are high. Because in tropical and subtropical settings this type of bacteria doesn't have to come from humans, it doesn't even have to come from animals. The literature is full of that kind of information. It's another place where it may be worthwhile for Collier County and the State to get into a discussion about more precise indicators. And there are plenty of more precise indicators than fecal coliform bacteria. And then iron, again. For Naples Bay and Wiggins Pass, iron is an issue. It could be associated with not necessarily a pollution from stormwater runoff, but sort of dewatering of the landscape through the canals so that you get iron rich groundwater coming into the systems. So in general, low values for dissolved oxygen are found throughout the location. The watershed with the on average lowest dissolved oxygen values was Fakahatchee Strand, which is used by a lot of people as sort of a referenced watershed. It may be a natural condition, or the low dissolved oxygen could be a function of groundwater inflows, or it could be both. Fecal coliform bacteria, that's appropriate to have a better source identification effort we think before you pursue that. The types of projects we're talking about are going to be consistent with reducing pollutant loads to your estuaries, reducing pollutant loads to your streams, that sort of stuff. But water quality standards for your surface waters and water quality standards for your estuaries are complex -- THE COURT REPORTER: Excuse me, could you please slow down. MR. DeGOLIAN: Apologize. Water quality standards for your surface waters and your estuaries are problematic. The State of Florida is working their way through that. EPA does have proposed criteria and they have not been viewed universally positively by the scientific community, as evidenced by the attendance we had at our meeting last Wednesday. So I do think it makes sense to talk about projects to improve your water quality by reducing pollutant loads, but setting specific criteria is a little bit more difficult at this time. Nonetheless, the types of projects you're going to hear about are going to be the types of projects that should improve the ecosystem health by dealing with the quantity of water, which is most often cited as the major issue that you have in a lot of your estuaries. The natural systems methodology -- I can go over this a little bit briefly. But what we tried to do with natural systems methodology is we tried to figure out what type of impacts has drainage brought about. And we did that by comparing what the natural systems are right now versus what we have for a predevelopment map. So we've got folks who have worked on what the landscape looked like before anyone lived here. It's a little bit of guesswork in some places. And we compared it to what we have. Page 53 of 85 October 7, 2010 And the most common kind of transition we see is a wetland becomes a dryer type of wetland or a wetland that becomes uplands. That's the kind of scenario that we see, which is consistent with what you'd expect. As we've drained the landscape we've reduced the types and quantities of wetlands that we have. We did a thing called a functional assessment. And we try to do this in a way that's consistent with how regulatory agencies look at things like developments and mitigation, but we try to do it on a landscape level. This gets a little bit tricky, but we looked at vegetation, hydrology and something that's called landscape suitability index. So if you had an area that was a cypress swamp and it became a hydric pine flatwood, those are both wetlands, but one of them is a drier type of wetland than the other. And that would be consistent with the change in hydrology. So we tried to compare and see whether or not the vegetation matched with the hydrology. We gave a score for the vegetation, how different it was from what it used to be. We gave a score for the hydrology, how different it was from what it used to be. And then we have this last thing, which is called the landscape suitability index. This is part of a process that you use when you look at development or mitigation. And the concept here is if I've got a wetland that's the right types of plants, it's the right type of hydrology but it's a wetland in the middle of the median strip of an interstate, it doesn't have all the functional attributes of that wetland. And so on this landscape suitability index, it matters not what you are but what your neighbors are. And this is kind of important because agricultural development changes the hydrology, changes the vegetation, but is of greater value for wildlife than big box stores. And so you can have a low score for some types of land use conversions in terms of hydrology, you can have a low score in terms of vegetation, but you don't have as low of a score for landscape suitability. So this allows us, for example, to take into account that a lot of your landscape has changed from natural wetland features to agriculture that has some inherent wildlife value. So the index that we use actually was developed by folks from the University of Florida, and we think it actually helps to even out a little bit some of the criticism of these different types of development. And we realize that. Agricultural development has wildlife value that urban development doesn't often have. And this index we think meets it. And it's from the University of Florida, who's looked into this in great detail. So all in all water quality is a concern, particularly as you work your way through the TMDL process. But frankly the literature in this area is pretty clear. When you go through and look at most of the assessments that have been done by folks in the aquatic preserves around here, University of Miami, NOAA, folks who've worked on this, the most often cited impact that you have to estuaries in Collier County is excessive amounts of freshwater inflow associated with drainage to the watershed. THE COURT REPORTER: Please slow down. MR. DeGOLIAN: Sorry. So the most commonly cited concern that we see in the literature is associated with drainage. So the water quantity is more often cited than what your nutrient concentrations might be. Doesn't mean you ignore the other one, but the literature is replete with studies on excessive amounts of freshwater inflow causing problems. And we think that ought to be, you know, one of the major things you focus on. Projects to address that have a water quality benefit. But we think that that may be the most important thing for these types of projects to be looking at. I think Pll now turn it over. MR. CABEZAS: My name is Moris Cabezas. I'm with PBS &J. And I think I better give you my business card. Okay. And if you had difficulty understanding Dave, just stop me. There's got to be a way to measure, you know, how a proposed project is expected to benefit once it's implemented. And that's what performance measures are about, you know. We need to know -- or it's a way to measure the potential benefit of impact of implementing any proposed project. And in some cases the majority of the projects have benefits. But every single one of them would have downsides. Some of them -- if you increase storage, for example, which would benefit your hydrology, you may be impacting flood elevations. And we are trying to measure that as we compare or evaluate the various alternatives. So these are the performance measures that will be used for evaluating the proposed projects. Page 54 of 85 October 7, 2010 We should point out here that pollutant load will be measured as strictly anthropogenic impact. So what is the benefit of a project in reducing man -made pollution? You could argue that, you know, wetlands discharge nutrients. But that's not what we're after here. Our intent is to assess the benefits of any project, in terms of water quality at least, by the amount of pollutant -- man-made pollutant that is being reduced. Flood risk. We do not want to impact flood elevations anywhere, upstream or downstream of a project. Now, you had a long discussion this morning and you will continue this afternoon on that particular topic. And so I want to make sure that, you know, any one of our proposed projects are not impacting flood elevations. We want to promote projects that -- we want to implement projects or recommend projects that promote recharge and how we're going to measure recharge, but by the benefit provided in terms of aquifer yield. How much more additional water would be available for water supply, for example, because of those projects. And of course we want to evaluate the impact to the natural system. And we will use basically the same measures that Dave described previously when we evaluated existing conditions, such that we can compare before and after project implementation. Following -- this is a very short summary of the work that's been done over the past eight months or so where we have presented our evaluation of existing conditions and have developed the performance measures. And the next topic after that is of course the identification of potential projects. And we have identified on a preliminary basis a number of projects that we will be evaluating in detail and presenting the results of those evaluations to Collier County; will be presenting it to you, will be presenting to the public in general. And once those projects are evaluated by the Collier County people, especially, we will put together the final Watershed Management Plan. Among the issues that we're going to be touching is the regulatory and policy issues. And I'll be discussing that a little later in this presentation. But we took a look at only preliminary basis now. We'll go into more detail at what could be done in terms of water quality, water quantity, you know, some changes to the Land Development Code. And we have a recommendation about zoning. At this time I think I'd like to bring Peter back here so he can present to you the -- some of the projects that we have identified. And we are requesting everybody's input as to other potential projects that might be out there. Ideas, any kind of ideas. We are ready to receive your input and evaluate them and then include them, if necessary, in the Watershed Management Plans. MR. DeGOLIAN: Peter DeGolian, PBS &J. As Moris stated, you know, we are looking at potential projects. And when we talk about projects in this context, we're actually talking about something where we get our shovels and go out and build something, as opposed to doing some kind of a regulatory or policy - related issue to accomplish a similar goal. And so we'll touch on a lot of these things. First thing I wanted to talk about was kind of the methodology we're going through to identify these projects without recreating the wheel. Because there's been so many studies that have been done in Collier County over the years that, you know, we don't want to start spending our time identifying projects that have already been identified. And in some cases we want to better define projects that were identified previously but there wasn't much detail to them. So we want to say well, what can we do to better define what it is that they're trying to do. And then we looked at new project opportunities based on a study of the new LIDAR that was flown -- the new topography data that we received in 2007. And again, our primary goal is to look at estuary flows and deficits and see how we can better match those. But we also will be evaluating projects based on water quality benefits, as well as groundwater recharge and those other performance measures that Moris talked about. In terms of locating projects, we wanted to look within lands that are owned by the government or in control of the government in some fashion, whether it be through a conservation easement or maybe it's in the transferable development rights sending area or one of these things where we can actually better make use of these lands without having to go out and buy property. So previously identified projects that we looked at came from a number of studies that were done, including the Picayune Strand restoration project, which is under construction now; the Southwest Florida feasibility study, which identified a number of projects, especially over in the SR29 canal corridor over in the eastern portions of our study area. Looked at the Belle Meade flowway restoration projects that were identified by the Water Management Page 55 of 85 October 7, 2010 District. We took note of the Lely area stormwater improvement projects and features that they're implementing there, as well as the projects and features that were identified in the Immokalee Storrnwater Master Plan. Of particular interest to us was the master plan for the regional irrigation distribution system, which was a study of aquifer storage and recovery opportunities, using both stormwater and reclaimed water for supplemental irrigation water supply. And just as a note, you know, the City of Naples has recently been permitted to start using aquifer storage and recovery of stormwater, you know, taking about 10 million gallons a day out of the Golden Gate main canal. So if we look at some of the previously identified projects, and here's my -- I just want to use the cursor here to show you a couple of things. This blue area up here in the OK slough, you know, in the Southwest Florida Feasibility Study, they spoke a lot about doing flowway restoration and wetland restoration, but there was not a whole lot of detail in there how they would do that. So we wanted to look in very closely in there and see if there were specific things that we could do to help with the restoration of those flowways, which would then help increase groundwater recharge and get more, additional water quality treatment coming through there. And it would also affect the timing of flows coming down the State Road 29 canal and out into the estuary. Similarly, there was a number of projects identified over in the Corkscrew Swamp area. And similarly, they really weren't defined in any great detail or what they wanted to do. So we said, well, let's zoom in there, that's a lot of lands that are being managed by the Audubon Society and by the Corkscrew Regional Ecological Watershed, and let's -- you know, if we can do something in there, we think that project would be well received. Similarly, Camp Keais Strand coming down through the center of the area, again, just how can we improve the flowway through there and get more water quality treatment, slow down the flow of water coming through that system. This area here is called Horsepen Strand. And it's an area that's been evaluated by the Collier County Soil and Water Conservation District. And there's been a lot of discussion about potentially, you know, defining some kind of a preserve area there. And that's -- we think that's a good idea. But how we would implement that is a little bit up in the air right now. But there are some potential for some physically based projects that we could implement within that area as we move forward. Of course down here is the Picayune Strand restoration project. There's a number of projects here in Golden Gate City where they're looking at reconnecting the culverts and the lake systems in there to better move the water around in that system and reduce flooding. And down in this area is the Belle Meade flowway restoration projects that -- where there's a number of proposed projects to install spreader swales and increase more surface water flow in that area. So as I go through, I want to kind of go through on a watershed by watershed basis and zoom in and look at some of these physical based projects that we are considering. And as Moris mentioned, we're listening to all ideas for additional things that we might have missed as we go through this. So we'll start at the CocohatcheeiCorkscrew and work our way counterclockwise from north down to the south and east. So the first thing we looked at is the Cocohatchee/Corkscrew. And, you know, as part of our methodology, we wanted to look at all the conservation lands and lands that are controlled by the government. And you can see in most of this area, especially in the central part where the Corkscrew Swamp is, is all lands controlled by the Audubon Society and the Corkscrew Regional Ecological Watershed. So we said, well, let's zoom in there and see what we can do. And we zoomed in very closely and we identified a number of projects here and here. And over here is where the Irnmokalee Stormwater Master Plan projects are going on. And of course, as Dave mentioned, Lake Trafford, they're doing an extensive amount of dredging in there that's -- I guess they're going to finish up that in, what, another year they're going finish the dredging on that? MR. CABEZAS: It's the second phase. MR. DeGOLIAN: So they're in phase two of their dredging project on that. And I'll zoom in closely so we can see exactly what we're looking at for these proposed projects here. The first one is this Cocohatchee/Corkscrew number one. And this was an old agricultural area. And it, you Page 56 of 85 October 7, 2010 know, put ditches and dikes around the area and made a number of roads and ditches to go out into the flowway. So the idea would be to regrade all these lands, bring them back to natural grade and have some revegetation with more native species, block the ditches and encourage overland flow through there, which would again increase some of the groundwater recharge and slow the flow of water out into the Wiggins Pass estuary. And we also have similar projects here. And this is the new topographic data is what's in the background here. If you look in CC2, you can see there's a flowway that comes through the center of this but there's all these roads with ditches along the side of them coming in from both sides, kind of finger canals and roadways from old agricultural area. And again we could, you know, fill these ditches, regrade these roads back to natural grade and get it back to a more natural system where the water will move around in the overland flow plain and get more water quality treatment through there. And down here in the bottom half is the CC3. This is a -- there's a number of ditches that come out of this ecological area into these ditches that flow through these golf courses. It's Twin Lakes and The Quarries, up in that area. And in order to slow the flow coming down into those golf course systems, we could, you know, block some of those ditches and encourage surface water flow in there, as opposed to