DSAC Minutes 04/05/2000 RApril 5, 2000
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
DEVELOPMENT SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Naples, Florida, April 5, 2000
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Development Services
Advisory Committee, in and for the County of Collier, as the
governing board of such special district as has been created
according to law and having conducted business herein, met on
this date at 3:30 p.m. in REGULAR SESSION at Conference Room
E, Horseshoe Drive, Naples, Florida, with the following members
present:
CHAIRMAN:
Dalas D. Disney
R. Bruce Anderson
Robert L. Duane
Marco A. Espinar
Brian E. Jones
Sally Lam
Dino J. Longo
Tom Masters
Thomas R. Peek
C. Perry Peeples
Herbert R. Savage
Page
April 5, 2000
STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT:
Vincent A. Cautero
David Weigel
Edward S. Perico
Ronald F. Nino
Don Murray
Michelle Arnold
Ross Gochenaur
Bob Devlin
Diane Flagg
Nancy L. Siemon
Tom Kuck
Phil Tindall
Barbara Burgeson
Fred Reischl
Kim Maheuron
Alexandra Sulecki
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April 5, 2000
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Since we have a quorum, we'll start
this meeting. Before we start, I would like to remind everybody
that we are verbatim and, please, if you're not recognized in
advance, state who you are for our recorder.
MR. SAVAGE: Wouldn't it be great if we just knew all the
folks who were here?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage, you're up.
MR. SAVAGE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
know who is in the room besides this --
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We can definitely get to that.
And, to run off here just a tad, first, are there any
modifications to the agenda?
MR. PEEK: I move approval of the agenda.
MR. SAVAGE: I second it.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Do you have any -- before we do that,
are there any modifications to the agenda?
MR. CAUTERO: Yes. Mr. Chairman, we would recommend
that you -- sorry. Slow at the switch here.
There's an item that we would ask your indulgence, provided
we have representatives from the legal staff to join us. Several
months ago the Board of County Commissioners instructed the
legal staff to work towards hiring a consultant for revisions to
the noise ordinance. And the legal staff has been working with
the Code Enforcement Director, Michelle Arnold, on some
proposed changes. The Board of County Commissioners plans to
hear this item next Tuesday, April 11th, and our staff received
the ordinance amendment draft and the executive summary late
last week, after your packets went out. It is not customary for us
to submit ordinance amendments to you at a late date like this,
and I would like to hand those out and request that you place
them on the agenda for discussion as Item VII(C} under New
Business. However, whether you discuss it or not and how
involved that discussion is is contingent upon the arrival of Tom
Palmer, the Assistant County Attorney who worked on the
ordinance. Assuming that he does come and that you do hear it, I
am going to ask you how you want to structure your agenda for
the following reason. As we discussed prior, Mr. Chairman, to
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April 5, 2000
this meeting, at 5:15 the Rural Fringe Committee has this room
reserved, but we do have another conference room reserved
which, unfortunately, is smaller. We do have several members of
the public here that wish to address you on some issues. So it's
the committee's pleasure on how you want to structure the
agenda items. The EMS and library impact fees items, VII(B}, I
anticipate will take some time, as well as the noise ordinance
amendment. The subcommittee reports shouldn't take that long,
or as long as those two items, but I'm sure that there will be
discussion on them, as there will be discussion on Item IV(A), Mr.
Devlin's update to the flood insurance rate map revision. I don't
expect all of those items to take as long as the items -- as VI(B)
and VI(C). So I just open it up for your discussion on how you
might want to restructure your agenda today, if at all.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. We've got a modification adding
Vi(C).
Tom, you moved for approval.
MR. PEEK: I was the one that made the motion. I will
accept the amendment to add VI(C). I would also suggest, in
light of the heavy schedule that we've got that we keep the
schedule in the order as published and we move as expeditiously
as possible through them.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Very good.
A motion --
MR. SAVAGE: Well, let me ask your acceptance. You're
going to accept the fact that we take VI(B) up now; is that
correct?
MR. PEEK: Wrong. My suggestion is we go I through VII
very quickly.
MR. SAVAGE: Well, we're not going to do that. And I think
it's important that -- most of the people that are here should be
heard now, and then we talk about the regular items after that.
We always seem to have everybody sit here until the last hour
when we have an item like this, and I don't think we should have
them sit here that long, unless they would like to. But I'll agree
to the amendment.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay.
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April 5, 2000
MR. SAVAGE: I never seem to get rid of the groups who
want to leave early.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: So a motion and a second.
Any other discussion on the items?
MR. DUANE: Do you think we have enough time to get
through this tonight?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Perhaps not. And it may be that we
might want to consider to continue some items to the next
meeting, depending upon where we are and if we can get through
any of the large issues here rather promptly. I think we can
move through things. My speculation is that maybe we can get
Mr. Devlin to be prompt, one or two minutes, with his update,
since we don't have any consultants here, and we can move
through issues as expeditiously as possible.
Motion and a second. All those in favor of approving the
modified agenda, say aye.
All those opposed?
(No response.)
Hearing none, it passes unanimously.
The next item is approval of the minutes of the March 1st,
2000, meeting.
Is there a motion?
MR. DUANE: So moved.
MR. LONGO: Second.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any comments?
MR. PEEK: One comment. I am listed as being present, and
I was not. I should be under the excused absence column
instead of present.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you, Tom.
Any other comments or modifications we need to make
there?
If not, all those in favor of the approval of the minutes of the
March 1st, 2000, meeting, please say aye.
Any opposed?
(No response.)
None. Before we go to staff announcements, maybe what
we will do is take Mr. Savage's suggestion and go around the
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April 5, 2000
room, and those of us who are here can identify yourselves and
what you might be here to hear or be involved with.
Marco, why don't you start us out?
MR. ESPINAR: Excuse me?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We're going to identify ourselves and
go around the room.
MR. ESPINAR: Marco Espinar, member of the Development
Services Advisory Committee.
MR. JONES: Brian Jones, also a member.
MR. MASTERS: Tom Masters, member.
MR. LONGO: Dino Longo, member.
MR. DUANE: Bob Duane, member.
MR. CAUTERO: Vince Cautero, Community Development
Administrator.
MR. PEEPLES: Perry Peeples, member.
MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage, Member.
MR. PEEK: Tom Peek, member.
MS. LAM: Sally Lam, member.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Dalas Disney, member.
MR. NINO: Ron Nino, current planning section.
MS. ARNOLD: Michelle Arnold, Code Enforcement.
MS. SULECKI: Alexandra Sulecki, Code Enforcement.
MS. MAHEURON: Kim Maheuron, Planning.
MR. ELLIS: David Ellis, Collier Building Industry Association.
MR. REISCHL: Fred Reischl, Planning Services.
MS. BURGESON: Barbara Burgeson, Planning Services.
MR. TINDALL: Phil Tindall, Collier County Impact Fee
Coordinator.
MR. TINDALE: Steve Tindale of Tindale-Oliver & Associates
to make a presentation on impact fees.
MR. KUCK: Tom Kuck, Engineering Review.
MS. SIEMON: Nancy Siemon, Current Planning.
MR. BERRINGER: Len Berringer with The Conservancy.
MR. DEVLIN: I'm Bob Devlin, Flood Plan Management
Coordinator.
MR. PERICO: Ed Perico, Building Review and Permitting
Department Director.
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April 5, 2000
MR. GUSTAFSON: Joel Gustafson from Holland & Knight.
I'm here on the telecommunications.
MR. S. GUSTAFSON: Scott Gustafson with Lodestar.
MR. GELBER: Adam Gelber with PBS&J.
MR. SOLIDAY: Ted Soliday with the Airport Authority.
MS. BLANC-HUTCHING: Sheila Blanc-Hutching, Airport
Authority.
MR. MURRAY: Don Murray, Current Planning.
MR. SICILIANO: Bruce Siciliano, Agnoli & Barber.
MR. EMMONS: Clay Emmons, Planning Review and
Permitting.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you very much. Welcome
everyone.
The next issue is Ill(A), Staff Announcements.
Mr. Cautero?
MR. CAUTERO: Under Item A as a standing item we have
the chart in your packet for the summary of ordinance
amendments and the current status. That, of course, will be
updated after actions by this committee today and the board in
the upcoming meetings in the next month. Any questions, we
would be happy to answer them.
A sign-up sheet is moving around as well.
A couple of items under Miscellaneous, if I might. We have
an updated roster with phone numbers, fax numbers and E-mails.
Sally has a new E-mail address so we revised it. As always, if
you have changes, just send them to my office and we'll update
this constantly and make the copies available for you at the
meetings.
Also, we just wanted to give you a little bit of an overview.
In the aftermath of last week's flurry of permit activity right
before the impact fee increase deadline for transportation
impact fees, the final numbers we're looking at right now for the
permits -- and Ed could probably give you a little bit of an
overview of what that means in terms of temporary turnaround
time, delays, things like that.
MR. PERICO: We took in approximately 3,600 permits this
month. That's double what we normally take in. 3,600.
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April 5, 2000
MR. SAVAGE: 3,600?