directional flow coming through that area. Next is the Golden Gate/Naples Bay watershed. And, you know, as we can see in here, there's not a whole lot of land that's in conservation easement or in control of the government. There is some property here and also up in here that's owned by Conserve Collier, and that -- you know, the Horsepen Strand, we've got this area coming down through here which has been recommended for preserve status. And we want to look at that more closely. But we do have a couple of projects that we can do in here. And a number of these are going to be based in the canal network that's managed by the South Florida Water Management District, and maybe looking at how the structures operate or how we can better store the water in these canal networks and control the timing of the discharge. And again, we'll -- this is kind of a locational map of where they all are. And we'll zoom in more closely so you can see what they are specifically. First one we look at is this GGI, which is a series of linear features. And these are actually the Golden Gate main canal and a couple of the feeder canals that come in here. And right here is where the Golden Gate 6 structure is and the Golden Gate 7 structure are right above it. But there is an opportunity perhaps to put in some other kind of a weir structure up here to kind of stage the water up a little bit higher in the very headwaters. And this lower branch that's coming in there is a very deep canal. We were out there last week, and it's like 12 feet from the top of bank to the water surface. So there may be some opportunity to stage some water up in there. Because right now the water surface in there is controlled by this structure all the way down at the south. So there's a lot of difference in elevation relatively from that point at the south to up through that canal network where we may be able to capture some additional storage up in there. Up in here there's GG2. As mentioned, this is potentially of the Horsepen Strand area. This is property that's owned by Conserve Collier. And it's an old cypress head. And right now all the roads have drainage swales on each side of them, and they just -- all the water comes off the road or comes through overland flow into those swales and is routed right out to the canal network. So the opportunity would be to put in some what we're were calling equalization culvers underneath the roads and some ditch blocks to kind of hold the water and let that whole cypress system rehydrate and get more groundwater recharge and some water treatment before it would be allowed to flow out into the canal network. Other things we looked at is this GG3 over here. And this is a wetland restoration, where we'd pull the water out of a canal network, put it into the overland flow plain, let it move through natural flowway, do some water quality treatment, get a little bit of groundwater recharge benefit out of that. This GG number four -- and I apologize, I should have zoomed in much more closely on this one. But there's actually a -- it's a very small area, but there's a drainage ditch that comes at a 45- degree angle through there from northwest to southeast that comes into the drainage swale along Immokalee Road there. And we can ditch block that -- put a ditch block in that channel and let the water go through an old wetland habitat and it will go right back into the canal, into the drainage swale in Cocohatchee. But it's just diverted where it has a chance to do some overland flow and get treated a little bit before it goes back in. This number five over here, this is off of Wolf Road over here in the -- and it's an interesting place. There's a Page 57 of 85 October 7, 2010 lot of Melaleuca and just non - native species growing in this forest in the middle of a subdivision, but there's no water source into it except rainfall. So the thought is we could divert some of the water from the drainage canals in there, divert it into this area where it was an old wetland and let it work as a water treatment area where you get some groundwater recharge and water treatment. We just have to be careful we don't put too much water in there and cause flooding in the surrounding properties. GG6 here was something proposed by the South Florida Water Management District as part of the feasibility study. And that's an offline reservoir that would take water out of the Golden Gate main canal that could then be utilized for either potable water supply or maybe to supplement the irrigation water needs. And GG7 here is similar to the other ditch canal features we looked at. We could put some -- we think we could put some weir structures in there and kind of stair -step the water as you move down through that system. GG8 down here again, it's a red - cockaded woodpecker habitat area. But it could stand a little bit of rehydration. It used to be cypress and now it's a hydric flatwood, so it's not as high a quality of wetland as what it was historically. But there's no way to get water into there without a pump, so we would have to do a small pump station to pull water out of the Golden Gate main canal and route it through the overland plain, and it would gravity release back into the Golden Gate canal system after some opportunity for treatment. GG9 here, this is a drainage swale that runs parallel to Wilson Boulevard. And we went up and looked through there, and -- you know, similar with some of the linear features, we thought there might be an opportunity to put some very small, six, seven -inch weirs in that drainage swale and kind of slow the water down as it moves through there. We do recognize that this is an area that's had a lot of flooding issues in the past and we want to be real careful about implementing something like that. GG10 -- I've only got three more to go in this watershed -- is another offline reservoir. It's an old mining pit. And the idea again would be to pull water out of the Golden Gate main canal and store it. And you could either route that water south into the Rookery Bay watershed where there's a deficit of flow going into the aquifer and also into the estuary itself, or you could release it back into the canal later or use for potable water supply or irrigation supply. Last two we've got here, or in Golden Gate anyway, are this GG11 down here, which is located conveniently right next to one of the water treatment plants. So if we could -- the idea was to pull the water out of this — out of the Golden Gate main canal during the wet season, store it and then utilize it for potable water supply during dry season. And this last project in the Golden Gate watershed is GG12, and this is something that the Water Management District has on their list of projects to implement. The idea is to put a 100 -cubic foot per second pump to pull water out of the Golden Gate main canal and let it move through overland flow down into the canal on the north side of I -75, go through existing structures into Henderson Creek and then migrate south into Henderson Creek and into Rookery Bay. And we think there's a possibility that we could actually enlarge that pump and possibly divert some of the water from out of the Henderson Creek canal into the canals and linear water features on the south side of I -75 and create some spreader swales on the south side to encourage overland flow on the south side. And we'll talk about that in just a second. Next watershed is the Rookery Bay. And again, we can see there's a great deal of property here that's Picayune Strand State Forest. Up on the top here is a lot of the lands that are designated as sending lands through the transferable development rights. But at this point in time most of those lands have not — the development rights have not been severed from the property. So there's some issues there. But we'll take a look at some potential projects in here. And this is kind of, again, just an overview of what they all look like. And we'll zoom in and look at them, each of them individually. First one we want to look at is this potential spreader swale up at the top that would potentially have source of water from that Golden Gate number 10 offline reservoir. And we need to be real careful about this one because we know that in the future transportation plan, Wilson Boulevard is expected to come all the way down south down to about I -75 before it turns and goes back over to the west. And there's going to be large lakes that kind of serve as a buffer zone between the mining pits that are going to go in in this area here. So these lands over here are kind of being targeted for mitigation by these mining properties, so we want to be able to utilize that to promote overland flow coming down through this system. Again, we're getting water quality Page 58 of 85 October 7, 2010 treatment, we're getting groundwater recharge, and we're rehydrating old wetlands that were in there. And this would -- we're putting more water into the Rookery Bay watershed, which will eventually help with the deficit of flow within the estuary system. Now, tying into that, if you're going to pull all the water north of I -75, you've got to do something with it when it gets to I -75. And there are a number of culverts that go underneath 1 -75 through there in addition to the one on Henderson Creek there. So we've got to look at the flow, the available capacity in those culverts. Water comes underneath the culverts, gets into another series of linear water features and canals on the south side. And the idea would be to pull the water out of that canal system again, put it into an overland flow spreader swale and let it migrate south through the Picayune Strand State Forest. Other features we've looked at, or possibilities we've looked at, there's again an old mine over here off Henderson Creek, use offline storage, pull the excess water out of there, out of the system during the wet season, store it, release it during dry season when it's needed in the bay. And that could also be used to augment the City of Marco Island water supply, which is located a little bit farther south on Henderson Creek. In Picayune Strand State Forest, these projects, RB4 and RBS, there are a lot of old I guess access roads for hunters and horse trails and things that go all through Picayune Strand State Forest. And these things over time, they're actually six to eight inches below grade, so they serve as a preferential flowway and they almost collect water in there and they're very compacted. So water just gets in there and just stands there and evaporates away, and it really doesn't provide much benefit in terms of groundwater recharge or things, and it does speed the flow of the water out of the system. So the idea would be to go in there and just regrade some of these properties, bring them back up to grade with their surrounding lands and let the water move in a more natural flowway through that area. This area highlighted in pink is actually the Forest Service is installing some new culverts under Sabal Palm Boulevard in there to encourage the flow from north to south. As you get farther to the east over here, there is a lot of overtopping of the Sabal Palm Boulevard, where it's just -- you know, it's the dirt road out there. Down in the south there are a few projects that were recommended as part of the Belle Meade flowway projects, alternative projects. One of these is a stormwater treatment area here. It's about six -and -a -half acres in size with a pump station to pull water out of the canal system on the north side of 41, provide some water quality treatment and let the gravity flow -- too fast? I'm song. So it's a stormwater treatment area that's about six and one -half acres in size that would have a pump station to pull water out of the canals on the north side of US-41. The water would go through the system and gravity flow out of the treatment area back into the canal system. And there is also a proposal to do some drainage improvements along Manatee Road down here where water coming underneath US-41 here would be put into a spreader Swale that would migrate water through overland flow through this system as opposed to just discharging directly out into the canal over here. And finally the last one is what they call the Fiddler's Creek spreader canal. And we may have to look at the configuration of this one. It does seem to conflict with some improvements that City of Marco Island has down there with some spreader swales and things. So we need to further evaluate that one. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: City didn't do those improvements. MR. DeGOLIAN: City did not do those? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No. MR. DeGOLIAN: I stand corrected, thank you. Other watersheds, conservations, this is the Fakahatchee, Faka Union and OK slough, SR29 watersheds. Again, the southern part of these watersheds is Picayune Strand State Forest and in federal lands. Big projects going on in the Faka Union watershed and along -- if we look more closely, we've got the Picayune Strand restoration projects going on here where they're putting in ditch blocks and canal blocks and big pump stations and spreader swales along each the Miller, Faka Union and Merritt canals there. The Southwest Florida Feasibility Study has recommended a number of projects along the State Road 29 corridor there with again canal blocks, removal of the structures and a lot of culverts to divert the water to the west and kind of rehydrate Fakahatchee in there, as well as some pump stations and spreaders up here to rehydrate some of Page 59 of 85 October 7, 2010 these wetlands up there. But again as we mentioned earlier, these areas up in here. The feasibility study just said restore hydrology, you know, restore the flowway. So we said, what can we do in here to actually accomplish that goal. So we zoomed in very closely. And we'll look at each of these. The first is up in the headwaters of the Faka Union watershed. And again, this is property that's owned by Conserve Collier. And they've actually already installed some equalization culverts undemeath this road right here. But we did notice when we went out there and looked at this site that the swales on the side actually have a berm on the side away from the road, which is going to discourage -- you get equalization but you still can't get it out of the swale, it's still being diverted into the canal network. So the idea would be to grade that back down and then put in some ditch blocks to encourage some of the overland flow in there but still not so high as to flood out any of the residents that live out there. We go over into the Fakahatchee, there's a number of areas up in here. And these are really kind of interesting, because these are a lot of agricultural lands and pocket wetlands where they went in and they dug a ditch right through the center of a wetland to drain it, maybe for logging or just for drainage to make the agricultural lands more available. We wanted to look at some of these. And when we zoomed in really closely, just as an example, we can see in the topography there's these ditches here and here and there that are coming out of this little pocket wetland. So we could do some ditch blocks in here and keep more water in that wetland system to encourage groundwater recharge, water treatment, and again slow the volume of water that's moving south. And that was the type of projects we saw in both the Fakahatchee and the headwaters of the OK slough were similar types of projects for that. From a countywide perspective there are some things we can look at, fast of which is looking at all the structure operations. You know, the Water Management District has, you know, 40 something structures that are gated structures that they operate to maintain water levels throughout the canal network in Collier County. And then you put all the Collier County managed structures, the Obermeyer gates and various weir structures that they operate, and we want to look at within our modeling components of how can we operate those structures better to meet some of these flow requirements,into the estuary systems. Other things we wanted to look at are public facilities. Can we do retrofits of parking lots at schools and at parks and here at the government center to encourage, you know, keeping the stormwater on site and not letting it escape. And we can do that with pervious pavement and infiltration basins and rain guards to capture rooftop runoff and things of that nature. Moris will talk a little bit more about this other, but how can we come up with incentive programs to get private property owners to do retrofits of their properties? Because there are large numbers of parking lots around the county that could stand to be retrofitted to better manage their stormwater and keep it on site. And finally is dealing with aquifer storage and recovery. We know the City of Naples is implementing this, City of Marco Island is implementing this. Collier County has a permit that they've put on hold for aquifer storage and recovery. And there may be some opportunities to explore the use of ASR in Golden Gate Estates and places to rehydrate and improve the -- well, I guess put more water into the groundwater system during the dry season to make sure those homeowners have sufficient water for their water supply needs. As an example of one of these retrofits, this is a picture I took up at the Golden Gate High School on Monday of last week at 11:00 in the morning. And I was amazed that this parking lot was empty while school was going on. When I was in school, you couldn't find a parking place at my high school. So, you know, I think there's a real opportunity to go back into parking lots like this at these schools and retrofit them. This is an example of a location that was up in northern Florida where they put in pervious pavement in the areas that have low traffic. You know, instead of the water draining around these islands that are raised higher than the parking surface, the islands are lower and they're vegetated, which will keep people out, you know, cars out of them. They allow the water to infiltrate into the system and you can also install some rain guards and some things throughout. Now I'm going to turn it back over to Moris to talk about some of the regulatory and policy issues. MR. CABEZAS: Okay, I'm song you have to go through all of this. We hope it's -- Page 60 of 85 October 7, 2010 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: No, I think it's -- we're here to learn, and that's going to be the best asset we can have is the more time you take to tell us. So this is fine. MR. CABEZAS: Very good. A very important component of a Watershed Management Plan is the regulatory and policy. And we have taken a look at that in terms of water quality, water quantity, you know, land development codes and even zoning. We do understand that a lot of these regulatory issues or recommendations pertain to new development. Peter had indicated that something is possible with -- through redevelopment, you know. That's encouraging. Now how to motivate people to address other ways of doing or managing the stormwater is an issue that must be addressed in the Watershed Management Plan. I'm going to talk about the -- a little bit of background, some objectives, and the implementation of low impact development policies in the county. And many of you will already -- or are already familiar with these issues. But just to reiterate, as you know, the state water policy states that discharges to water bodies must be subject to a pollution removal of -- a pollution reduction of 80 percent. Some years ago the State initiated the TMDL program that Dave talked about. And I just can see their faces when they look at the numbers in the evaluation that -- all these impaired water bodies throughout the state, all over the place, even though we have had stormwater management regulations for 26 years. So they must have said, well, this is not very good. And they started looking at why. So they went back to evaluating the requirements of the current ERP process, and they realized that the requirements for treatment, particularly those treatment processes that are so common here in Collier County, like wet detention, in terms of nutrients particularly were not nearly achieving the removal standard of state water policy. Nitrogen was being reduced by 40 percent instead of 80 percent, phosphorous by probably 60 percent at the most. So they engaged -- or FDEP engaged in the proposed stormwater rules, which will take care of some of these problems. Now, in terms of our project, I'll be talking about regulations from state as well as from the county. And I already mentioned the topics that we'll be addressing in terms of those regulations. But the objective will be to implement some kind of sustainable stormwater management program. I think that's -- we've got to abandon the ideas of the past and implement something new that will lead us to promote a more effective site planning and minimize pollution loads, you know, promote preservation of the natural systems and at the same time help reduce development cost and help reduce the cost of having to improve the drainage system because new development poses more impositions or -- I'm repeating the same word, but new development is creating new requirements for those, the existing drainage facilities. And a way to do that is to go back and look at the implementation of low impact development. You are probably aware of this, but LID promotes management of the stormwater by encouraging development or management at the site. And I'm not talking just the whole development site, we have to encourage management of stormwater on each individual lot, if that's possible, you know, minimize the extent of impervious areas, particularly directly connected impervious areas. Minimize site disturbance, because many studies have demonstrated that disturbed soil, soil that is even lightly compacted, loses infiltration capacity up to 80 percent. So even if it's an open land, when you disturb the soil you lose that infiltration capacity and recharge of the groundwater. The idea is to maintain or restore the site's original hydrology and at the same time maximize the site's assimilative capacity. You've probably seen this. This is a comparison of predevelopment versus the impacts of our regularly applied post development. It just means that a lot of the -- of the stormwater excess goes directly into runoff, thus going down the drainage system into the receiving water bodies. On the other hand, these are examples of low impact development. And Peter showed some of this. Again, the idea is to treat and maintain the natural hydrology, treat the stormwater on site. So let's look at some -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before we go -- I'm song to interrupt you, but before we go too much further, about every hour- and -a -half we try to give the court reporter a break. And I don't know how much further you were going to go but I think it might be a good time just to break for 10 minutes. Then when we come back, there's a young lady that's been waiting patiently all day for a presentation that is going to show a different perspective on yours that I think we would benefit from. She has to leave at 3:00. So I'd Page 61 of 85 October 7, 2010 like to take a break right now till 2:30, let her do her presentation, then resume with yours right after that. Would that work for you? MR. CABEZAS: Yeah, no problem. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, thank you. Then that's what we'll do. Let's take a break. We'll come back at 2:30. Jennifer, when we get back, if you're prepared, we'll go right into yours. (Recess.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, if everybody will please resume their seats, we'll get moving with the rest of this. And before, I have one announcement to make. I talked to Mr. Wiley. He was cooperative to work with us on getting a better schedule for the remainder of his presentation. And his schedule worked out that we can finish the Flood Management Plan, the one that we started with this morning, we can finish that on the 21 st at our meeting, because our meeting that day is rather light. So today we'll just focus on the rest of the afternoon on the watershed management plans. We'll finish up with that -- and generally we try to be finished by 5:00. So we all need to be working towards that goal. Jennifer, it's all yours. MS. HECKER: Thank you very much for the opportunity to provide this presentation. My name is Jennifer Hecker and I am here on behalf of The Conservancy of Southwest Florida and our 6,000 members. First we'd like to thank Collier County staff, particularly Mac Hatcher, who has been very professional and has made the time to meet with us personally to discuss our concerns with regard to the development of the Collier County Watershed Management Plans, CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I can tell that you're going to get off to a very fast start here. So -- I'm already looking at Cherie' and I can see the frown. I'm thinking, okay, let's nip this in the bud. MS. HECKER: I'm going to try to make my 29 minutes work, okay. The Conservancy has actively supported the development of these plans. We were involved in advocating for their funding. We strongly support them. And personally I have also been working on state and federal water policy regulation, and -- such as the statewide stormwater rule, the numeric nutrient criteria and revising regional South Florida Water Management District stormwater policies. So these definitely all interrelate. And we're here to, you know, show our support. And hopefully what we offer with regard to comment is perceived as constructive input for trying to create effective plans. We are in a bit of a situation, and it's really no one's fault, but we are essentially, from our perspective, trying to address major problems with the foundation of this whole planning process when we are near the end, when the drywall is essentially being hung on the building. And that creates intrinsic problems. So, you know, you'll see that we're actually going to lay out a case for why we believe at this point it would be valuable to take some additional time to make sure that these plans are as scientifically solid and that there's adequate public stakeholder input and that they truly will effectuate the intended result that we all want them to produce. The first problem that we see with the technical documents that we have reviewed to date is the fact that the watershed management planning process is not adhering to state and federal water policy. It is one of our major objectives from these planning process. We laid out in a 2007 letter to the county, and it's posted on the watershed management planning website, that our primary objective was that water quality be restored to current water quality standards. Well, that can only happen if we acknowledge that those standards are legitimate and aim to achieve them. And one of the primary things that reoccurs and resurfaces through the technical documents with regard to water quality is questioning whether or not those standards are in fact valid, whether the assessments that have been made by the state and federal government with regard to violations are credible, are valid. And so that prevents us from moving forward with addressing those problems if we can't acknowledge that they're there. And so we are very concerned with this. It has a lot to do with rules and responsibilities. The county provides data but so do a lot of other organizations to the DEP. The DEP has been responsible for taking all that data and assessing it according to state regulations. So it's really a blending of science and policy. There's very specific legal guidelines to how the data is to be interpreted, how many violations have to occur within such a time frame in order for it to be technically verified impaired. Then that is sent to EPA and EPA then assesses it according to federal Page 62 of 85 October 7, 2010 regulations. So we heard earlier that the consultant did acknowledge and review according to DEP guidelines, but there are actually differing federal guidelines. And the EPA has oversight ability and has actually exercised that by having 47 different subbasins otherwise known as WBID's added back to the impaired waters list that the state had removed. And that was based on federal regulations. So there's this very complex checks and balance process in determining impairment. And looking at the data is part of it, but looking at the state and the federal regulatory guidelines is the other part. And these agencies already are tasked with doing that. One of the concerns we had is why would the county invest so much time and energy in reassessing what the state and federal government have already assessed and verified as impaired. And we'll lay out some very specific concerns with regard to, you know, where we feel there were some, you know, biased assumptions and whatnot made in reviewing that. So before we get into the specifics, we just wanted to kind of explain again how water quality regulation works. The first thing that drives what standards are applied to a water body are its designated use. Is the water body intended for drinking, for shellfish harvesting, for swimming and fishing, for agricultural or for industrial use. Each use then drives a set of standards that will then be applied. Because of course you want higher standards for drinking water than you would for swimming and fishing. So those things correspond. Then once you have the standards in place, the data, as we mentioned, is assessed by DEP. It's collected and assessed in a data base and then they look at it to determine where they see repeat violations. Now, after -- this is not a light, easy process. There's a lot of data screening, they make sure that the data is sound, that there wasn't incorrect sampling, u know. And it has to be a repeat violation, it cannot be just one exceedance for it to be verified impaired. Bu ultimately if it's defined to be not meeting standards, it is determined as verified impaired and goes on what's known as the impaired waters list. That's really where we're talking about today are things that have been verified impaired and now they're being called back into question. We would rather that we acknowledge those impairments and move forward in the process. And we feel that by moving forward a lot of the concerns that are being expressed about groundwater or other natural contributions would be addressed later in the process. Because once something's impaired, they then zero in at the watershed level and say what is the right pollutant threshold for this water body. That's what's called a total maximum daily load. And that is determined by teasing out the natural contributions of pollution and figuring out, you know, how much is this water body -- it's not no pollution, but how much can the water body take and still meet its designated use, that becomes the threshold. And then in the BMAP process they tease out the natural versus non - natural contributions and they make the municipalities who are involved with taking care of that area accountable for removing only that that is non - natural. So when were talking about we're worried that we're going to be, you know, dealing with things that are in fact natural, that is eventually addressed but not at this step. It's really too early to expect that that would be teased out. And if we let the process work and move forward, that should be addressed. One thing that we kept seeing reoccur is just again this misunderstanding that if you have a natural contribution that you can't be impaired. And, you know, in the case of iron, for instance, where we were talking about there was a lot of groundwater influence, even if there is, you can look at this graphic here, this comes directly out of EPA guidance. You see bar B, which is a combination of man-made and natural pollution. If it's below criterion, it's not impaired. But if it's above criterion, like in bar C, where you have man-made and natural together, as long as you exceed standards you are verified impaired. And that's because that is understood that the next step of the process will then separate back out the natural load and not require you to try to correct, let's say, a bird rookery. If you have a fecal coliform problem, you know, the regulations aren't meant to make you go destroy the bird rookery, they're meant to identify that you're over the level safe for swimming and fishing and then to see if there's any man -made contribution of, let's say, wastewater discharges that are contributing to that fecal coliform, and then address those, the man-made. So that's how the process is supposed to work. And we have a situation where, you know, we've seen throughout the documents, you know, a dispute of Page 63 of 85 October 7, 2010 dissolved oxygen impairments. We do of course have a state numeric dissolved oxygen standard. And in many places we are not meeting that standard. Now, a lot of the reasoning that has been laid out about why the dissolved oxygen standard is wrong centers around the fact that the Fakahatchee is impaired. But when you actually look at where the sampling is occurring in the Fakahatchee, you see that it is occurring in many cases in canals along roadways. So you wouldn't say that the water quality there really represents the beautiful natural wetlands in the Fakahatchee Strand. That is why we have in that case an impairment and we have brought this up to DEP. And I know that the numeric nutrient criteria meeting that was referenced that occurred last week that a stakeholder also brought that up and said that it was wrong for DEP to continue to try to say that that was an appropriate reference to show what natural levels of pollution should be. So we continue to try to work that out. Now, why is dissolved oxygen important? Well, dissolved oxygen essentially is whether or not you have enough oxygen in the water to make a water body safe for aquatic life. If you don't have enough dissolved oxygen, you get fish kills. And that's what you have here in this picture is a fish kill that occurred in Lake Trafford. So it is important that we try to maintain healthy levels of dissolved oxygen if we want our waters to be fishable and to support aquatic life. Now, in the technical documents there are policies embedded in them. In this case there was a recommendation that the county pursue countywide dissolved oxygen deviations. Now, from our point of view if you're not going to abide by state standards, which of course we would hope that the county would, and focus on trying to achieve those standards, you have to bring the scientific basis for a formal deviation, which is known as site specific alternative criteria. You cannot say I disagree and not bring enough science to be granted an alternative criteria. And that's our issue. When we've approached staff about whether or not these deviations are in fact being pursued, we have gotten very mixed information about not yet can they take a lot of time and resources, maybe in the future. The problem is the plans are being developed now. If we aren't resolving this and addressing this issue now, then we're not going to have plans to try to address some of these other types of pollutants, like dissolved oxygen, which is influenced by nutrients. And I do acknowledge that they are including some things that would help nutrients, but we also -- there are lots of other things that can be done. People have talked about installing aerators and things of that nature that could help address dissolved oxygen as well. But first we have to recognize the problem. There's technical information that disputes the salinity characterization about what is fresh versus what is marine. You guys are aware that those water bodies of course mix with estuarine areas, and the line between fresh and marine moves back and forth so it's -- when you put a line on a map and you try to separate what is fresh and marine, well that line is in reality going to move back and forth. The reason it's important is because there's different regulations for fresh versus marine. So in some cases if you're not meeting one standard but you might be meeting another, you could see if maybe if you just readjusted the line then maybe you'd be back in compliance again. However, looking at the examples that were in the technical document, they would have failed either way, whether they were fresh or marine. So we felt like it was a moot point. And we didn't understand why the county was even raising this. The county was involved itself and working with DEP to revise the subbasin boundaries just a couple of years ago. And we can't afford to just keep reconfiguring the puzzle pieces. We need to stick with a process and follow through and get to the point where we actually are striving for real improvements to water quality. The impairments were