MR. PERICO: 3,600. We normally take in about 18, 1,900
permits per month. It took a little longer to actually get the
reviews done than anticipated. So far what we're seeing, some
of the applications, they are lacking a little bit of stuff, but we're
not in worse shape than we would normally be, which we
expected. Be patient with us and we'll get this stuff turned
around as quick as we can. The goal is, when it goes out of here,
it's going to be close to being right, so we're not impacting
anybody out in the field. Bear with us.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Ed, a question that has come to me
from a couple of clients, and that is, now that this has occurred,
is there a Stack A and a Stack B type approach to this where
those projects that are just in here to beat the impact fee and
have no real push to go to construction are considered any
differently than those that are just caught up in the normal
process?
MR. PERICO: The ones that came in, they all go to the back
of the pile, so to speak. And everything that was in prior to that
will be addressed before this influx.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. So anticipated time frames for
reviews?
MR. PERICO: You're still looking at probably in the
neighborhood of about eight weeks, I would say. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Eight weeks. Okay.
MR. PERICO: It's turnaround and everything else for
comments coming back.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you.
Anybody have any questions on those issues?
Dino?
MR. LONGO: On the weed and litter and exotic control
ordinance we have pending, I was just wondering what the
status was.
MR. CAUTERO: My understanding is it's going to be
discussed under Land Development Regulations Subcommittee
today. That's my understanding.
THE COURT REPORTER: Sir, I'm having trouble hearing
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April 5, 2000
those of you at the far end of the table with the projector on.
MR. CAUTERO: I know. We'll try to talk Iouder.
MR. TINDALL: We'll turn it off now and turn it on for the
presentation.
THE COURT REPORTER: Thank you.
MR. CAUTERO: Thanks. Appreciate it.
I just had one more announcement, Mr. Chairman, which
should resolve this. I learned just a few moments ago that Mr.
Palmer will not be at the meeting today. I -- my staff and I will
attempt to answer any and all questions on the ordinance
amendment, walk you through it. Michelle has been involved
with it, with the legal department, however, they are the lead
agency. I will tell you that my recommendation to the county
manager will be for the board not to hear the item next Tuesday.
However, I cannot guarantee that -- I will not feel comfortable
unless you get all the information you need to make an informed
recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you for that. Vince, obviously
we have not been privy to what that ordinance says. Are there
copies of it here?
MR. CAUTERO: I have copies of it. Since it's the last item
on your agenda, why don't I wait to hand it out?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: If we get to that point, wonderful. If
we don't, then it can come next month. Anything else? MR. CAUTERO: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Next is Old Business. Flood Insurance
Rate Maps.
Mr. Devlin, you are going to speak to us. Can you do it
briefly, in about three minutes; could you give us a little update?
MR. DEVLIN: On February 14th there was a workshop in the
City of Naples that included Collier County, Marco Island and
Everglades City. And at that workshop our consultant,
Tomasello Consulting Engineers, did his review of the flood maps
and presented his findings. And basically what he did was a
detailed overview of stormwater surge, wave set-up, wave
analysis. He had several maps, as well as the water surface
profile study that was done by South Florida Water Management.
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April 5, 2000
Basically, if we follow the recommendations and FEMA agrees to
his findings, there could be as much as a 2.5 difference in
proposed elevations. Darryl Hatheway, who is representing
FEMA and works for Dewberry & Davis, concurred with
Commissioner Constantine's comments that if there was a
question as to the validity of the information used in the study,
FEMA would be willing to work with our community. That's very
positive. So the three bodies of government agreed to support
the re-evaluation of flood studies. And the commissioners
agreed to fund the coastal study, the additional work on the
coastal study as well as the additional work that's needed for the
Golden Gate Estates study.
On March 1st we had a conference call with FEMA.
Representatives of the County, City of Naples, Marco Island and
Everglades City were there. The purpose of that call was to
deliberate technical concerns for the coastal and riverine studies
with the intent of reaching an agreement. Tomasello reiterated
his concerns about the coastal study and proposed that FEMA
accept a Sheet 2 D study, which he has authored. And so what
FEMA has asked that we do is provide a letter from the
community saying that we support that Sheet 2 D study. I have a
letter from South Florida Water Management saying that they
used that, giving details about the study and saying that they
support it 100 percent. Okay.
And on March 28 I spoke with Chris Taggert (phonetic) from
Dewberry & Davis, and there's going to be some additional work
that Tomasello needs to do to get that Sheet 2 D study accepted
by FEMA. We think we can have that done within two to three
weeks. And FEMA says that they're going to have an answer to
us by tomorrow on our recommendations on the coastal flood
study.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Wonderful. Thank you. And the FEMA
workshop you're speaking of February t4th, that is the same
meeting that we have the transcripts of in your packet this
month?
MR. DEVLIN: Yes.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Great. Thank you for the update, Bob.
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April 5, 2000
Anybody have any questions for Bob before we move on?
MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage.
MR. SAVAGE: You're saying that you might think they will
be accepting the 2.5 figure?
MR. DEVLIN:
MR. SAVAGE:
MR. DEVLIN:
MR. SAVAGE:
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Longo?
MR. LONGO: I want to reiterate and clarify that Tomasello
has been hired by all of the municipalities to continue with the
WHAFIS model and all that and that he is already sending
information up to FEMA and they are to respond to that by April
6th.
MR. DEVLIN:
work yet.
MR. LONGO:
MR. DEVLIN:
Well, that 2.5 is a general foot figure.
Yes.
It could be a foot, it could vary up to 2.5.
Up to 2.5.
No. Actually, Tomasello has not started his
Okay.
At the meeting the County and City and -- City
of Naples, Marco Island, had all agreed that they would fund
additional work. The additional work for the coastal study would
be about $20,000 and it would be split up according to the
transepts along the coastal area. And then Golden Gate Estates
would be $50,000 for that Sheet 2 D model to run.
MR. LONGO: So there '-
MR. DEVLIN: So nothing has started yet. Once we get the '-
once Tomasello gets the okay from FEMA with going with those
recommendations for the coastal study, then we should have an
answer sometime tomorrow.
MR. LONGO: And what happens if they don't accept the
Sheet 2 D study?
MR. DEVLIN: I don't know at this point. We need to '-
MR. LONGO: So they are basically responding to the
objections that we've raised saying that we don't agree with the
methodology and that, if they agree that it's out of sync, per se,
that they are going to work with us on it?
MR. DEVLIN: Right.
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April 5, 2000
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Good. Thank you very much.
MR. DEVLIN: Sure.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Appreciate it. That was information
only, no action required I believe. Okay.
Next is VI (A), subcommittee reports, land development
regulations.
Mr. Duane.
MR. DUANE: We had two meetings on the three dozen or so
amendments that were presented to us. I think there may be
some questions still remaining on a couple of amendments that
some committee members had. I suggest that we have Ron Nino
briefly go through each one. If none of these amendments are of
any interest to any board members, then perhaps we can move
over them quickly. Otherwise we have made a recommendation
in most cases.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Very good.
MR. DUANE: Mr. Nino?
MR. NINO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'll point out that in your amendments cycle package there
was a schedule of meeting dates that we are attempting to
achieve, and there is another opportunity for this committee to
wrap up the LDC amendments on May the 3rd, in the event there
are some outstanding questions. So I will begin at the top.
The first amendment has to do with an amendment to
Section 1.9.8.6, and it has to do with minimum tree sizes. Your
subcommittee recommended approval as recommended by staff.
This morning the EAC also heard that amendment and they
recommended approval as per staff. Any questions? (No response.)
The second amendment has to do with allowing retail sales
of vegetable produce with a conditional use, permitted nurseries.
That was recommended for approval by your subcommittee.
The next item deals with restructuring the business park
zoning district. We have made that a requirement for a PUD
zoning district and essentially categorized the use into principal
and accessory, with some additional uses added. However,
basically the structure remains the same. That was
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April 5, 2000
recommended for approval by your subcommittee.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Can I interrupt you for a second?
MR. NINO: Sure.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Bob, I wonder, because this is quite
lengthy, if we go through it in this process, we're going to be
here all afternoon and run over into the next meeting that we're
trying to avoid. I wonder if maybe we could hit the topics that
have not been -- have not reached conclusion by your
subcommittee or any other issues that maybe are outstanding
that people in the room might want to address. And I understand
the communication tower is one of those, and maybe vegetation
removal?
MR. DUANE: Why don't we start with vegetation removal.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you. That's on Page 5.
MR. DUANE: Page 5.
MR. NINO: Okay.
MS. ARNOLD: That particular one is being recommended by
my staff. Alex Sulecki is here and I'll ask her to go over that with
the committee. There is a slight change from what's in the
packet. The language that was in parentheses has been deleted.
Go ahead.
MS. SULECKI: Okay. I proposed this amendment because I
found that in enforcing clearing violations, particularly in Golden
Gate Estates, that I ran into a situation often where single family
homeowners were trying to do a lot of their own work out there.
They have relatives in the building trades. And so often I would
find them clearing their properties prior to any kind of permits or
interaction with a development professional. And I found that
the things that were in the LDC seemed to me extremely harsh.
They involved re-planting the lot. And, if that wasn't possible,
then donating amounts of money equal to not only the vegetation
but all of the maintenance and the installation and watering and
so forth. So, for this particular type of case, where an owner is
clearing his own property, not in excess of the one acre that his
subsequently obtained building permit would allow him, that
there could be a different way to deal with these things. And so I
proposed a fine, basically, that's -- it's a donation, actually, that's
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April 5, 2000
going to be made in the same way the LDC prescribes now. But
it works out to a little bit less. It's enough to make people think
twice about it, and it's also enough so that -- the point of it is so
that the property owner, should they then decide to sell the land
and not get a building permit and build, they wouldn't gain
anything by the clearing, because the fine is really just based on
the value the clearing would add to the land if they were to resell
it.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Dino?