disputed as well, and they were speculated as natural. Again, the data that was being relied upon was the same data that DEP used in determining that they weren't natural. DEP has a notation that it puts, it calls them categories on its listing process where it denotes if it thinks that an impairment is from natural causes. They did not denote that these impairments were natural. So again, the question is what is the basis for contesting the assessment that has already been determined by the state and confirmed by the federal government? And again, going back to federal guidance, it has to be entirely natural in order to not be an impairment. If there's any anthropogenic sources of iron that could be contributing to the impairment, then it should continue to stay on the list. Well, the technical memo mentioned, well, we didn't see any anthropogenic sources. But I think that one of our concerns is how hard was the assessment to try to identify that. We went on DEP's website, found that one of the Page 64 of 85 October 7, 2010 potential, you know, contributors to iron impairments is solid waste and waste materials, and then we mapped the areas that were impaired for iron and found that there were, you know, many identified facilities within that subbasin. So again you have to rule out the fact that whether there's any man -made pollution that could be contributing to this in order to get something quote, unquote, not impaired. And we would rather these watershed plans just focus on assessing the measures needed to meet the state iron standards rather than try to deviate from them. There's, as was mentioned earlier, a process that DEP does. Once it assesses what areas are impaired, it sets that pollutant limit for that water body and then it develops a compliance plan. How do we meet that target? And when the DEP takes the lead in doing that, it crosses jurisdictional boundaries. They would get everyone involved. They would get agricultural, DOT, City of Naples, Marco Island. So it wouldn't just be the county on the hook for 100 percent. The DEP process actually brings all the stakeholders to the table to try to figure out who's responsible for what and how much should each of those entities reduce their pollution by in order to meet the overall common target. And we don't feel that these plans are going to have the ability to replicate that, so they should not be considered a surrogate for that process, those basin management action plans, but they should be consistent with basin management action planning, which means adhering to DEP's assessment of what's impaired and what isn't impaired, adhering to the TMDL's that have been set. There was a reference in one of the technical documents calling into question a TMDL that had already been adopted and again approved by the federal government as well. So we need to bring the county and the state and federal process into alignment if we're going to ultimately create plants that are going to address our water quality issues in the appropriate way. Also, I wanted to mention that a BMAP is -- has more ability to be binding and enforceable because it is adopted by Secretarial Order. So you would have DEP directly able to then work with the various stakeholders in trying to make sure that they are making adequate progress. Now, there's a perception that it could be onerous, but our experience with the BMAP process is they set a five -year target, which -- they don't expect you to correct the problem overnight or even in five years, they set an interim target at five years. And then if that's not met, they've told the stakeholders that they would then roll the remainder into the following five years. As long as you're making adequate progress, then that would fulfill your obligations with regard to the BMAP process for the most part. So the watershed management plans should be used in evaluating land use changes with regards to reducing impacts to water resources, wetlands loss, changes in quantity, timing and distribution of flows. That's what we thought was going to be the emphasis of these plans, not water quality. Again, we want water quality to be handled such that these plans are complementary to the existing and future total maximum daily load limits and the basin management action plan compliance plans that DEP is developing. So the current status of addressing these water quality problems: We haven't received any further information indicating that these technical memos that were generated challenging DEP and EPA assessments are being revised. The watershed management measures proposed thus far address nutrients, but other common verified pollutants such as iron and copper are not in our -- you know, from what we've been able to review thus far, we do not see those being adequately addressed. Again, we've sent a letter years ago identifying this as a major objective of these plans to make sure that were they were focused on meeting current water quality standards. But now with only a month until these plans are complete, we really don't have any assurance that these identified water quality problems are going to be adequately addressed in these plans. Another issue we have is that we believe in science -based policy, that science should be used to percolate up and create policy. An example being the performance measures that we talked about earlier. Instead of developing the projects up front and then using the science, the hydrology scores, landscape suitability index to measure the effectiveness of those projects, we would have preferred using that science as the foundation to identify where the projects are that we want to pursue. The problem with going about it the other way with having your projects up front and then just evaluating is you could be missing important projects, especially restoration opportunities, hydrological restoration. You know, this approach I understand that they didn't want to reinvent the wheel and they wanted to utilize what was available. Page 65 of 85 October 7, 2010 But again, it isn't -- it leads itself to potentially missing some key restoration projects that have been identified by others or that would have been identified if you just applied the methodology of science across the whole county. So that is a concern that we have. We brought up about the hydrology score the fact that ag. lands were getting a zero. And we don't feel that ag. lands should be treated like parking lots because they do have some hydrological value. In most cases they can seasonally flood, they can allow for infiltration of water. So we feel that they need to be differentiated from urbanized areas. And we did receive a memo on Monday of this week that had actually been provided to the county about two weeks earlier which outlined this new methodology based on the MIKE SEE model. But the issue is that the MIKE SEE model is a very good model, but models are only as good as their input value. And in the memo it said that still it should be noted that the scoring process assumes the hydrologic score of non - natural areas to be zero. So we are concerned that if ag. lands are part of this non - natural lands being zero, that they're not being given any hydrological value in the scoring. This methodology looks at the degree of hydrological alteration, but we feel that there should be more focus as well on restoration potential, the need of restoring key flowways that have already been altered or hampered by agricultural activities. That needs to be part of the scope of these plans as well. Another concern we had about the technical side of this was the undervaluation of the natural resource value of agricultural lands. There used to be a third thing called vegetative index where ag. lands were not being given a value. That seems to be removed now and now they're using that landscape suitability index instead in combination with the hydrology score. So I think for the most part we are making some progress there. We just want to make sure that ag, lands are recognized to provide significant wildlife habitat. Some of our most endangered species in the area, the wood stork, panthers and whatnot do rely on these agricultural lands and ditches. These are just some graphs that were taken from surveys that were done on agricultural lands indicating widespread use by wading bird species. So the recent technical memo again seems to have eliminated this aspect. We still feel there are other elements with regard to wildlife that need to be considered: Preservation of key wildlife movement corridors on non - natural lands, for example. Non - natural lands are really being scored very low, and there are some strategically important panther corridors, for instance, that cross citrus groves and agricultural landscapes that need to be identified and configured. There's wetland- dependent species that also are using some of these key areas that we want to make sure are included. So we also have brought up an issue with staff that we are concerned that there's policy that is embedded in these technical documents that we feel that the county and public stakeholders should be developing and given direction more actively on these policy decisions. For instance, the county policy currently states a very pronounced preference for nonstructural natural stormwater best management practice types of solutions versus structural, build -it engineering solutions. These plans, the way that they're currently being written to indicate no preference between the two, but do try to assess which is the least costly. So in essence you're changing what is the prioritization of the different alternatives that will be considered. And we did bring this up with staff and I think that they are addressing this issue. But there's other issues that have even popped up as recently as yesterday in the presentation to the EAC, where we heard the consultant say that they thought that the flood protection levels of service were unrealistic and that they weren't sure that they were going to be striving to reach those or whether they would be changing policy to make them more realistic. And again the question is, is this a policy decision that is really appropriate for the consulting firm versus the county and the public stakeholders to make and then to task the consultants with developing plans of action that would then meet those policy objectives. I guess, you know, overall we're kind of up against the wall here. After two years we only have a couple of tasks out of the seven tasks that were originally identified complete at this point. We've had a lag in getting some of the information. One of the issues we tried to bring up yesterday to the EAC is that it's very hard for public to comment Page 66 of 85 October 7, 2010 intelligently when we're not getting the information ahead of the actual workshop where we're supposed to comment on the issue. Yesterday was the first we saw the presentation that was given to you today where some alternatives were laid out. We don't have any information to support how those alternatives were generated, you know. There's nothing to evaluate to comment on from a public stakeholder's perspective. So that's a procedural issue. I mean, it's really -- no one's to blame, but we are at a point now where we're not able to provide the type of participation and input that really we should in the planning process. And so we would hope that this could be looked at and addressed through perhaps an extension. And that's one of the things we wanted to bring up today was that we need to build a solid foundation with adequate stakeholder input to make effective plans. And that's going to take more time. And so our recommendation is that you -- you know, I know you can't make a decision today, but in going forward that you consider recommending a six-month extension, at least, making sure that we have more public workshops. It's also very difficult to give input in the context of, you know, brief responses, you know, in an EAC or Planning Commission format. If we could have a workshop where there was more back and forth and collaboration, I think we could end up with more consensus and a better work product. So I tried to cut some things out there, but that really just hit the highlights of why we feel it would be beneficial to all involved to take some more time to work together and try to resolve some of these things so that we can bring the best work product and consensus to the County Commission. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I think you made your point very well. Thank you very much, Jennifer. And I know you have to run off. Mr. Murray has a question. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: I just wanted to say thank you very, very much. That was an extremely clear presentation and I got an awful lot out of it, and you have made some wonderful points. Thank you. MS. HECKER: Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Can we get a copy of that? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes. Can you send this by e -mail? Or actually, send it to Ray and then Ray can distribute it, if that's okay. MS. HECKER: I will. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you very much. We appreciate your time today. Sorry we had to rush you, but that's unfortunately the way public meetings go sometimes. Now we'd like to resume with your group, and we'll continue and finish up your presentation before we go to other public speakers. MR. CABEZAS: Thank you again. My name is Moris Cabezas, and I'm with PBS &J. Let me start by saying that, you know, the purpose of these presentations is to receive input. In the end the watershed management plans are going to be yours, not ours. And, you know, any input that we receive is appreciated. And be sure that we will be addressing any comments and taking all of them very seriously. We were talking about regulations. And the categories that at least so far we have reviewed that regulations are in terms of water quality, water quantity, the Land Development Code, and we have a couple of comments on zoning. Talking about water quality regulations, the main issue is, you know, we talked about implementing low impact development approaches, you know, changing the way we do things at this time and trying to work the regulations into facilitating the implementation of new concepts. Now, these concepts can be implemented only if we get support or if the county has the support from the public and the development community. So one question is how to provide the water quality credits for development, such that developers would consider applying the proposed new approaches to land development. We know that it's -- that the current state regulations do not allow for providing credits for water quality. They will be allowed under the new proposed stormwater rules. But currently it's not possible. Let me give you an example. If somebody develops an area, that developer has to take part of the land to create a treatment facility. That treatment facility has to have a capacity to treat one inch of the runoff over the drainage area. Regardless of what he does in the watershed, he or she have to provide treatment for one inch of runoff. So there's no incentive to doing work in the watershed when you have to develop -- when you have to Page 67 of 85 October 7, 2010 implement or construct a treatment facility to take care of a fixed amount of runoff. We're hoping that with the implementation of the new stormwater rules that will change. But for now, let's see what the county can do to promote the use of low impact development. And it just happens that the county requires that for development to treat 150 percent of the environmental -- of the ERP requirements. So there is this 50 percent. And that could be changed in the current regulations to allow that that 50 percent be converted into low impact development approaches. And that's what we'll be recommending as far as the master plan. Now, we do understand that those rules would apply to new development or redevelopment. Now, what to do about retrofitting. And Peter was describing some of this before. You know, we need to develop incentives to retrofit private property. Marcia yesterday gave us an excellent idea. Well, educate -- and education would be part of the watershed management plans. You know, we will dedicate a chapter in the Watershed Management Plan to indicate that education to the public must be promoted. But she was saying, well, educate the MSTU or the citizens in the MSTU's such that projects are implemented through the MSTU to benefit water quality. That would be an excellent way to promote or to incentivate (sic) retrofitting of private property. Another way may be -- and I'm not advocating this at all -- but may be through a stormwater utility. You know, that's more of a political issue. But the stormwater utility does provide mechanisms to motivate property owners into retrofitting private property. In terms of water quantity, currently regulations for large events, and that's what I'm talking about, focus on controlling peak discharges for the 25 -year and I think it's the 72 -hour design event. That's for the state and that's for the county. There's nothing else in terms of controlling the discharge from -- resulting from large storm events. What we are recommending is that regulations be approved to provide not only peak control but also volume control such that the excess runoff created by development is not discharged into the drainage system. That has to be contained on site such that areas upstream or downstream of a proposed development are not impacted. That way the hydrologic control will include the peak, the volume and the timing of stormwater discharges, which are the three parameters that generally are affected when you change the natural conditions. Something was mentioned here about our proposed recommendation of looking into the flood protection levels of service. And there must have been -- there might have been a misunderstanding of what we were trying to say. But let me try to clarify or at least try to explain now what we mean with recommendation of modifying the levels of service. Our -- Collier County current levels of service indicate that there are four categories of service. And by the way, the levels of service depict the goal that a system should be designed for in order to -- let me rephrase that. The level of service is the maximum allowable flooding that a system can allow. And this applies particularly to roads. And