MR. LONGO: How do you come up with that value?
MS. SULECKI: Well, I have a formula that I figured out, and
what I did was call some contractors to find out how much it
would cost to clear in the Estates, roughly. I called three
contractors and the average cost of clearing and removal for one
acre is $3,000. So, if a lot had an assessed value of, say, 15,000,
its market value would probably be about double that. So what I
did was figure that that $3,000 was 10 percent of the -- or the
market value of the property. But since we don't use market
value, we use appraised value, I then took 10 percent of the
appraised value, which would turn out to be $1,500.
MS. ARNOLD: We're basing it on the assessed value not '-
rather than the market value increase.
MR. LONGO: Assessed value?
MS. ARNOLD: Right.
MS. SULECKI: Right. But finding the percentage, the value
added to the market value, and transferring that percentage
down to -- I'm not sure I'm explaining it real well.
MS. ARNOLD: And the 3,000 would -- we used a couple
different examples. Looking at the average cost of vacant
property out in the Estates and using the $3,000 which the
contractors gave us as an average cost for clearing that acre of
land '-
MS. SULECKI: Uplands too.
MS. ARNOLD: -- of uplands in the Estates area and kind of
comparing that cost to the average cost to come up with a
percentage.
MR. LONGO: What happens today if they clear their property
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April 5, 2000
without a permit?
MS. SULECKI: Right now we're basically just waiting until
they get their building permit. So right now nothing is happening.
MR. LONGO: Is there a mechanism in our LDC to define or
whatever?
MS. ARNOLD: If we were to use the language in the LDC,
literally we would require the property owner to re-plant all that
vegetation that they removed.
MR. LONGO: Well, that was the purpose of the ordinance to
start with.
MS. SULECKI: Well, if they are going to subsequently get a
building permit, then they will have authorization to clear that
acre. And the amount of donation they would be making
sometimes runs into thousands and thousands of dollars for what
amounts to a technical error on the part of a homeowner doing
the clearing just prior to when he gets his building permits.
MR. NINO: I might add that the EAC heard this amendment
this morning and they recommended approval. MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any other questions?
Yes. Mr. Savage.
MR. SAVAGE: You mean to tell me, if I am an owner and I
have property out there and I want to clear all the brush from
around the trees, I cannot do that without a permit?
MR. CAUTERO: That's correct.
MR. SAVAGE: Is that correct?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Under the current code, that's correct.
MR. SAVAGE: Then I would get my rebel flag and go up and
down the road all the way to the County headquarters. That's
ridiculous. I'm glad I wasn't involved in all this in earlier
discussion.
MS. SULECKI: Could I clarify that a little bit?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Please.
MS. SULECKI-- You are permitted with your building permit
to clear one acre totally.
MR. SAVAGE: I just want to clear my grounds from around
the trees.
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April 5, 2000
MS. SULECKI: You can clear some things. What's protected
is woody ground cover, mid-story shrubs and trees. The vines
and ferns and things like that on the ground, some of those are
not protected. So you can do some clearing without a permit. I
mean some cleaning without a permit.
MR. SAVAGE: I'm just glad I wasn't involved earlier.
MR. ESPINAR: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Yes. Marco?
MR. ESPINAR: Mr. Chairman, I was opposed to this
originally when I was on the Land Development Code
subcommittee. And the reason I was opposed to this is that this
is a deterrent for illegally clearing your parcel of land prior to the
issuance of a permit. If you go and get your permit, you're
allowed to clear your land the way it is. This is a deterrent to
keep speculators from going out there, clearing land, putting a
for sale sign and letting the area sit there. And, basically what it
looks to me is that we're alleviating the severity or the penalty
phase of a violation. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be
unsympathetic, but, I mean, we've got procedures in place. You
come in, you get your building permit, you're allowed to clear,
you know, your land. As simple as that. I'm sorry. I don't mean
to be not sympathetic, but, to me, reducing the punitive phase of
a violation doesn't sit well with me. The law should be applied
equally in the county as it is for a big-time developer or a single
family lot. The rules are the way they are.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Peek, you had a question,
comment?
MR. PEEK: If Marco's statement is correct, that answers my
question, because that was the question I had.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Maybe, Michelle, you could clarify, or
Ron. Is Marco's statement correct?
MS. ARNOLD: With respect to the way the ordinance was
written originally, to deter speculation, I think that was the
intent of it.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Thank you. Sally?
MS. LAM: What happens if you've cleared your acre and
then you sell your land and somebody wants to have a different
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April 5, 2000
acre?
MS. SULECKI: One acre.
MS. LAM: That's it?
MS. SULECKI: Unless you get other permits.
MS. LAM: I happen to think also that it really opens the
door. A lot of people would rather say I'm sorry after the fact. If
you own the property out there, I would assume you know the
regulations. And if you have enough sense to know that you have
to go in and get a permit, don't they explain to you what you can
do when you get a permit?
MR. LONGO: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a motion.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: A question for Mr. Duane.
MR. DUANE: Thank you.
Michelle, are there some cases where people have cleared
an acre without a permit, have to put the vegetation back on the
acre and then theoretically take it off the land again?
MS. SULECKI: At this point we're not requiring that.
MS. ARNOLD: Right now we're not requiring it. The problem
with requiring something like that, there is -- when somebody
re-plants in that area with no irrigation or anything, they are
re-planting and then it essentially dies. And so it doesn't -- what
we're trying to say is, it wouldn't make sense for us to require
them to do something like that when -- essentially, when they are
ready to develop, they would be permitted to remove that
acreage anyway. And what we're saying with this is, since we're
not requiring them to re-vegetate, this would put a monetary
penalty on those cases where people go ahead and clear without
first obtaining the permit that they're required to have.
MR. DUANE: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Longo?
MR. LONGO: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a motion
that we not accept the language as it is and keep in the LDC the
language as it already is. I agree with Mr. Espinar that the rules
were meant to affect people equally amongst all the citizens of
the community. It should stay that way. I think Sally's right. I
think we open doors, not only on this ordinance but on others.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Motion. Is there a second to
Page 17
April 5, 2000
that motion?
MR. ESPINAR: I second.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any other comments?
All those in favor of the motion, say aye, please.
All those opposed?
Let's do a roll call.
MR. JONES: Could you repeat which way was which on
that?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: To accept the motion was to leave it
as it is currently written in the LDC, without modification. We'll
poll, go around.
Marco, if you would start, please.
MR. ESPINAR: In favor of the motion.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Dalas Disney, I'm in favor of the
motion.
MS. LAM: Sally Lam, in favor.
MR. PEEK: Don Peek, opposed.
MR. SAVAGE: Opposed, Savage.
MR. PEEPLES: Perry Peeples, in favor.
MR. DUANE: Duane, opposed.
MR. LONGO: Dino Longo, in favor.
MR. MASTERS: Tom Masters, opposed.
MR. ANDERSON: Bruce Anderson, opposed.
MR. JONES: Brian Jones, in favor.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We should have counted.
MR. CAUTERO: I have 6-5, approval.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: 6-5. Approved. Very good. So it
passes 6-5.
MR. PEEK: The opposition to strike what's proposed here
passes; is that correct?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: To not accept the modification passes.
MR. JONES: Double negative.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: To leave it the way that it is currently
written in the LDC is what we've just voted upon.
MR. ANDERSON: Should you also follow that up with a
motion to direct staff to enforce the ordinance then, if we're
going to be consistent?
Page 18
April 5, 2000
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Would you like to place that in a
motion?
MR. ANDERSON: No, because I wasn't in favor of leaving
things as they are.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: That's a very good point. It's not being
enforced currently. We can either ignore it and allow staff to
continue the way they are or we can ask them to enforce it.
What's the -- what's the preference? Anyone care to make a
motion on it or not? We can ignore it.
MS. LAM: I think there's another potential that we go back
and look at it again and see whether there are other options
available to us with this. Is that a potential? We didn't like one
way, maybe there's a better way to deal with it. Is that -- I would
be happy to meet and see whether we can come up with
something that would be more equitable.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Could we do that as part of the next
cycle then, review this and come forward?
MR. PEEPLES: This cycle is not over yet.
MS. ARNOLD: Are we saying this is not going to the board
then?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: I was asking if we should move this to
the next cycle for further review and modification, as Ms. Lam
has suggested.
MR. CAUTERO: Mr. Chairman, we can take that request to
the board. However, it's received a recommendation of approval
from another subcommittee and we would just present all the
recommendations to the board when we go in with a packet and
see what their pleasure is.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We need to see what the Board of
County Commissioners does with it before we can do anything
further. It may be of no avail anyway.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage?
MR. SAVAGE: It is now five minutes after 4:00 and we have
longer items to discuss than these brief items. And I'm
concerned that all these people that are here for another item,
we should get on to it.
Page 19
April 5, 2000
MR. ANDERSON: I agree.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you very much. We'll move
along as rapidly as the committee allows it to occur.
MR. ANDERSON: Let's see what people are here to speak
about.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Nino?
MR. NINO: With respect to the Airport Authority people that
are here, is it safe to assume that the amendment that deals
with Page 30 to Page 56, recommended for approval by the
subcommittee, meets with your approval, so we can let those
people go, if that's their wish? Ted Soliday and Lisa LaBlanc are
here.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: So the item on Page 30, Section 2.2.23.