the current criteria with the county indicates that, you know, you have these four criteria, alternative criteria, A, B, C or D. At the current time there's no distinction as to what type of road it is, what type of return period it should be covered, it simply says it's either A, B, C or D. And when you apply that idea to the drainage system, well, it just happens that the entire drainage system in Collier County is a D condition. Well, I think you -- or we believe that the levels of service indicates which areas are problematic that you should go into and try to resolve. If you get a D on everything, that indicates that you've got to do and increase the capacity of your entire drainage system, which is -- which has brought up the problems that we have right now, you know, because the drainage system has been so badly managed in the past by construction of canals and ditches. We realize that, you know, the ideas are changing over time. But at this point the problems were caused because of the construction of those canals. If we have as a goal that level B, for example, should be acceptable, which is barely any flooding, you would have to go and increase the size of every type of conveyance facility throughout the county. I don't think you want to do that. I think it would be more feasible to look at your standards and say, well, what are the criteria that we can accept as flooding for various design event conditions without putting into risk the health and safety of the population. And here's an example of what we would be proposing in the master plan. You know, evacuation routes, obviously. You know, they should not be affected by flooding, even under the 100 -year event conditions. But neighborhood roads may be -- accept some flooding depth. And these are just examples, 12 inches, nine inches, six Page 68 of 85 October 7, 2010 inches, whatever is decided. But most people are willing to accept some degree of nuisance flooding under, you know, certain conditions. If it's once in a hundred year, I think most people would accept, okay, you know, six inches is okay if the — again, the health and safety of the population is not at risk. You know, if ambulances can pass, emergency vehicles can pass, well, that may be a good way to go. And that is what we are thinking about proposing. But of course it's all under consideration, because this is your plan, not ours. In terms of land development regulations, I think it's important to continue to promote the use of cluster development and try to modify the Land Development Code to apply certain concepts that tend to reduce the amount of impervious area. For example, modifying the road width for some residential streets in some cases from 20 feet to 16 feet. It's not a large inconvenience, but at the same time just think about the length of minor roads that you have in the county. And so think about the significant reduction in impervious area that you achieve by just doing that. I think the -- we think that those road widths should be modified and the width should be based on the actual average daily traffic. If there is very little traffic you can accept a narrower road. It's probably a good idea to take a look at the lot setbacks. In some cases zero lot lines may be feasible as long as you don't have directly connected impervious areas. I think that could be implemented and promote cluster development. And I had mentioned that we will be making some recommendations in terms of zoning. And this is just general, not only for Collier County. And it's believed that large lot zoning is an answer to preventing environmental degradation. We recognize that it's a good way to control the discharge of runoff, or the excess volume of runoff. But it's got limitations. It increases the cost of development because you need to extend utilities. The road lengths to reach those areas is generally larger. The more roads, the larger the pollution load. It promotes the use of septic tanks as opposed to centralized systems. So there are several problems that could be -- that are related to large lot zoning. And those may be avoided by promoting again cluster development. Now, when you do zoning, we believe that instead of basing the zones exclusively on -- basically on population density, they should also be based on the extent of impervious areas. So the zones should indicate both acceptable density as well as acceptable or maximum acceptable extent of these directly connected impervious areas. In summary, there are opportunities to modify the current regulations. The objective would be to implement this sustainable stormwater management program in that through the application of low impact development concepts and by various methods, including promoting cluster development. So with that, if you have any questions. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Before we get into questions, I would like to get the input from the community of those residents that are here to speak, and then have your -- have Mac respond to those to the extent needed. And then this Board may have basically a full concept to ask questions from, while some may be answered by responding to the public. So if that's okay with the Board members, then we'll proceed with -- I think Marcia Cravens during break asked me if she could have a few moments to speak to us. Marcia, I ask that because there are other people that now have to speak, we try to be succinct in our discussion. MS. CRAVENS: I will try to be succinct and still try and get my points across. Hi, Marcia Cravens. I'm a full -time Collier County resident. My background is that I worked as a registered nurse for over 20 years, so I'm very concerned about wellness. However, I've always been an ardent environmental supporter and conservation supporter. I am a Florida Master Naturalist for coastal systems. And I watched the presentation on television that went before the EAC yesterday, and I observed the comments by Nicole Ryan and also the gentleman that's here today from Golden Gate Estates, as well as the EAC members. And then I later last night attended the public meeting where this presentation was also done and made some of my own comments at that time. One of my concerns is that I'm a full -time resident and taxpayer. It's taxpayers that are paying for this project. And it seems to me that there's something fundamentally wrong with where the focus is here. The focus Page 69 of 85 October 7, 2010 seems to be towards future development and rural areas when the vast majority of the taxpayers funding this are in the urban areas, in existing development with existing problems such as the TMDL's and impaired waters. Also, I have to inform you that I've been following the United States EPA conceptual information on watershed management online, and I've obtained a CD a couple of years ago of watershed management that has something called the watershed academy, which anybody in Collier County can go to, it's linked on a Collier County government website. I would encourage all of you to take a look at it. You can go through that information and get a really good handle on what the federal government considers watershed management in a day or less. And the thing that strikes me is something that Nicole Ryan and Jennifer Hecker and also Bradley Cornell, who was at last night's meeting all commented on, and that's stakeholder involvement. It seems to me that we kind of tend to go about things in the wrong process here, where we put stakeholder involvement at the tail end. And my feeling is it needs to be at the front end. And when you look at the conceptual information from the United States EPA, which the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has to be compliant with the federal EPA, and Collier County having to be compliant with Florida DEP, in a sense what you really have to understand is that Collier County has to be compliant with the United States EPA, because that's where (sic) the Clean Water Act, and that's what all of this is predicated on is the Clean Water Act. But on the U.S. EPA websites where they provide a great deal of information, and they provide media in a lot of different forms, training tools, there's all kinds of public information that's readily available for anybody's use free of charge. But they very much -- the concept very much wants the stakeholder, the citizen participation and involvement at the front end. They are the ones who are affected. We're the county, you know. We're paying for this. We're the ones who are affected by the water quality and we're the ones that want to have good water. So the TMDL's and the numeric nutrient standards, the impaired waters rule, all these things are all meant to meet the Clean Water Act and to be compliant with it and to provide safe drinking water to meet the purpose and use of the classes of water body. And Jennifer touched on that a little bit. I don't know if you're all familiar with the four classes, the main classes of water. One was drinking water, two is essentially fishable, swimmable, suitable for shellfish harvesting. Three tends to be the boating use within our waterways. Four is -- might be waterways that are utilized by wildlife but that is not safe for human use. And I don't really want to see standards lowered. I mean, those are good water classifications. And I really don't want to see site specific standards used that actually lower the water quality within our neighborhoods and our water bodies. They need to be consistent with the purpose and use. And I do think there needs to be some tweaking. For instance, a mangrove estuarine area, the nutrients and dissolved oxygen there, you can't just put that on a flat level and say well, it's this amount all the time, because it fluctuates and it needs to be taken into consideration. And I do think that we need to bring the stakeholders in. And we need to do it before there are finished projects. This point at which projects are being recommended, I certainly support some of these projects, particularly the ones that would like to bring in more retention and detention areas where they've been lost. And if they're within wetlands, I would want to know that there are not going to be negative impacts to the existing flora and fauna in those wetlands. I think yes, rehydrate them, but let's be sure that we're not ending up with a net negative impact. The state of Florida has developed comprehensive Everglades restoration plans that haven't been mentioned here. I've heard Southwest Florida Feasibility Study but I haven't heard anything about CERP. And CERP exists. And it's not just for the Everglades, it can be used in our waterway areas as well. There's something called conceptual ecological management. And it's guidelines that can be used. What they do is they recognize that individual water basins, subbasins and water bodies need to be looked at independently. And that's a little bit of what those WBID's are supposed to be. I think they still need to be tweaked a little bit. But again, the stakeholders need to be involved in that process. The stakeholders should be involved in determining the boundaries of the WBID's and the water bodies in their neighborhoods. They should be involved in reaffirming what those water body purpose and uses are. And actually I don't know if this project is familiar with new water rules that Florida DEP just came out with Page 70 of 85 October 7, 2010 in early December, but what they said was these water classes that I spoke about that are based on use are actually based on attainable use, not just historic use and not just current use, but attainable use. And those water bodies don't necessarily have to be achieving those uses today. For instance, if it is a Class 2 water body that is -- should be fishable, swimmable and suitable for shellfish harvesting, that does not mean that you have to be able to harvest shellfish from those waters today. It means -- and it's attainable use. And we would hope that if we've lost that use that we can put into place some projects whereby we can resume and at some point reattain those uses. I did speak with the consultants and Mac Hatcher last night about, you know, addressing the stakeholders and that I feel that largely our citizenship is unaware of all of this. When I talk with people about water quality issues and WBID's or TMDL's in Pelican Bay, they're learning what it means, because the mangrove action group has done a big push, and we've been very involved in best management practices, advocacy, and it is one great neighborhood that really embraces trying to be harmonious with nature and trying to have a low impact, the LID, being a low impact development. And I believe that most if not all of our neighborhoods within Collier County, if they were educated and informed, would be the same way. I think we have homeowners associations in most if not all of our neighborhoods. And there's leadership within each of those homeowner associations. And most if not all of Collier County consists of areas that have MSTU's or MSTBU's whereby the citizens provide non -ad valorem assessments to address these issues. But they need to know what the issues are. They need to be informed and educated and solicited for input and feedback. And, you know, my request here is that this watershed management step back. I would agree with Jennifer Hecker, with Nicole Ryan and with Bradley Cornell, that we really need stakeholder involvement. At this point we should not go forward with proceeding on projects until after you've had significant stakeholder input. And I hope that's done on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis and that there is massive public education. If you take a look at the EPA's website you'll see that education, the tools are already there. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. And Ray, 'I know we have some public speakers, but since there's only three members of the public here, I'm just going to ask you all to come on up one at a time to the extent that you want to speak and let's move forward. Tim? MR. NANCE: Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Commission, thank you much for your courtesy. I am here today -- my name is Tim Nance. I am representing Golden Gate Estates Area Civic Association, and the members and residents in the Golden Gate Estates area. And I want to talk to you just a little bit about our involvement and concerns in watershed management planning and kind of where we've gone in the past year. Residents in Golden Gate Estates and the Estates Civic came to the conclusion well over a year ago that many forces were coming together that were going to greatly impact our community, which is the Golden Gate Estates area and Collier County as a whole. And we began to become very actively engaged in that, through a series of meetings and letters that we sent out and people that we met with in an attempt to try to gain some idea on what could be done to improve watershed management in Golden Gate Estates and ensure the wellbeing of both the water supply, surface water and also to manage stormwater. Through our conversations with the Big Cypress Basin, we were invited to attend the strategic planning meetings for Big Cypress Basin for their 10 -year strategic plan in February of this year, and we went out and very carefully considered what we thought were some major points and we delivered letters to them and presented at their meeting. We also were very pleased that Mr. Ricardo Valera from the South Florida Water Management District hosted a multi- agency meeting in his office at our request in the month of May, which had representatives from South Florida Water Management District in West Palm Beach, the Big Cypress Basin, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and also Collier County at that time CDES members Jerry Kurtz and Mac Hatcher were there at the time. In those discussions and in a follow -up letter that we sent, we outlined some of our concerns. And basically what we were trying to get our head around was the fact that if we continued at build -out with the current methodology that was taking place, we were convinced that there was going to be an increase in the risk of future Page 71 of 85 Qctober 7, 2010 flooding and property damage in Golden Gate Estates, correspondingly loss of water quality not only in Golden Gate Estates but in Collier County and in all watersheds south of Golden Gate Estates area, and that we were really looking for somebody to lead the charge for a realistic functional and affordable approach to flood management and watershed management in Golden Gate Estates. Well, when we looked at it, we evaluated all the different agencies that were involved and we determined that we were being -- that the people that had input were a large collection of permitting, operating and regulatory agencies, all of which seemed to have very little coordination. All of them seemed to have what they figured were their own purview or their own impact into this issue, but they didn't seem to be working in a coordinated manner that we could determine. It seemed like what we had was we had a division of labor kind of like what Henry Ford envisioned. We had an assembly line method but nobody knew what it was that they were putting together. They were working on one part of it but they didn't know what kind of an outcome they were going to have. And those agencies included South Florida Water Management District in West Palm Beach, who has their goals and objectives, not to be confused with the Big Cypress Basin, which is a sub -unit of them but they don't seem to play well in the same sandbox from time to time; Florida DEP; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Collier Soil and Water Conservation District; and several agencies of Collier County government, including Collier County Stormwater, Collier County Transportation, and now the group that's putting together this Watershed Management Plan. Well, when we distilled all this together, we came to the conclusion that nobody wanted to take responsibility for Golden Gate Estates. And of course every time I show up at a meeting and I mention Golden Gate Estates, somebody says, well, you know, that never should have been built and it's just an awful thing, and it's destroying the countryside and everything else. But the fact remains is that today Golden Gate Estates is in the center of your county, it represents approximately 80 square miles, 50,000 acres, and some day it's going to be home to 50,000 