And, Ron, what was the other item, please?
MR. NINO: It goes all the way to Page 56 -- 55. It all deals
with amendments to the airport overlay zoning district. Your
subcommittee supported the amendments. We don't have -- Ted
Soliday's here and Lisa LeBlanc and Don Murray of our staff who
put this amendment together. If you don't have any questions '- CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Does any member of the committee
have a comment on Pages 30 through 50 '-
MR. MASTERS: 56.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: -- 56.
Mr. Masters?
MR. MASTERS: Yeah. We discussed that at length and
heard presentations of the subcommittee, and I think we're
pretty convinced, along with staff's recommendations, that that
was going to be fine as is, so '-
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. So we can move forward with
those.
Comments on any of the other items? Then maybe we can
dispense with all of this in one '-
MR. DUANE: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Duane?
MR. DUANE: There is one other item, the floor area ratios
and the RT and for hotel/motel, staff was going to come back and
give us some additional information. And if they are not prepared
Page 2 0
April 5, 2000
to do that today, I'm not prepared to move this item forward but
would be happy to consider it at our next meeting when some
additional information could be provided.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Which item is that on the summary,
Tom?
MR. DUANE: The very last item on Page 7.
MR. NINO: Very last item. We don't have anything
additional at this time.
MR. DUANE: I would like that item to be pulled, Mr.
Chairman, until our next meeting.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: So we'll pull the last item on Page 7
and there will be no action on that at this meeting.
MR. NINO: Might I point out that on Page 122, endangered,
threatened or listed species protection, the EAC -- no, that's not
the one. Item 121, that your subcommittee recommended -- did
not take action. They recommended that this body take up that
discussion and the EAC, in dealing with that matter this morning,
recommended approval of the staff recommendation. Do you want to take up that discussion now?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Perhaps we could do the same thing.
We could pull that item. That's Page 6, second item from the top.
MR. PEEK: Which one are we talking about?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The only thing they didn't hear was
the gopher '-
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Vegetation removal donation land
funds.
MR. PEEK: That's what we just '-
MR. ESPINAR: We just did that.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We just did that one? I'm sorry.
128, is that the one that we're on?
MR. PEEK: I don't know. I'm asking Ron.
MS.
MR.
MR.
MR.
MR. DUANE:
recollection.
ARNOLD: On what page?
NINO: 122 is the --
SAVAGE: Page 1227
NINO: The gopher tortoise discussion.
We recommended approval of that, is my
Page 21
April 5, 2000
MR. MASTERS: We recommended approval as well, Ron.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: So that one is a nonissue then as far as
committee. Okay. Very good.
MR. NINO: Then respect to Mr. Anderson, Mr. Anderson had
some concerns with Item -- Page 14, planned unit development
district.
Do you want to take up that discussion, Bruce?
MR. ANDERSON: I do, but I would just as soon allow the
other members of the public that are here on other items to
speak before me on what they are here about, frankly.
MR. NINO: Then why don't we go to the telecommunications
issue. There are people here for that.
What happened in that regard, your staff recommended the
two additional towers under the overlay district along the
Alligator Alley. The petitioner asked for four. This was the
petition initiated by the industry. That went to the EAC this
morning and the EAC recommended -- agreed with the petitioner
that four tower sites would be appropriate. So we have a
disagreement, you might say, between staff and the EAC. Your
subcommittee supported the two, agreed with staff.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: So, on the summary sheet here, we're
on Page 4, Alligator Alley communications towers, Page 101 in
the text, and we have a conflict, two towers versus four towers,
and sites for that, EAC recommending four tower sites and
subcommittee looking for just two.
MR. DUANE: Two. We were supporting the staff
recommendation. We thought that there was some logic to
looking at the two additional sites later rather than moving upon
them at this point in time.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Very good. Mr. Masters?
MR. MASTERS: Yeah. Additional questions for not going for
the other two towers, and perhaps this could be clarified in their
presentation, if there is one is, there was some thought that one
of the tower locations could be replaced by a shared usage of
other locations at the Ford test track. And the second one was,
it was the staff's thought that that tower could be permitted
through other mechanisms rather than putting it in the LDC. So,
Page 22
April 5, 2000
if either of those didn't happen, then perhaps that would add
reason to have the extra towers.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Very good. Mr. Espinar?
MR. ESPINAR: Mr. Chairman, one of my concerns were that
two of those towers were proposed and one of them was in the
boundaries of the Florida panther refuge. The other one was in
the boundaries of the Big Cypress Basin. And my only concerns
was that those two agencies that police or are responsible for
the maintenance of those areas didn't have a chance to
comment or have any input on these towers in their backyard.
And that was one of my concerns. And I believe staff's
comments on their staff report reflected that same concern, that
there has not been adequate time to field all the comments.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Very good. I think we have
some folks here, members of public, to give us a little
information on this.
MR. GUSTAFSON: You're up against me as far as an agenda,
so I'll try to be quick.
My name is Joel Gustafson. I'm an attorney and I'm with the
law firm of Holland & Knight, and I represent Lodestar who is the
party that's contracted with the Florida Department of
Transportation to put in this system. Maybe you can stick it on
that table right there. Do it right here.
MR. SAVAGE: Isn't there a tray there, we could lift that
screen and put it there?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: You can put it down there, on that.
MR. GUSTAFSON: I'm not sure what you have for backup,
and I don't want to repeat all that. I think you do have the
benefit of Don Murray's recommendations and the intended use
by the Department of Transportation for this system. The issue
is putting a tower system across the Alley, and it's all part of a
system that includes 1-75, 1-95, 1-10 and the turnpike. Florida
Department of Transportation is attempting to put together
systems that really are public safety issues to provide for -- you
know, you're aware of the Smart Pass issue, this is reader boards
that would be located at various locations to warn people of
traffic issues. There would be also situations where you would
Page 23
April 5, 2000
actually have AM stations that would give you some notice, and
there's a whole list of other things that DOT wanted to do with
this system.
DOT then said, but we're also getting a lot of calls on our
property from private users saying, we're -- because of just the
sheer road traffic which increase the number of cell. users that
we're not -- we're getting a lot of pressure to do that. We can kill
two birds with one stone. We can build these towers, put our
equipment on there, and then make them available, leasing
space to private users, one in many cases -- and I know I've been
there. I've found my cell. phone as a safety measure when I had
blow-out in a neighborhood I didn't really want to be in, and it
helped. And I'm sure you all have some experience like that. So
it had that also, private public safety aspect to it. So, what we're
obliged to do is build these towers for this system and also make
it available to private users. The revenue that you gain from the
leasing of the space for private users, DOT gets 60 percent of
that, and Lodestar, the builders of the tower and putting the
system together, gets 48 percent of that, of that revenue.
The system on Alligator Alley is particularly critical in that
the fact that -- and you've probably used your cell. phone over
there, it's kind of a hit and miss situation and it's problematic.
The problem even gets more heightened in light of the fact that
there are no hard telephone lines across the Alley. So, as a
result, you really have to, instead of using hard telephone lines,
you have to use microwave dishes and that also extends, to
some degree, the height of these towers.
There's been a tower approved at Andy Town (phonetic) at
the beginning of the Alley. There's another one -- the other one
for Broward County has been approved, and the Miccosukee
Indian Reservation, and then we have located four -- and, of
course, we're not building towers for towers' sake. We would
like it -- if we could have two, we would be happy with two, or
one, for that matter.
The first tower is located here. This is about Mile Marker
91. All of these are being built in the right of way, so some of the
environmental issues as to, are we disturbing some of the
Page 24
April 5, 2000
Everglades itself -- fortunately or unfortunately, this is a
disturbed area anyway. This is part of that right of way area.
The Number 3 -- and this one by the way was recommended
by staff. This one is 4, that we had, and was recommended by
them.
This Number 3 is a replacement tower. At the present time,
if you're familiar at all -- and this is about 63, I think, it's on the
report, I think -- there's an existing DOT tower on the north side
across from the new rest area. The intent is to take that tower
down and build a new tower, and these are not guide towers, by
the way. This one here is a guide tower, the old one, but they are
newer, they are stronger and going to have a greater capacity.
And they're building a new tower in that rest area. That one is
also one that staff concurred with us on.
The second -- this one at this particular location is the one
at 29, State Road 29, and there is -- this is a replacement tower
in this location. There is an existing tower, I guess it's two or
three hundred yards north of the -- of Alligator Alley that you've
seen there. It's a big, huge guide tower. We are going replace
that tower with a lattice freestanding tower at that location.
And that, again, that's a -- it's a fenced -- will be in that
compound. There's a big base for the existing guide tower, but
we're going to put it in that location. So, again, it's not going to
disturb any more additional areas. In fact, getting rid of the
guide towers -- and we have some gentlemen, as you might have
heard their introduction -- here who will be happy to talk about
some of the environmental issues that they've looked at, and we
were required to do that on all of these towers by DOT and make
sure we go over those.
That's the replacement tower, and this is the one that staff
thought we could use -- since it is in an agriculturally zoned
district we could use, through a variance, we could -- this would
be a replacement tower and we could use that as opposed to
identifying it specifically in this ordinance. We don't really have
a quarrel with that. It seems the Environment Advisory
Committee thought that, you know, why not put it in here and, as
we go through the process, I guess of looking at that, if we need
Page 2 5
April 5, 2000
it in the ordinance, fine, but if we didn't -- but at the end of the
day we're going to have a replacement tower at that particular
location.
The last one is located at Everglades Boulevard. And it's -- if
you're familiar with that -- of course you're familiar with
Everglades Boulevard, it would be in what would be the
northwest quadrant of that -- well, it's not an intersection, it's a
fly-over. There's kind of a ramped road that comes down. It
looks like at some time maybe someone thought about having
access to the Alley from Everglades Boulevard. Our information,
because DOT looks at all these sites, is that probably is not
going to happen. But that's where this particular tower would
go.
The issue on that one was that, could we go elsewhere.
This is mislocated, I should point out. It's probably here. This is
too far. Forgive us, but that's about where it should be. That's
where Everglades Boulevard comes down. The little dark spot
on the -- is your eastern-most industrial park, almost eastern.
And that's the Ford Motor proving grounds. They amended their
PUD, I guess about a year and a half ago, to make provisions for
putting in a tower. And American Tower -- Don Murray will tell
you -- who were the builders of that tower, came in and talked
about building that tower up. We don't have any kind of a
relationship with either the Ford Motor people or with American
Tower. We do have four co-users that we know, in fact on all of
these, four to five co-users already that under contract -- I think
it's with Sprint, isn't it, Scott? At this time and they call us
every week about, how is this coming along, to get this tower
built. We would like to go forward with that particular tower.
DOT, from our-- everything we've gathered, and we're going to
get a letter from them, is that they don't share towers. They
don't rent towers from other people. So that would be the
problem of going to -- as far as we know, there are security
issues and all that.
So your board recommended approval -- excuse me. The
Environmental Advisory Board recommended approval of that.
And that's how we got the fourth.
Page 26
April 5, 2000
And we do have our Post, Buckley people to answer
environmental questions.
MR. SAVAGE: Your left tower there is about equidistant
from the rest of them, is that correct?
GUSTAFSON: This one here?
SAVAGE: Yeah. It's about the same distance, all four of
MR.
MR.
them.
MR.
MR.
GUSTAFSON: Uh-huh.
SAVAGE: Are they interrelated?
MR. GUSTAFSON: Yes. These really connect by microwave
because there is no hard phone lines. Then we get east -- we get
further west, excuse me, we actually get a hard phone line.
MR. SAVAGE: Not knowing anything about the reception
and so forth, but would that not improve the reception of the
user? I'm talking about people that are going along Alligator
Alley, or would any '-
MR. GUSTAFSON: That is the intent.
MR. SAVAGE: Yeah?
MR. GUSTAFSON: And it also is going to help those call
boxes, you know, those emergency boxes that are really not tied
to a hard line and they just sometimes work.
MR. SAVAGE: Having been recently towed from Punta Gorda
to Fort Myers, I understand about the need for communication
with a cell. phone, if anybody hasn't had that problem. And '-
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Sally?
MS. LAM: The one that's going to be replaced, it's going to
be -- it's significantly taller than the other one there '- MR. GUSTAFSON: Yes, 310 feet.
MS. LAM: How tall is the one that's standing there now?
MR. GUSTAFSON: It's 310.
MS. LAW: 3107
MR. S. GUSTAFSON: It's 310. The guide is 310. The one at
Route 29 is 310 feet. It has existing DOT microdishes on it. Our
system that we're developing is going to have microdishes for
one sake is to provide a dial tone for all the carriers to locate on
there because there is no, as we said, hard line to take
advantage of. My name is Scott Gustafson.
Page 27
April 5, 2000
MR. GUSTAFSON: With Lodestar.
MR. S. GUSTAFSON: With Lodestar.
Anyway, the existing -- currently there exists a tandem for
DOT on there. They need those heights. What we are doing is
we replace that exact tower with a self-supporting tower within
the existing compound. What the -- usually for the height we
have to keep their equipment there where it is and add additional
equipment. One of the outcomes of this project will -- that is call
boxes will be enhanced. Currently you just have one dish facing
each direction on the towers that they have. We're going to be
adding specifically four dishes, two in each direction, because
what happens is, you have a dish right now that can receive and
transmit, but we're going to have one that will always be
receiving and one that will always be transmitting. So, your call
back issue will be enhanced as well as a lot of -- there's a list
that we have in a packet of other services that DOT has planned
for the future for what you've discussed in the beginning, for the
entire State of Florida and travel safety.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Longo, you had a question?
MR. LONGO: Marco, you said your concerns were that the
towers were in the Big Cypress and the Fakahatchee Strand, but,
according to this map, the only two towers that are in any of
those places that are existing that are either going to be
replaced exactly, almost, except for guide wires, so the Number
t that he's shown on the map is actually out of the Fakahatchee
and the Number 4 is out of the Big Cypress, and 2 and 3 are
existing replacement towers.
MR. ESPINAR: Correct. I caught that Number 1 was outside
of the panther refuge, yeah. But, on that same note, have we had
an opportunity-- excuse me, Marco Espinar.
Have we had an opportunity to receive any comments from
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife or Florida Game and '-
MR. GUSTAFSON: Which one of you would like to comment?
MR. GELBER: Adam Gelber (phonetic) with Post, Buckley,
Shoe & Jernigan.
I contacted Ranger Casser (phonetic) from MPS in Big
Cypress regarding the replacement tower that's in the rest area
Page 28
April 5, 2000
and the replacement for it is the one that's on the north side of
the road. His environmental concerns were bird strikes. The
main environmental concerns were the bird strikes and -- let me
review my notes here very quickly -- and impacts to the
wetlands. And I told him -- I had informed him that the area
where this was to be located was already in a pre-existing
hydraulically altered rest area and that there were no wetlands
that were going to be impacted.
MR. GUSTAFSON: You might mention, the EAC committee
this morning recommended a concern -- one of the concerns, I
guess, is the lighting on these towers for the FAA, is that we
would adopt the same type of light system that has been put into
a most recent tower that was approved by the county, a strobe
type of a light that has a frequency that doesn't fool birds that
it's the moon or stars. I guess that's a simplistic way for a
lawyer to explain it, but, anyway, that's what we would do. We
would adopt that particular system. And, again, the guide towers
are less of a problem.
MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage.
If you didn't have towers, what would you have, power lines
going along 1-757
MR. GUSTAFSON: Well, that wouldn't solve the cellular
phone problem either.
MR. SAVAGE: I understand that.
MR. GUSTAFSON: Yes.
MR. SAVAGE: But, you know, that's what we have now, so
much of, power lines going from here to there, cutting our trees
in a U-shape, you know, to keep away from the lines. Here we
have towers where we have a small area in a vertical sense, but
at least we don't have a lot of lines going on both sides or one
side of a highway.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you. Mr. Jones?
MR. JONES: Brian Jones. A question for the committee
members who worked on this. Your recommendation was two
instead of the four. One of the issues was to co-locate or to
locate in the Ford test track area, and you're looking into that
issue, and why -- how did you come to your -- looks like they need
Page 29
April 5, 2000
four from what's presented. Tell me otherwise. MR. MASTERS: Tom Masters.
I'm satisfied, I think, with their argument, and if the EAC
heard some additional items that we weren't privy to, it sounds
like there are reasons for not joining the Ford test track which
we weren't aware of during our previous discussion. And I think
I'm in agreement that it should be approved. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Peek?
MR. PEEK: If Mr. Jones' question is answered, I would like
to offer a motion.
MR. JONES: Please.
MR. PEEK: I'm convinced by the arguments, and I was a
member of the subcommittee that brought this to the full
committee with two, but I'm -- after thinking about it more and
hearing the arguments today and studying more of the material
that we were provided last week, I'm going to ask that all four of
them are acceptable. I would move that we -- that the full
committee accept all four locations. MR. MASTERS: Second.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We've got a motion and a second.
Other comments?
I think we have a comment back here.
MR. MURRAY: I just wanted to say '-
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Have you '-
MR. MURRAY: Sorry. I'm Don Murray, Planning Services.
But one of the reasons that we were asking them to look at
the tower at the Ford Motor test track was that, if that is going
to be built and it could support equipment, then why not use it
instead of building another tower here, because they have an
approval and they could come in and build a tower and you'll end
up with two towers here instead of just one.
MR. LONGO: Different companies?
MR. MURRAY: Different companies. That's right.
MR. LONGO: I think that could be a '-
MR. NINO: May I point out, when the EAC heard that same
argument, certain members of the EAC were convinced that
there could never be an agreement between those two.
Page 30
April 5, 2000
MR. LONGO: There is a high potential for that?
MR. MURRAY: There is potential for that. This is part of the
information that I requested from them as well as some
additional information.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you very much.
Marco?
MR. ESPINAR: Mr. Chairman -- Marco Espinar.
I wasn't really totally opposed to the idea of having four
towers out there. As a matter of fact, I'm a cell. phone user all
the time and I travel the Alley all the time. I'm not opposed to
the four towers. I wasn't originally, I'm not right now. What I
was opposed to and I was supporting was staff's
recommendation, because of a lack of comment that had come
in. And I thought that this was being expedited too fast through
the process and not a sufficient amount of comments was being
received from the outside. And I actually still stand by that. I
mean, I have no problem with the four towers. I just wish there
was additional information. Actually, we were privy to more
information and additional information today than we were last
week. And that's part of my problem, is that we've been getting
all this information very fast on this. And I still stand by that. I
wish that we had, you know, official letters from maybe U.S. Fish
and Wildlife or Florida Game and Fish or other agencies out there
saying, we have no problem with this, you know, i.e., it's in the
right of way, and so forth.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Understood.