people, or you can go to some different estimates, they'll tell you 50,000, 80,000, whatever. It's here to stay. I don't think it's going away. And it is constantly the red - haired stepchild, or the elephant in the middle of the room, or whatever you want to call it. But all of these groups that I named walk around -- like when you mention Golden Gate Estates, they all go like this. And they all will tell you that it's not their responsibility. And we're very concerned. And we think it's going to have a quite negative impact on the Watershed Management Plan. If you notice some of these projects, and you looked on a map, you'll notice that they kind of went in a circle and there was this void in the center. That's what they call north Golden Gate Estates. So I certainly do not think that it's Mac Hatcher's or these consultants' responsibility to resolve this issue. It certainly wasn't in their scope of work. I do not want to minimize the work that they've done or the projects they've come up with. But what I will say at this time, that out of a Watershed Management Plan, if we're working on something, what is needed is what we don't have, and that is a comprehensive surface and stormwater management plan for Collier County. I don't see how we can ignore Golden Gate Estates and I don't see how we can possibly manage water quality issues when we cannot get our head around water quantity issues. Most of the water quality issues, if you sleuth it back upstream, you're going to find out it's related directly to the fact that you're either applying too much water or not enough water to whatever natural systems you're trying to manage. And unfortunately for all of us outside of some of our more pristine and less impacted areas in the eastern part of the County, we have to come to grips with the fact that our watershed is now a fully managed system. And with more management comes more responsibility. The more you manage it, the more responsibility you have. We were very pleased to meet with these gentlemen the other day at their presentations. What I would like to do today is I would like to share with you very briefly, and I don't want to extend an already long day for you, but I want to talk about five bullet points that we carne up with and concerns that we have for our community. And I also want to add a few suggestions that we have. A very wise man said, told me multiple times, if you're going to stand up and complain about something, you're going to say something's wrong, you better be ready to propose some solutions. So I will also do a little bit of that. But I will tell you the five things -- the basically topics that we wanted to talk about. A thing that overlies almost everything we're doing is the fact that we need a wetland mitigation system that mitigates within our own functional drainage basin. Page 72 of 85 October 7, 2010 Collier County is almost 100 percent inside the Big Cypress Basin. That's why we're fortunate enough to have a division of South Florida Water Management District for its management. We're in one drainage basin. However, a great deal of the mitigation that we do in our county is sent to a mitigation bank in Lee County, which means that we're not doing ourselves any good. South Florida Water Management, in my opinion -- I'll get myself in trouble again -- but I think for their own selfish economic reasons want to sell their mitigation bank up in Lee County. And what is it doing? It's putting us increasingly, our watershed at risk. We can't tolerate this. We need to do something about that. One of the things that we can do, and has been proposed by Transportation Division, is to develop some systems for mitigation for transportation elements and transportation infrastructure within our own county. Golden Gate Estates Area Civic Association supports that, and we think that we ought to have a dialogue to open up the opportunity for mitigation in our own county. We certainly want to continue and hope that we get, even though our community is not a permitted community, we would like to make sure that we always receive an evaluation and analysis of development permit applications that are adjacent to and impact Golden Gate Estates. We're surrounded by potential and future development, and we want to make sure that we understand the impact to Golden Gate Estates. Why is that important to the county? Because Golden Gate Estates and its 50,000 acres is a major, major recharge area for municipal water for all Collier County. It's where the wellfields are located. It's where there could possibly be some aquifer storage and recovery enhancement. That's never been really looked into. But, I mean, it is -- it's important. It's the hole in the donut of the county. And certainly we hope that some of our suggestions, if this Water Management Plan is going to consider regulatory and policy issues, we would certainly like there to be more focus on consideration of surface water management and flood mediation issues and concepts that can complement and maximize the efficiency of our limited primary drainage system. The only water utility we have right now is Big Cypress Basin. The only thing they touch is the primary water system -- the primary drainage system, excuse me. Collier County Stormwater runs around and deals with ditches and secondary and tertiary, but Big Cypress Basin handles our primary drainage system. And they've made it very clear that we're pretty much maxed out on that. So we have to enhance other things. Suggestions and discussions that we would like to open up coming from Estates Civic is opening up the concept of on -site water retention in Golden Gate Estates. Current Collier policy discourages the digging of ponds or any water retention in Golden Gate Estates. We think that this on -site water retention is an opportunity that's being missed. Secondly, we would like to see an incentive program for lot consolidation, particularly in the eastern portion of northern Golden Gate Estates. Why do I say that? Out in the eastern part of northern Golden Gate Estates there resulted in thousands of acre - and -a- quarter lots where larger parcels were divided. There's thousands of them. If all those were to turn into homes, at build -out I think it would be disaster relating to the number of septic tanks that would have to go in, the amount of fill that's going to go in, the amount of runoff that's going to be pushed out. Certainly the flood elevation is going to be raised just by the fact that we're going to have that many more house pads out in that area. So I think that there's an opportunity to talk about incentivizing lot consolidation. Another thing that we could possibly look into would be a transfer of development rights program for wetlands lots in appropriate areas of the Estates where we could gain -- help foster reestablishment of some of the flowways, similar to what's been proposed by Collier Soil and Water Conservation District, to let some of those people out of lots that are unbuildable. There's no reason, I don't think, why we couldn't have a transfer program to give those people development credits where they could then convey those wetlands lots to an agency for better use and hopefully better flood control and water storage. Finally, we're certainly interested in protection of the limited potable water supply, not only for ourselves as Estate residents, but also Collier County as a whole. Finally, you know, we've got significant events right now that are impacting all of these and feeding all back together one on another, and that is the FEMA flood maps and insurance issues that are going to go on and the potential restudy of the Golden Gate Estates Area Master Plan. All of those things need to be brought together, including, you know, if they restudy the Rural Fringe Mixed Use District, and with things that they do in the Rural Page 73 of 85 October 7, 2010 Lands Stewardship Area, this all is going to impact Golden Gate Estates. It's all surrounding, abutting and adjacent to that big 50,000 acres. So thank you very much for allowing me to make these comments. These gentlemen have asked to meet with us and talk to us about some of our ideas. We certainly appreciate it. We appreciate any opportunity to input and open discussions. We're not experts, but we do have many professionals that live in Golden Gate Estates and have a personal interest. And you may hear from a couple other of those that have specific input. But thank you so much for your consideration. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Tim. Mike or Peter, either one of you? MR. RAMSEY: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Michael Ramsey. I am a resident of Golden Gate Estates. I am the president of Ramsey, Inc. Ecological Consulting. I've been working in the South Florida area for the last 30 years, specifically in wetlands and permitting and agricultural and anything that has to do with water, wetlands, and permitting with Water Management District and DER I'm also the vice president of the Golden Gate Estates Area Civic Association, and I'm also on a little group called the Water Symposium of Florida, Inc., which you might have heard about. We did some median demonstration projects, which has to do with some of the things that PBS &J was talking about. We did two demonstration projects, one in Marco Island, and one in Everglades City you might want to go look at because it invokes some of the concepts these gentlemen were talking about. I'm here today representing the Estates Civic Association but Pve spent a lot of time doing permitting, permitting agriculture, studying endangered species and trying to bring all that together. The whole thing about permitting is taking all these essential components and trying to bring them together. Now my main concern today with this whole thing with the watershed planning study that I'm seeing in front of me, these guys are doing the work they're supposed to be doing, what they've been told to do. I don't think they've been told enough to do. I think there is a lacking in direction in the path they should be on. Number one, before we get started in this, you need to know these two components about surface water management. There will never, ever be another canal dug transferring water from the uplands to the ocean. That will never, ever happen again, never. Number two, in all those areas that had canals, from now on all water that has to do with drainage or surface management will have to be land stored. It cannot drain off the property into the ocean. That's out. Now the second issue you need to know is that in the South Florida Water Management District there are two basins. South Florida Water Management District starts north of Okeechobee and goes all the way to the east -south tip of the Everglades. The two basins of Collier County is in what is called the Big Cypress Basin. It makes up almost that entire area. The Big Cypress Basin is Collier County except for a few little pieces. Everything else under Water Management District rule is called the Okeechobee basin and is considered to be hydrologically isolated for Everglades function. And Big Cypress Basin in Collier County is hydrologically isolated just for us. We're not a part of that system. All the water that falls on Collier County does not drain into the Everglades. Just the way it is. It's been proven. And that's the reason the Water Management District has those two classifications. Now, in this issue that I look at, I'm out in the field all the time. I have empirical data or empirical knowledge. I watch the system's function, I go out and look at the animals, I look at the wetlands and I watch what happens after we build projects. In this issue water quantity is the most important. In this issue we have to deal with how to deal with water quantity or surface water management. We have to move the water, store the water, detain the water, retain the water before you can do anything with water quality. The primary issue fast is managing the quantity of water, then you deal with water quality issues. Because you can't deal with water quality until after the infrastructure is built. So once you understand this, the thing that seems to be lacking or most important here is we need a -- on a countywide basis a countywide surface water management system, which I don't see any attempt to try to do that. Now, to understand this, like it was said before, we have three primary agencies/departments that deal with countywide -- deal with surface water management in Collier County. South Florida Water Management District via BCB. Now, the BCB, the Big Cypress Basin, is only charged with the management of primary drainage canals and the maintenance of those canals. They have no other function in this county. You need to know that since they were Page 74 of 85 October 7, 2010 created they receive 14 to 15 million dollars a year to manage those canals. Now, me saying that, I want to bring up the point that this is your in- place, non - functioning stormwater utility. They need to do a little more. But because of the separations of powers that be, that's kind of been left out of the equation. Then there's Collier County. They do not deal with primary, they deal with secondary and tertiary stormwater issues. The other one that's overseeing some of this is the South Florida Water Management District permits projects out of Fort Myers, not in coordination with BCB. And we've got all these little projects around subdivisions and other stuff permitted by the Water Management District that are like little islands in the ocean. They're permitted for their little area but the rest of the county area is not taken care of. So -- and what I'm saying is I'm putting forth the idea that Collier County needs to step up and take control of the entire area and manage it and tell the Water Management District what they need to do. Now, in this issue as I'm presenting it, Collier County needs to step up and do that. And the very fast objective under this goal is that the protection of human life and private property should be the first objective in developing a countywide program. Water quantity will be second because people that came to this county and got a building permit under the right conditions, and it was issued legally, they have this -- they have acquired this right. They have depended on Collier County to provide them stormwater, surface water management to protect their private property. This is also an issue when it comes back to septic and drainage systems. If you've gone through and correctly got all your permits, then there's a responsibility from the county to help manage that surface water system. I don't see that present in some of these discussions. Now, my second concern and what I've seen before is to develop a countywide surface water management system. The way I was taught to do to develop projects in biology, ecology and that kind of issue is that we would define an objective first, then I would go do an inventory. After I did the inventory, I would assess the status of the items I found in my inventory and I would compare it to my objective. The third step would be I would define the limitations of what it would take to overcome those limitations to achieve the objective, and then I would implement projects to do that. Then the last step would be you monitor those projects to see how you did both functionally and economically. Well, I'm not seeing that here because of the separation of the components. What I think you should do first, because I've seen projects set out like this before, and this is the way we do permitting for large ag. projects. I have to go out and do an inventory of the area I'm in and determine what is the existing natural flow systems and flowways and water systems. I don't see that here. What I did see was they went out and picked up an existing inventory done by DEP and the Water Management District. And I can tell you now in that inventory of watersheds and systems, there's already a discrepancy between the two agencies as to what the boundaries are, and I cannot -- and they've going to maintain their difference. I've heard of a functional watershed and a traditional watershed. Now so's you understand a watershed, a watershed is an area of the ground where all the rainfall hits it and it all drains to one collective point. That's a watershed. The two agencies have a difference on that. So what should be done, I thought, is you do a predevelopment watershed inventory and function. Then you do a current inventory of existing function. And then you determine, you assess the limitations of the difference between the two so that you understand what's going on. , Now doing that you may come up with different basins and watersheds different from the two agencies, because if you're more detailed in your local, you may come up with a more customized practical functional situation. I don't think I've seen that done. Now, once you've done your inventories, you come back and you prioritize your problem areas. I don't see problem areas prioritized. I actually think the problem areas are almost everything west of the ag. areas. Golden Gate west is where all the flooding occurs, not east. So you prioritize yourself to the west side. To me the problem areas over the last 20 years has been the Estates, North Naples, East Naples, Everglades City. I don't see any projects addressing the real problems with flooding. Page 75 of 85 October 7, 2010 So after you've done that, to me the last part is — and I see where a real lacking is here on that -- to seek solutions, you need to get a group together that combines all the problems. Now, here's all the problems as I understand it. Stormwater management, surface water management, mitigation, aquifer storage, wildlife, FEMA insurance. We might have got a break on that if we have had a better system in place. Floodplain protection. These are all tied together. I don't know if they're talking to each other. And long term infrastructure and maintenance and cost seems to be very important and stuff, giving it back to the residents. So that's kind of the area where I see that this thing kind of needs to be going, and it kind of lacking in that. And more time might be needed for that. Now, the more input is needed to develop solutions. I think to bring all that together. And at this time I think proposed projects and regulations are a little premature at this stage. I feel like we're just starting to get into this and trying to figure our system out. So here's some of the problems that have to be addressed that's going to come up as we do this. One of the things I know that's a current problem right now is issues of impervious surface. Surfaces that we build are put down that rainfall cannot absorb through to go to the groundwater. As was expressed before, the current mitigation banking system set up by the Water Management District is putting impervious surface in what I call a functional watershed, especially south of 846 and west of 29, is putting impervious surfaces in there but mitigating for the functional loss of storage and habitat outside the watershed, and outside the county. Now here's a great example of that. Lely development was built under Water Management District permits and they had to pay for mitigation for wetlands. In the last five years they had to go back in after that permitting and build an additional surface water management system called LAS1P, Lely area stormwater improvement system. Okay, so now we've paid twice. This has got to stop. This is not good management of resources or funds. Also in this study is kind of leaving out — I know for a fact Marco Island is dependent on the Henderson Creek canal for raw water supply to their municipal water. They depend on the water coming down that canal, goes in there, is pumped down to Marco utilities and processed. That's a big issue with this. And so in last and kind of bringing it all together, I don't think there's a need for stormwater utility. I think there's a need for existing operations to have a very stern talking to and be brought into line for the residents' benefit, because the operations are there, they're just not coordinated. And so with that, I thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mike, thank you very much. And I think it's an opportunity now to give Cherie' -- oh Peter, did you have -- I didn't know if you -- MR. DeGOLIAN: I have a real, real short statement. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, go ahead. Then we're going to take a break and then we'll come back and finish our comment. MR. GADDY: Peter Gaddy, president of the Golden Gate Estates Area Civic Association. Based on what I've heard here, based on a review of the Comprehensive Plan and the specific objectives which the Watershed Management Plan is supposed to meet, from what I can see, they've only met two of the seven so far. This is scheduled to go before the BCC for approval in December. I've also heard that there's been no stakeholder input so far. So I think it's impossible to complete the proposed schedule. And I would concur on Jennifer's recommendation that a six -month delay in this process or a six-month extension should be put in place so that the required elements of the plan can be completed. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you, Peter. Okay, when we come back from break, the Planning Commission will begin its discussion and comments. We're going to try to wrap the meeting up today by 5:00. So with that in mind, we need to finish a little before 5:00 with our comments and be done. So let's come back at 10 after 4:00 and resume. (A recess was taken.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, everybody, welcome back from break. If you'll please take your seats we'll resume and try to finish up. Mac, I'd like to ask a question of you. What were you expecting out of this commission today? MR. HATCHER: A dialogue, discussion, education. Page 76 of 85 October 7, 2010 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, I think you provided a lot of education, you and members of the public who were patient enough to sit here all day. And that's one of the better points of today is that we did get I believe a fairly good education. So that the documentation that you sent us on Friday, all five or 600 pages of it may now make some sense when we go to read it, which I think will help us to get to the final product. We had a lot of input today, and I think the best thing we could probably get for the Planning Commission now is to provide you with comments rather than as many questions. I think statements might be helpful based on all we heard. There are probably a slew of questions from what I've seen on the Power Point presentations you provided, I've got a whole page of them, but I'm not sure they're as relevant as getting a feeling on what this Planning Commission thinks as a whole based on the input we've had from the public and your people today. So why don't we start with that. Does anybody on the Planning Commission wish to open it? Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: You betcha. Appreciate very much all of the effort that you put into the program. But I will tell you that I got the distinct impression, especially after having listened to The Conservancy's representative, that I think that the charge or the scope might either have been lost or may have not been as complete as we would have hoped once you hear it all. And I've listened carefully to the public and I will tell you that I think we are at the beginning point rather than anywhere near the end. I must tell you that The Conservancy's Power Point was so strong and effective and so clear as to what needed to be done that I think that we would not be wrong to seek to have them work with your consultants, work with yourself, and have members of the community who understand what is needed to have that begin the process. Now, it can be accelerated, because a lot of the work has been done. And it may only be nuance here and a tease there, but it needs to come back where I, for sure, and I sense others would feel a lot better if it was more coherent and more clear for the purpose of the clarity of the water and the genuinely cleanliness of the water, and the future of that water. And that really is where it's at. An awful lot of work has been done, shouldn't be thrown away. That's not where rm going. But I think the combination of the stakeholders helping out, moving it around a little bit here and there will go a long way. Thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, anybody else? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I do. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer then -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Ladies first. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: -- Ms. Ahern. Okay, Ms. Ahern. COMMISSIONER AHERN: I do have one question in terms of the implications if this is not completed by the end of the year. MR. HATCHER: The deadline is somewhat self - imposed. It is a policy in the CCME. DCA, when we went through the amendment process in, what was it 2005, 2006, kind of pushed us towards that deadline. If everybody is working towards an end, that deadline may not be something that anybody argues about. But we've committed to it, we'd like to try and shoot for it. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Schiffer? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Yeah, Mac, and it really goes back to the memo that's our objective today. And I really -- these are interesting things, but I'm not sure we got near them. First one was select an appropriate hydrologic- hydraulic model. So what are we going to use for a model? Is that MIKE SHE or whatever that is -- MR. HATCHER: Right. The MIKE SHE, Mike 11 model that the Big Cypress developed in 2000, 2001 was used for the Picayune Strand Restoration Plan, has been updated with new data for all components. And that's what we're using to base our quantity estimates with. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So we will then, as we're dealing with development projects in the future, be able to plug into that and see the cause and effect, essentially Sim City with the MIKE SHE model; is that right? MR. HATCHER: Correct. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That's good. The next one, select appropriate performance measures to evaluate alternate land use in land management scenarios. Is that something we have the ability to do that, or -- Page 77 of 85 October 7, 2010 MR. HATCHER: Well, we have proposed performance measures to address water quantity, aquifer storage, land use and water quality. So we think we do have performance measures that will be useful to identify gains and benefits of the projects. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay, because essentially I think my impression of a watershed management plan is, you know, we drop a drop of water, we know where it's going, we know the trail it's going to take to the sea or be absorbed in the ground and be evaporated. But -- so do you think we, when we study these projects -- because what we're looking at as the Planning Commission, we want to be able to judge PUD's, judge projects within the scope of this Watershed Management Plan. So you think we have that ability now and you'll be able to make those recommendations? MR. HATCHER: Yes. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. HATCHER: Yeah, we can quantify the benefits by watershed with the model. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: The next one's essentially the same thing. Okay, I mean, because I think again, what we imagined the thing to be is a tool that we could use so that we could see -- you know, the volume of water I think is really important. We have some decisions, especially in Golden Gate. I mean, just the mention of a pad scares me in terms of where water management's going to be in those areas that are blocked in by roads and stuff. So at that micro level of a block in Golden Gate is the model picking up the data in there? So that if someone's coming in for a permit is going to stick a couple of pads, you know what that's going to do in the area. MR. HATCHER: The model is a regional model. It's intended to look at watersheds or basins. It's not intended to look at a single - family residential lot. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: What is the small -- so it's -- okay, so it's not -- MR. HATCHER: It's for large projects. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Can you give me a, you know, where it drops off? I mean, 10 -acre PUD, it's handy? MR. HATCHER: 50 acres is good. COMMISSIONER SCHiFFER: Okay. So if we're studying something, 50 acres, we will know what water's coming into that now, what water's leaving that now and be able to design and study a project and how it affects that? MR. HATCHER: We will. When you get a stormwater permit application, they typically will come in with a model that's developed for the size project that they've got. So for the individual projects, a lot of times those individual models may be better for that situation. But for looking at the whole watershed, this regional model is a better approach. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Because wouldn't it be good if you had a 50 -acre site that you would know what water flow that site has on it today, right ?I mean, again, we didn't have time to look through all this stuff. But some of the stuff 1 did look through, you showed historical and you showed current and you showed the differences. It's kind of difficult to see. But the impression I got, that this watershed we would be able to -- or a developer or somebody doing a study would know what water is coming into that land, if there's a sheet flow problem or something like that, and that they could deal with that and essentially keep it in the natural form. MR. HATCHER: The individual grid cells that the analysis is performed on are 1500 feet by 1500 feet. So you can tell from one cell to the next which way the water moves and what happens to it. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Okay. MR. HATCHER: So what you're asking there is you would be able to see the flows on a 50 -acre project. But this might not be the best model to do the analysis with them. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Within that. So the micro from that, you would take this data and then use something else to go down. MR. HATCHER: Right. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm through. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Anybody else? MR. DeGOLIAN: Peter DeGolian. I'd like to just make a comment on that. Because the models as it's currently set up is covering almost the entire Collier County. So we used a relatively large grid cell to get modeling Page 78 of 85 October 7, 2010 efficiencies. Now, we do have the ability to make the model zoomed in where you're using a much smaller grid scale size. So we could go down to, instead of 1,500 feet maybe a 500 -foot grid cell size of something if we needed to. It would be a separate model that's cut out of the larger model and then, you know, at a much smaller area, but we could, you know, refine that to look at more detail within a smaller area if we needed to. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: With the model, let's say we had a major rainstorm in eastern Collier, would that be able to protect a sheet flow through the county all the way down until it jumps in the Gulf? MR. DeGOLIAN: Yes, sir, it sure would. I mean, the model encompasses the overland flow routines, the infiltration into groundwater, movement through groundwater and resurfacing into the canal network. So we would be able to track. And we could do an individual water droplet if you wanted and track its movement throughout the county. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That's good. I'm good, thank you. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Melissa? COMMISSIONER AHERN: Can we get some feedback from staff or the consultants in reference to some of the comments made by the public? MR. HATCHER: Anything in particular? COMMISSIONER AHERN: Well, the fact that it's not addressing a lot of the issues that are current. We also heard that we're not meeting DEP and federal guidelines. The fact that nothing's being done within Golden Gate Estates. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: One of the elements of the discussion from everybody we heard, and members of the public, was that there hasn't been enough time to deal with this from a stakeholder's viewpoint. And after 10 years of waiting for it, to rush it through now seems kind of silly. And the reason that I didn't approach this with a rebuttal to the public's side of it was simply because if we recommend that an extension of time is the most reasonable outcome, then those issues would be what that focus would be for the next six months. And maybe that helps you respond, because I don't know if you can, in the little bit of time we have left today, respond to -- I've got a page of issues the public brought up. And I agree with Melissa, they've got to be addressed. But I see the solution that this Board could propose was the six -month extension recommended and the demand that you perform stakeholder meetings in various localities of the county that are affected most. And one of the those in particular, and I heartily agree with Tim Nance's presentation and Mike Ramsey's arguments about Golden Gate Estates. It is just sitting there in the middle of everywhere. And to hear some of your recommendations that show how illogical some of them him are in regards to how unprepared you are to know the local environment. To do away with big lots. No, you can't. We have got big lots. The basis should be how do we deal with 80 square miles of big lots, not do away with them, because that isn't going to happen. How do we deal with them. Clustering, well, it's a good idea but we've just about clustered all the county's provisions we god. We got the urban area, we've got the RLSA. I've not heard you even discuss how you've coordinated with the Van Buskirk model that this county paid nearly $300,000 for. And I would love to see your plan overlaid with theirs, showing how the buildout of the towns and the road corridors in the outlying areas are going to affect your plan. I heard no discussion on thoroughfares and the corridor plans that Nick is going to grid all across -- if Nick and Norm had their way, we'd have six lanes roads throughout this whole county every 10 feet apart. But that's a reality. They are planning major road thoroughfares fares. I think as a Board that's the kind of stuff we need to see to help understand where the public's concerns are. And maybe within a six month time frame those concerns will 50 percent go away, 70 percent go away or at least be mitigated by enough conversation and back and forth that hey, we got a way to work this out, we can live with this. I think, Melissa, to answer your question as to responding to the public, I wasn't -- and they can still respond, I don't know if they can adequately in the time we have left. And I think the consensus of this Board ought to be six months more and the stakeholders demand — COMMISSIONER AHERN: That was my thought in asking what the implications were in doing that. So if that's where we're leaning, then I just wanted to make sure we were addressing some of these issues. Page 79 of 85 October 7, 2010 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think the Board's already heading in that direction. We can't vote on it because this is a workshop, but I think our consensus is going to be along those lines. And my God, if you didn't take the hint today that you need to spend more time with some of these people that attended today. And I'm not saying you're going to come back and resolve every issue. I don't think that's possible in this government system, not just Collier County but the world as a whole. But I think that we can go a long way to meeting a lot of the criteria and concerns that were shown today and be more encompassing in all the other documents that you have to benefit from. And I mean that Van Buskirk model, if it's even a tenth of what it's supposed to be, it ought to give you a really good road map to start with and show us how it all fits together. And a visual in that regard and how you're fitting it together and then how those projects fit to an overall visual would be tremendously helpful to sell the product. And I didn't mean to jump in with my comments, but -- COMMISSIONER AHERN: Didn't mean to get you started. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yeah, well, I've been sitting here quietly holding off and I -- COMMISSIONER AHERN: It's the obvious elephant in the room and no one was bringing it up, so I wanted to make sure that -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's on the table now. Go ahead. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I have a question. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I think Donna's been patiently waiting too, she hasn't even had a fast turn yet. COMMISSIONER CARON: No, I actually was going to actually answer Melissa, so you've done that more than adequately, thank you. I don't need to. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Brad? COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: And Mac, this is the golden goose in the room. This is a private consultant. So what does this mean? We can't just -- you know, they have outcomes that they have a schedule, they have a scope of work. Is what we're asking for part of that scope of work or is this a change order? You don't just go to a consultant and say take six months longer. MR. HATCHER: You're correct. It would probably be a change order. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: So? I mean, you know -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If you're thinking -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: -- if we're telling them to take longer. If their scope of work, their deal was to meet with the stakeholders and we're telling them we don't feel you adequately met with the stakeholders, they're still within their deal and they should catch up on that. If their deal, that didn't include that, then we're writing a change order for it. And whether it's a good idea or not, it's just a fact of life. COMMISSIONER EBERT: Mark? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Diane? COMMISSIONER EBERT: I really feel that Golden Gate Estates are important. We talked about the flood maps. That's a big thing. And we're talking the water. It all kind of goes together. And I feel that we need more time and get some of these good opinions out there. You're doing 50 acres, Golden Gate Estates are, you know, five -acre lots. So I just feel that you're right, we need more time. It's very important. I happen to live in the Cocohatchee slough. They just drained my canal. And boy, we went down in water in -- it seemed like overnight. And it was not good because guess what, I don't think it's coming back this year. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, Mac, what do you feel about all this now? We've expressed ourselves, the desire for a longer period of time. Stakeholders meeting, more involvement with some other comprehensive plans that this county has, the RLSA, the transportation corridors, the Van Buskirk model. Even the soil -- you know Duke Vasey? You must know him. Okay. Duke's a mountain of information. I would suggest you get with him or his board and get input from them too. All that stuff could take time to do but it would be highly beneficial. This is not a project that's going to have a minor impact on the county, it's going to have a phenomenal impact on the county. And I think that after 10 years of being delayed, another six months isn't going to be a problem. So -- Page 80 of 85 October 7, 2010 COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I'm still worried about the deal, that's all. I mean, poor Mac's -- I mean, is he going to go back and they're going to say, okay, let's rewrite the contract after the Planning Commission? We didn't vote, remember, this is a workshop. All's we can do is give you a hunch on how we feel. (Commissioner Midney leaves the Board room.) COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: I don't know, just maybe if you have to look at that deal and see if they in fact did what they were supposed to do with the stakeholder situations. I mean, none of us have any privy to the contracts or anything. But, you know, just to say go take six months longer in a professional consultant, I'm not sure what that means. MR. HATCHER: We can have those discussions with the consultant, but we can also, and plan to, have further discussions with the stakeholders and try and resolve some of these issues so you have a little bit more comfort with them. I have never envisioned that we were going to solve all of the water issues with this study. That is a gigantic undertaking. The extent of the knowledge when we started this was not satisfactory to answer all the questions. We're further along now, the water management has more gauges in. We know a lot more about the system than we did when we started this. But we're nowhere near -- I mean, you've heard the divergent discussions on water quality. EPA and DEP are arguing about setting nutrient standards. We're not going to resolve those issues between now and December, nor are we going to resolve them in him another six months. But I think it's still worthwhile to move forward and try and resolve as many issues as we can resolve now and work towards resolving the other issues, identifying ways to work towards solutions on the other issues in the future. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mr. Murray? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Mac -- Max, I think it is. Max, correct? MR. HATCHER: Mac. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Your objective is to protect water resources and the welfare of Collier County residents by completion of the Watershed Management Plans. Now, you just said that you never envisioned it to be the total plan. Maybe you need to change your objective. Maybe when the scope of work was presented for the RFP, maybe it was a scope of work that was envisioned by you as not reaching that. But everybody that I have ever talked to relating to watershed concerns has always been concerned with taking the totality because they feel that you must look at the totality in order to appreciate what must be done. And it has to consider even what will happen parcel by parcel by parcel ultimately, because every home that's built will represent a hindrance to the flow of water and the accumulation of water. It seems that there has to be either on the part of those responsible, and I assume you are, to either change the objective to limit it or to realize what we're saying. Because quite frankly, if this came for a vote today, I certainly would not vote for what was presented as a solution. It has the elements of a solution, but it doesn't strike me that it is sufficiently broad to be a solution. MR. HATCHER: We certainly did not bring this forward as a solution. This is an initial discussion for you all. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron? COMMISSIONER CARON: Mr. Schiffer's been concerned about the contract you have with your consultants. And I would say on more than one occasion, Mr. Gaddy brought it up and I believe the other person that brought it up was Ms. Hecker, that we've only managed to plow through two of the eight things that were supposed to happen. So I don't think we have an issue with the consultants saying that they might not want another six months to get through the issues they were supposed to get through in the first place on top of additional ones that have been brought out by Commissioner Strain and members of the public. So I really don't think that should be an issue. I think extending the time period only makes sense. We set up a deadline. The reason that we set up the deadline for ourselves was because without it no one was doing anything. You weren't even beginning the discussion of these watershed management plans which were supposed to be started Page 81 of 85 October 7, 2010 back in -- after'97, with a deadline originally of 2000. And we didn't even fund them. We thought so little of having to meet that 2000 deadline, we didn't even bother to fund the process until 2007. So I think that the most important thing is to do it and do it right and do it thoroughly. And if we're going to spend any money, let's spend it wisely and get it done correctly. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Mac, it would be helpful if you would send Mr. Bellows an electronic copy of the contract and any addendums issued to date. And Ray, would you distribute that to every member of this Planning Commission, MR. BELLOWS: Would be glad to. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And then if you get a change order for any extension that is possibly coming out of today's discussion, I'd like to see that change order too. I deal with contracts every day of magnitudes equal to what the county does, so I will read that contract thoroughly. Anybody else have any other issues? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Mac, do you have adequate direction at this point? MR. HATCHER: I believe. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And by the way, all is not lost. I think it's a good progress point. And today was a good check and balance to see if the direction going needs to be refined and moved a little bit. And I think that's why you're here today. So I do want to commend your self, your staff and especially the people that worked on this at PBS &J very much for all their work they've done to date. And I think that they've got a product that through some molding we'll have a better product in six months. So all is not lost. Go ahead -- COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: When do they come back? When do we -- because it would be interesting for us to review this material and then have a conversation with you. One thing I noticed in this material, some of it's old. And it could have been fed to us maybe as it went along rather than drop a bomb on us. It would have been -- you know, we're curious enough that I think we would have enjoyed the installments. But anyway, when do we come back? I'm really interested in the program. I think the outcome of that is the most important thing to me. So I wouldn't mind following that drop of water through Golden Gate, you know, watch it go from fill road block to fill road block. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And I think to do that, it would be helpful to have more of the coordination with some of the other products we've already paid for. And I think that's really important. That visual will give the public who isn't into the minutia of the acronyms that you guys use and all the scientific data that Jennifer uses, for example, a visual of how this fits into the county's master plan. And that master plan is the one we're paying for. Why not use it. Show us how it fits to that plan. Show us how the projects that you've selected are going to have the impact that might work, versus being more focused on projects that may be contributing to the problem. So I think there's a lot of ways to go. And I think we could spend another two or three hours on questions, because I've got a whole page that would involve lengthy discussions back and forth that we don't have time for in this workshop. And I look forward to another point. If you feel it would be beneficial to have further discussion on this at a future Planning Commission meeting, by all means, get with Ray, let's get it scheduled and we'll follow up. MR. HATCHER: Well, we had intended, and I guess still intend to make another update presentation at your first meeting in November and then come back in December. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: That would be excellent. I think we would look forward to that, and that would be a better time to even bring in more questions that we have as a result of -- see, today was a learning experience, it gives us the ability to read these documents, these five or 600 pages and know what they mean more thoroughly than just reading them cold. So I think your November presentation would be an excellent idea. MR. HATCHER: We would appreciate -- the questions that you didn't ask, if you would like to submit them to us. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Oh, I'm going to. Every one of them. But thank you, Mac, we appreciate it very Page 82 of 85 October 7, 2010 much. Anybody else have any final comments to staff at this point? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: We sure appreciate your time and your patience here today, gentlemen. Thank you, and members of the public. We'll get there. Okay, we're going to come back on the 21 st and resume the Floodplain Management Ordinance that we didn't quite finish with Mr. Wiley. That's a difficult ordinance. It's going to be difficult for us. I know it's going to be difficult for staff and Robert Wiley to have to handle, because it's a distasteful subject, since it's forced on us by the federal government. No one likes it. And somehow we need to come together to make sure we have the best product we can for the people of the county. And I think we're all working to that same -- MR. BELLOWS: Yeah, I agree, it's important to have, but it's also forced regulation to have to deal with. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, there's no other -- any old business? If not, well, the only other new business is the elections of officers for the Planning Commission. And at this point we'll seek a nomination. COMMISSIONER EBERT: I make a nomination to have Mark Strain appointed as Chairman of the Planning Commission. COMMISSIONER KLEIN: Second. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: That was the same nomination I was going to make except I was going to give him the ability to pick his own officers. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I appreciate it. Donna, does that fit well with you? COMMISSIONER CARON: Works for me. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay. Well, then -- and that was my concern, because Donna's been a very good Vice Chair. And if the motion's made that way, I certainly would accept that. Thank you. COMMISSIONER EBERT: It is made that way. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: I very much appreciate it and your confidence. Thank you. And as far as I'm concerned, Donna has done a great job in being at my right hand, and I hope she would like to stay there. COMMISSIONER AHERN: She did a great job in your absence. COMMISSIONER EBERT: We noticed you were absent. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Since you have to be at my left, would you please mind taking over the Secretary's position that Bob Vigliotti had? And what that would mean is each meeting you would have to basically make sure any documentation that was supplied was given to the court reporter and you'd have to take roll call at the beginning of each meeting. Does that work for you? COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Sure. That means I have to get here a couple of minutes early so I'm not out of breath when I -- CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Yes, that's right. That's all part of it. Well, if that pleases the Board, I just as soon we set it up that way and we go forward. Is that okay with everyone? COMMISSIONER EBERT: That's fine. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Okay, seem's to be acknowledged. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Are we going to vote? CHAIRMAN STRAIN: All those in favor of the motion with those people in mind, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. COMMISSIONER EBERT: Aye, COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. COMMISSIONER KLEIN: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. Anybody opposed? COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. Page 83 of 85 October 7, 2010 CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Motion carries, what is that, 7 -1. Mr. Midney had to leave early. Okay, with that, any other discussion? Melissa? COMMISSIONER AHERN: Just one comment. And Ray, I asked staff to change it again. The e-mail address that's on your contact list is my personal e-mail, and I've asked for that to be removed. It is the Collier.gov email. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. And Ray, as soon as Barry has an e -mail, would you send that to us in the new format I assume -- MR. BELLOWS: We'll revise the contact list with the correct Collier.gov. COMMISSIONER EBERT: Mine also. MR. BELLOWS: You also. And we're going to work on getting Barry his account set up today -- or tomorrow, I guess. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: And Barry, you've got a whole pile of books possibly coming to you, orientation and all kinds of good things. COMMISSIONER KLEIN: Good. I've had a tour too -- MR. BELLOWS: We had a -- COMMISSIONER KLEIN: I'm going to go to the LDC workshop tomorrow, and I'm trying to dive in -- I'm sorry. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Cherie' takes care of us, she keeps us straight. COMMISSIONER KLEIN: We already did at least a couple hours or so. And I'm going to go to the LDC workshop. Anything you -- I've got a whole bunch of books, I almost got a hernia going up to my car. MR. BELLOWS: He's been provided the Land Development Code and the SIC Code. We're in the process of putting together the Comprehensive Plan booklet for him. And we also had all the other information that everyone typically gets, the organizational chart, the rules and regulations for the CCPC and how they operate. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: It's important too because some new members haven't realized it as they come on, the Sunshine rules in regarding discussion amongst members a#4erwords and before meetings. COMMISSIONER KLEIN: I have a date, I think is it next Thursday, I've got it right here. I'm going to a workshop on that. MS. ASHTON: It's October 13th. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Thank you. Is there any other business of the Commission? (No response.) CHAIRMAN STRAIN: If not, is there a motion to adjourn? COMMISSIONER AHERN: Motion. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Made by Melissa, seconded by -- COMMISSIONER CARON: Second. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Ms. Caron. All in favor, signify by saying aye. COMMISSIONER SCHIFFER: Aye. COMMISSIONER AHERN: Aye. COMMISSIONER CARON: Aye. COMMISSIONER MURRAY: Aye. COMMISSIONER EBERT: Aye, COMMISSIONER HOMIAK: Aye. COMMISSIONER KLEIN: Aye. CHAIRMAN STRAIN: Aye. And were adjourned. I don't think anybody's going to object to that. Page 84 of 85 October 7, 2010 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:43 p.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION MARK P. STRAIN, Chairman ATTEST: DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK These minutes approved by the Board on �tl p , as presented_ or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC. BY CHERIE' NOTTINGHAM Page 85 of 85