MR. PRECHT: Bill Precht with Post, Buckley, Shoe &
Jernigan. And I would like that respond to Mr. Espinar's
comments.
One of them has to do with all the agencies involved. We
have contacted, either via phone call or letter, every agency that
will be involved in the permitting of these towers, which includes
the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Water
Management District, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the state
fish and game commission, and National Park Service, and so on.
And, essentially, all the comments that have come in -- the
major concerns were, one, were the cell. towers going to be built
Page 31
April 5, 2000
in wetlands or would they impact natural areas. And we have
assured them, based on our field reviews and where these
towers have been located, they are all within already modified
DOT right of way, paved graded areas, or sodded areas. So there
would be very minimal natural area impacts. The other concerns
were bird strikes. And all these towers are lattice towers,
which, if you know the difference between wire towers, sky wire
towers and lattice towers, these are probably the safest, from a
bird strike standpoint. And then also there are lighting issues
that we've also gone down that road.
So, yes, Fish and Wildlife Service will probably continue to
have comments, as will the National Park Service and we will
continue to coordinate with them throughout the process.
So those are not dead issues and they will continue to have
their voice heard through the permitting process. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you very much.
MS. LAM: I think this is fine, you know. I'm ready to go
along with this. But what I'm thinking is, Collier County can end
up looking like an oil field the way we're going, with the towers
popping up. And I think eventually Collier County should develop
a proactive approach as to how many towers we can eventually
have, how far apart they are, how much sharing everybody has to
have. I mean, it's very fine if Ford is going to have their own
tower, but if we allow everybody to have their own tower and not
require them to share -- because, after all, we have to look at
these things. And, as you drive up and down the road, or even
driving into town, you begin to see towers popping up all over the
place. And I think, from the human, environmental point of view,
they are unattractive and they may be very bad health-wise. We
don't know that yet.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Good point. Thank you.
Mr. Savage?
MR. SAVAGE: Herb Savage.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We'll go on quickly here.
MR. SAVAGE: What I would like to ask all of the people who
are involved in developing this, you have two different groups,
Sprint and somebody else participating in this.
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April 5, 2000
MR. S. GUSTAFSON: Scott Gustafson, Lodestar.
We have Sprint '-
MR. SAVAGE: All right. Say there were eight different
companies that wanted to use those towers; is that possible?
MR. S. GUSTAFSON: Well, there's a limited amount of
frequency span that's out there.
MR. SAVAGE: I understand.
MR. S. GUSTAFSON: So there's only a certain amount of
carriers that are providing wireless services. Services, I should
say your cell. phone. So, with that in mind, there's already a
limitation on how many of those carriers can be -- are even going
to be required to go out there.
MR. SAVAGE: Whether we have one pole or 50.
MR. S. GUSTAFSON: Correct.
MR. SAVAGE: Each pole guarantees so many uses. You're
talking about microwaves, or whatever it is.
MR. S. GUSTAFSON: On our poles we are currently going to
have carriers as well as the DOT equipment. And the carriers we
talked to are Sprint, Nextel, Primeco, AT&T.
MR. SAVAGE: And they are all available?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Peek?
MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman, I call the question on the motion.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Very good.
MR. ANDERSON: I just want to know if they are going to be
subject to the same tower sharing agreement requirements as
anybody else that puts up a tower.
MR. MURRAY: Don Murray. The way we have this set up,
they would be required to meet all the other standards and
requirements, so that's the LDC Section 2.6.35, and that requires
sharing, and we would require them to submit a site plan as well
as a shared use plan specifying how many and who and at what
location on the tower the equipment from those companies
would be placed. So, yes, that -- the question (sic) is yes, they
would be.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. We have a motion and a second
to allow all four towers in the locations identified.
All those in favor, say aye, please.
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April 5, 2000
Any opposed?
MR. ESPINAR: Aye.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: One opposed, Mr. Espinar.
That brings us to the conclusion of that issue. Is there
anything else on the LDC recommendations that we need to deal
with here? We need to move on.
Do we need a motion and a recommendation to dispense
with this or does this come back and we do that next meeting?
MR. NINO: You can do it now.
MR. PEEK: Mr. Chairman, I move that we forward this with
the recommendation for approval. MR. LONGO: I'll second that.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any other discussion?
MR. DUANE: And that includes several items to be
continued to '-
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We have continued a couple of items,
yes,
Okay. All those in favor of the motion, say aye.
Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you. Construction code
subcommittee.
Mr. Longo?
MR. LONGO: I have no report.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you.
Utility code subcommittee. Mr. Peek?
MR. PEEK: Since I wasn't present, I will ask Mr. Kuck to
make the report. You have the minutes of the meeting of March
23rd before you.
THE COURT REPORTER: Sir, please repeat the last portion
of that statement. I could not hear you.
MR. PEEK: Okay. Maybe I'll stop talking.
Mr. Kuck will give the report from the committee. You have
the March 23rd minutes before you of the committee meeting.
MR. KUCK: For the record, Tom Kuck.
Yes. We did meet on March 23rd and we reviewed the utility
standard details. There is a point -- there are a few minor
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April 5, 2000
revisions and then we'll be ready to adopt them. At the April
meeting we are scheduled to start doing a review of the utility
ordinance. And I'm urging some of the members of the
subcommittee to attend that meeting. It will be very important.
If you've got any questions, I'll try and answer them. There's
a copy of the minutes from the last meeting for your information.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Any questions for Mr. Kuck?
MR. PEEK: I have a question.
Tom, on Page 2 of the minutes, the second paragraph
indicates that with the blessings of this committee today then
you would distribute the master standard detail drawings. So do
we need a --
MR. KUCK: The master list of--
MR. PEEK: So is there a recommendation from the
subcommittee to this committee today they do a blanket
approval of the revised standard detail drawings? MR. KUCK: Yes, there was.
MR. PEEK: Then I would make a motion that we approve the
revised standard detail drawings. MR. SAVAGE: Second.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Savage seconds.
Any other questions or comments on that issue?
All those in favor of the motion approving the standard
details, please say aye.
Any opposed?
(No response.)
There being none, passes unanimously. Thank you.
The next item is new business. VI(A), budget.
Mr. Cautero?
MR. CAUTERO: Yes. Mr Chairman, just a brief
announcement on that. After I finish, I would ask your
indulgence for maybe a three-minute recess to allow our staff to
synchronize the laptop and machine again for the presentation
and to give our court reporter a break.
This is just an announcement to let that you know that in
your May packet you'll be receiving our budget request as is our
mandate every year, in accordance with your ordinance. What
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April 5, 2000
we do is present our proposed budget in development services
areas, which crosses several departments in the division. For
those of you who are new to the committee, you'll hear the term
expanded service used often. That is a Collier County term that
is used when staff requests additional resources, whether they
be staff, equipment, consultants, whatever the case may be.
We'll be presenting that to you. There are several that we wish
to talk to you about and hopefully you'll recommend approval of
those before we submit that budget to the Board of County
Commissioners. Our entire budget package is due later this
month to the county manager. But we do not discuss it with the
county manager for at least another month, maybe a little bit
more than a month, and then we are also discussing our budget
request with various committees, in addition to yours, most
notably the productivity committee. They have had questions of
us in the past.
So I just wanted to make that announcement and let you
know that we look forward to that discussion in the coming
weeks.
And, with that, maybe we can go off the record for three
minutes and allow the hook-up.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We'll take a three minute recess so the
equipment can be set up.
(A brief recess was taken.)
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Back on the record.
This is Item VI(B), EMS library impact fees.
Take it away.
MR. TINDALE: Steve Tindale with Tindale-Oliver and
Associates and very briefly we'll go over this afternoon the two
impact fees that we have been updating with the staff. I'll briefly
go over some historical perspective of growth rates in the county
and the basis of the impact fees, talk about the components of
an impact fee and what we've updated and then actually show
you the potential fees that we've recommended to the county.
This graph shows Florida in the blue in terms of percent
growth. In each decade, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, you'll
see that Collier County consistently has grown about twice as
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April 5, 2000
fast as the Florida average, and most of the counties we're
working at -- working for, the impact fees, the county should
have a high growth rate, so Collier fits right in with the counties
that are experiencing that growth rate and the impact fees that
assist in absorbing some of that growth. Not paying for all, but
at least paying for a major portion of the growth as your county
develops.
The impact fees have not been updated since 1991. And if
you're doing business, if you could imagine not changing your
rates in terms of anything that you charge for any services you
provide for nine years, after nine years any adjustment you make,
you need to be prepared for some significant changes in the
adjustment in terms of that nine year period in terms of the
calculations and the basis for the impact fees. The two we're
going to talk about are emergency medical services and
libraries.
The impact fee is a calculation that takes basically the
demand for services for every time you have a unit of
development that's approved and permitted and constructed,
times the cost to provide service for that unit, minus any taxes
that is used for capital expansion. The only thing we're talking
about this afternoon is capital, no maintenance, no operation,
strictly what it costs to add a facility because of the growth, and
the capital facilities, its new facilities, either a new ambulance,
a new station or a new library or books. Nothing in terms of
replacement.
Emergency medical services, you have the facilities, the
structures. You have the vehicles and here you also have a
helicopter, which plays a significant role in terms of delivery of
service in the county. So those are used as the components to
calculate the cost of service. EMS service is county-wide. We
do have counties we work in where there's different
arrangements with cities and counties, and you have emergency
medical service provided here on a county-wide basis. The
current level of service is about one station in terms of a fully
equipped station for a little less than 15,000 residents. And the
goal here is, as you double your population over the next period
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April 5, 2000
of time, that you maintain that level of service, that you don't
start having degradation of level of service. The way the
station's configured and -- versus the population, you have
standards that say, in the outlying areas an eight and a half
minute response time, in the more urban areas, it's a six minute
response time. The average response time is about 6.3 minutes.
And there is a great interest in maintaining that in terms of
safety and provision of service.
MR. SAVAGE: Question on that? By what mode of
transportation? In other words '-
MR. TINDALE: That's the actual time it takes for the
emergency vehicle to get to the site when they get a call.
MR. SAVAGE: For instance, from Naples to Marco Island,
they do it by helicopter most of the time.
MR. TINDALE: This averages mainly the vehicles
themselves, not -- it doesn't really deal with the special case of
the helicopter.
MR. PEEPLES: Mr. Tindale, real quick. Do you want us to
interrupt with questions or hold them?
MR. TINDALE: It's up to you-all. Maybe it would be good for
me to go through it and you-all could ask me at the end.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: I think that might be the better way to
do it. We can move things along that way.
MR. SAVAGE: We'll forget what we were going to ask.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Write it down.
MR. TINDALE: In terms of those facilities, basically you take
the value of all of those facilities you're on and divide it by your
population. And the value is about $70.00 per person in the
county. It's a fairly straightforward calculation, taking the value
of all of the facilities, divide them by your population for every
person in the county and you own and have been operating
$70.00 worth of capital value of assets.
The tax credit per person is about $3.60 in terms of actually
calculating some taxes that have been used to, historically in the
past, to fund emergency medical services in terms of gas tax '-
excuse me, in terms of tax credits. Both that calculation of cost
and those credits are shown in detail in terms of reporting how
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April 5, 2000
they -- how we go through that process, showing both the capital
cost and the revenues that have been used for capital expansion.
You take the difference between those two and it's $65.98.
What we're saying is, the difference between capital revenues
coming in and the actual costs when you have a person move
into the county is almost $66.00. What we've done -- and this is
something we have been doing for several years now and we're
proposing to do here, is actually look at -- coming up with the
cost by size of home, mainly to deal with some issues about
affordable housing and you have a differentiation between very
large homes and smaller homes in terms of both impact and
recognizing the impact. We calculated it within a zero to about
1,500 square foot home, that the persons per household is about
1.4. The impact fee for that would then be $93.00. We then
looked at persons per household of a mid-sized home. It was
about 1.57, the impact fee being $103.00, and the larger homes,
almost two persons per household, that's about $130.00 per
home.
Now, that's not the average number of people who live in
those homes, because we have also taken the percentage of
time that people aren't home and allocated it to commercial
development. We're saying about sixty percent of your day is at
home and about forty percent of the population, of your time, is
at a commercial or retail or an office. That's how we allocate
the impact in terms of the average number of people at each
different site. So we basically have taken the persons per
household, reduced the amount of time those people are in it,
and looked at the persons per household by size and come up
with an impact fee by size of home.
But I can tell you this is dramatically different than
historically what you had. The methodology used in the past, the
retail and the office was very high, much higher, and the
residential was much lower than these numbers in terms of
historical methods you used for your impacting calculations.
And libraries, we're talking again about the facility, all the
equipment inside those facilities, the buildings and we're talking
about the actual books in terms of the materials that are
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April 5, 2000
available to the public.
We have the land, the equipment, the books and the
facilities. And then again we do the same thing. We looked at
the total cost in terms of the provision of the facilities and then
we looked at any historical revenues that a vacant piece of
property has developed in the past and any potential revenues
that, once it's developed, they would be available for capital, and
give that as a credit. So the impact fee basically is the
difference between the two.
There's one major difference between the libraries and the
EMS. As a matter of fact, libraries and parks are kind of unique,
and that is, we only charge the homes, we're not charging the
retail people, the office people, any other ones. We're charging
the home. So when you see that population you're going to see
the actual average number of people per home with none of it
being allocated out towards any other uses so that it is definitely
a residential based impact fee, just like more -- like parks and
recreations are based that way. There was an interest in trying
to allocate it out. There's things like real estate people were
calling in and were using the Internet and asking questions, and
we did some sampling and looked at it and we couldn't get
comfortable with it, so, at this point in time, we recommend to
stay with a residential based fee. Sometime in the future, when
more data is available -- and I think they are starting to talk
about actual uses, then we'll talk charging and kind of
distributing that cost out more to the retail and the office and
other users. But it's definitely a residential based fee at this
time.
The standards to services county-wide, we don't have a city
versus a county system, so the population is county-wide and the
service area is county-wide. The standard is 1.5 volumes. That's
the book or periodical in the library. And the building is 33 -- 0.33
square feet per resident. And I can tell you, I've looked at your
turn rate and your books and materials turn over very fast. You
can set standards and get -- set a standard of so many books,
and you don't have the books turning over and it's just a standard
you're just picking. The standard is not one in which they've
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April 5, 2000
picked a standard and have a lot of books that sit there for
months without anybody turning them over or using the books.
So I think it's a very reasonable standard. You've got a very
active library service in terms of delivery of service.
The cost for the facilities is about $64.00, 63.89. The actual
items is about $34.00 per person. Not real complicated. You
take the complete value, divide it by your population, and for
every person in the county, you have a library system that's
sitting there right at about 97, $98.00 per person in terms of
what it costs to provide the services.
The credits is about $11.90 in terms of library credits, in
terms of the revenues that are used -- have been in the past used
for capital, and again, that method is detailed in the report in
terms of how we've done that.
We did the same thing, and this one you'll see a difference
because there's 2.5 people who live in the smaller home that we
have now allocated part of them out to the other land uses, $214,
mid-sized home, about 2.75, $237, the larger homes, about 3.45
or $300. And you can see that there's somewhat of a benefit
here of having a smaller home, you pay -- a larger home pays I
guess fifty percent more than a smaller home. So there is some
fairness or equity involved with us being be able to split this out
and deal with the demand and the average number of people by
size of home.
I happened to have a report come across my desk, so I went
and put it in here. When we make our presentation to the county
commission we'll do this both for EMS and for the libraries. And
these are ones that are just convenient. We're going to go back
and look at the neighboring counties and provide information.
Everybody always wants to know, how do we compare to other
ones? And because this was convenient, I put it in here. Again,
before we go to the commissioners we'll pick counties that are
adjacent to you or comparable.
Collier County, we're proposing the average of the 237 for
that mid-size. Martin County -- and one of the issues here is
which one has been done recently. Martin County, I think, has
been updated in the last months, you see they are in there, right
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April 5, 2000
in the range of what you are in terms of the same costs and
calculation because they have recently updated theirs. I really
don't have the dates for some of the other ones and when they
were updated.
That's the end of that. This is a whole different presentation
relating to how to moderate some of the impact on various
things. So that's the presentation for both the emergency
medical service and the library and the calculations and the
numbers. And, again, we have provided the staff now with a
detailed technical document that has all the back-up and
calculations.
MR. SAVAGE: All of those figures are in here?
MR. TINDALE: Yes, sir. I see one thing. I think the last
version we handed out to the group, we had homes like from zero
to 850 feet, 850 to, like, 1,500 and 1,500 or greater. We did
manage to break -- like we did in the transportation, people were
saying we don't build any 850 square foot houses here, so this
report here is different and the numbers seen here are different
from the one we gave out to the last group. But this has been
sent to the staff about a week ago, so staff has an updated
version of those calculations.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Longo has a question.
MR. TINDALE: Is it all right if I turn this off?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Absolutely.
MR. SAVAGE: This one worked.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Longo?
MR. LONGO: Mr. Chairman, I have a couple questions. My
first question is, we're basing the methodology on current
population, correct, and the second part of that question is, you
have two differences in the number of people per household for
emergency services and libraries. The impact fees are supposed
to be imposed on new development. Those fees cannot be used
for existing services or go back towards existing services. So I
guess my question is two-part. Why is there a difference
between emergency services and libraries as far as how many
people per house, and why do we base our methodology on
existing population when they're not being charged for an impact
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April 5, 2000
when they move from house to house in a residential area? That
doesn't make sense to me.
MR. TINDALE: Well, first, the persons per household are
identical. What we've done is, in the libraries, there's two and a
half people who live there and there's -- when they are traveling
around, they are not using the library system, at least in this
methodology. The charge is to the home, period, no commercial
charge for libraries. So you hit the two and a half people a
hundred percent for the libraries. What we have done for the
EMS is, when you're out and you're at the mall and you have a
heart attack, they will respond to you. If you're -- wherever
you're going, the probability of having a heart attack or needing
services is equal. So we've taken about forty percent of that two
and a half out of the home. We're saying about six-tenths of the
day you're home, the rest of the time, you're not home. So it's
the same identical persons per household, except that EMS, the
retail, commercial and office people are sharing some of the time
of that population and the libraries, the home is going to pay for
the libraries. When you bill a retail center, you don't bill the
libraries. When somebody moves in and goes to school and they
use the library -- so that is the major difference. But the persons
per household for all three sized homes are identical. We've just
taken a percentage of those and the EMS and allocated it to
another group of people.
MR. LONGO: That answers my question on how you came up
with that. My next question would be '- MR. TINDALE: The population.
MR. LONGO: -- in the long and short, we have a growth
management plan that says we are supposed to have so many
people in our community in so many years, or at the end of our
build-out. Is that methodology based on the projected people
coming in?
MR. TINDALE: Here's the answer to that. If you wanted,
say, one fire station for every 10,000 people, if that's what they
desired, that's a better level of service than you currently have.
Your current level of service is one for almost 15,000. We can't
use the one for ten, even if it was in your comp. plan, because
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April 5, 2000
the law says that the new development cannot pay more to
provide or be charged for a better service than people who have
already moved here have paid for. So the reason you use the
existing standard -- it's not even a standard, it's an existing
condition, the existing condition is one fire station for every
14,700 people. If they want to improve on that, they can charge
impact fees at the rate of one fire station for 14,7 and they've got
to go find some other money to build the other fire stations at a
faster clip to make up if they want to improve the level of
service. So the concept of impact fees is to current condition,
which I've defined as a -- achieving that as a standard, but it's a
condition. It's not something that someone has said you have to
achieve. It's where you currently are. So we're using your
current level of service, what you've achieved with the current
people, and saying we can't do any better than that as far as a
charge. You can't charge more than that, that's the reason you
use that standard.
MR. LONG: So what's the time on the standards that you've
set?
MR. TINDALE: Basically what happens, if your population
doubles, you will maintain the same ratio. You will have double
your assets, you will have double the stations and you will still
maintain a 14.7. And when your population is increased by fifty
percent, you still have 14,700 people per station. So, as time
goes along, you generate revenue to maintain that and not vary it
in any way.
MR. LONGO: So, theoretically, we should have no more
impact increases on emergency medical services and libraries?
MR. TINDALE: It won't increase because of the standard, it
will increase because of the cost. Only because of inflation, not
because of standards. We won't come back two years from now
and say, well, we've decided to have one station per 10,000, the
impact fee's going up. We cannot do that. It's not legal.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Yes. Perry?
MR. PEEPLES: We currently have one station for 14,700
people, and that's giving us a level of service and a response
time of 6 point some odd minutes, which is what the county is
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April 5, 2000
trying to do. How is that paid for if it is not paid for through
impact fees? Is that not part of what you've done, or do you
know how that's been paid for?
MR. TINDALE: A big portion of it's been paid through -- with
the impact fees when you passed it. Some of it's been paid
through ad valorem tax and some other taxes. And what we've
done is looked back at someone who is going to come in with a
vacant piece of property. We've given them credit for that
property generating some capital. Now, vacant property, usually
what happens is the vacant property brings about five or ten
percent and most of the total ad valorem tax in. So we basically
have said that we've looked at the historical revenues, looked at
that person who is going to come and pull a permit, and said this
vacant piece of property has generated a certain number of
dollars that has historically helped build things and we're giving
that vacant piece of property a credit when they come to pull the
permit.
MR. PEEPLES: That's the $3.58?
MR. TINDALE: Yes.
MR. PEEPLES: On the libraries, I'm just curious as to where
your figures come from when you say that each person is
allocated 0.33 square feet or one and a half volumes. Where did
those figures come from?
MR. TINDALE: You take the total square footage of all the
buildings.
MR. PEEPLES: No. I understand. How do you determine '-
oh, they come from what's currently in place and you can't
improve that '-
MR. TINDALE: Right. You have to come up with a different
-- a tax source or a different assessment or whatever. You
cannot use impact fees to improve the current condition.
MR. PEEPLES: The only other question I have on your
figures, where does the number of persons per household come
from; is that '-
MR. TINDALE: That's both from the census and some
information that Collier County has, and I think the University of
Florida. There's footnotes in the document showing exactly
Page 4 5
April 5, 2000
where the person per household is calculated from, the source.
MR. PEEPLES: You talked about going back and raising
impact fees in the future due to inflation. Could they be raised
again due to the new census results?
MR. TINDALE: My guess is you probably may have
underestimated rather than overestimated your population. So
my guess is, if anything, it may come down a little bit because
your population is a little higher, and if we were wrong in terms
of saying there's really 16,000 people per fire station, we
probably would have to adjust that. But we're -- usually we're so
concerned with everything else that that's not a real fear of
mine. I don't think the census will create a major adjustment to
it, other than a more accurate basis for the population.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Cautero, before we go on, have we
reached our time limit or have other arrangements been made?
MR. CAUTERO: No. I think you're okay. We're making
arrangements to start the fringe committee in C and if they have
a large -- a large contingent from the public, we might be able to
do something before you get into your next item, but I think
you're going to be okay for a while. Why don't you just proceed?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We'll continue on until something
happens.
MR. PEEPLES: One final question. Why was the impact fee
so low; other than the fact that it was set in '91 and hasn't been
adjusted for inflation since then? It seems like going up sixteen,
seventeen times is pretty dramatic and certainly far exceeds
what inflation is now.
MR. TINDALE: The libraries, that's not the case. But EMS
for the home is -- EMS for the office and retail is actually at some
places about the same or down. The biggest difference is, they
used some sampling techniques to try to figure out where they
were providing the service. And we didn't feel really comfortable
with the sampling techniques to draw a conclusion that the
homes were not creating the demand. And we've recommended
that they not use that, and that was, I guess, collected
something like ten or twelve years ago when they did it. It's one
I've not seen used in other places in Florida. We feel a whole lot
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April 5, 2000
more comfortable with the allocations so the actual -- I think the
total revenues and the fees aren't that dramatic in terms of cost
per person.
MR. PEEPLES: Do you know what percentage increase has
occurred from '91 through current, if you take both the household
and the commercial?
MR. TINDALE: What we need to do is give you-all some '-
showing you the change. As a matter of fact, we had created -- I
don't have it with me -- an actual current and percent difference.
And when I showed this, I wish I had had that in there, because
we're really highlighting the residential. The commercial is not
that dramatic.
MR. PEEPLES: Right. So that brings the overall number
down, I assume. But '-
MR. TINDALE: It's really just saying we think that there may
be some -- there's a better way of allocating in terms of fairness,
more accurate, in terms of different land uses and a single family
home, which is way undercharged, and some of the retail which
was overcharged. The other example was the medical services.
I relate it to almost like the gas station. Medical offices -- gas
stations collect gas tax, but you don't charge them impact fee or
transportation impact fees because of the amount of gallons they
pump. You know, that's where people go. And the same thing
with medical services. You may end up at the medical center,
but when you bill a medical center, do you have a huge increase
in demand for medical services? If a third-year population moved
out and you built three more medical centers, would you have an
increase in medical service? The answer is no. So it's more of a,
where they were going and delivering it versus an allocation of
what's really creating the demand for service. And it's our
opinion, when people move into this county, when the population
increases, the need for emergency medical service goes up. It's
not where it happens to be that the services, you know -- what
land use it happens to show up at.
So it's a significant change but we think it's more consistent
in terms of what causes and creates the demand. And clearly
the single family home and the residential and then the
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April 5, 2000
accompanying retail and office development, the people there, is
what creates the demand. So it is different. That's for sure.
MR. PEEPLES: I would just like to see, if you balance out
the residential and the commercial, see what the overall
increase is, and compare that versus what inflation has done
since '91, because I'm '-
MR. TINDALE: We'll provide that. I think they even
estimated some total revenues. I think the total revenues are
pretty well neutralized, it's just a reallocation. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Longo?
MR. LONGO: Would you happen to know the difference
between new home buyers and the population that moves in that
you're kind of basing your numbers on versus existing homes
that are changing hands from the older residents who are
moving, dying off, for lack of words, and the newer -- the
incoming new transfers coming in with families, two versus five.
MR. TINDALE: I'm not sure -- I can tell you what we charge
for. We don't charge the family, we charge that structure.
MR. LONGO: If Perry owns a home in Park Shore and he
decides to move and he's got two kids and the next family
moving into his home has seven, they are not being charged an
impact fee. But when he moves out of that house to a new home
that I build him, and the new fees are based on historical data,
he and everybody else moving into that new home are paying for
our remissions in the past.
MR. TINDALE: He also pays a water and sewer connection
fee, because that structure has that connection fee. He pays it
on the first one he builds, he pays a connection on the second
home he builds, and he pays a connection fee on the third home.
And the connection fees or any type of assessment is clearly
blind to where the person's moving from. It's basically
structures going up and the structures are being assessed a fee
because, the county as a whole, when you build these
structures, has an increase in demand. So it's clearly an
assessment on the structure and it's -- the structures increasing
in the county have to pay it. Who moves into '-
MR. LONGO: I would caution that, the development industry,
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April 5, 2000
to really take a hard look at impact fees and their percentages of
increases because at some point in time, you're going to start
seeing people not building new homes and new structures.
You're going to see people taking over existing, and your impact
fee revenues are going to go down and we're going to have to
come up with a new system of collecting revenues. I'll put on my
other hat today as well, but impact fees are not our answer. And
I'm not sitting here to make any defenses, I'm just saying we
have a whole section of our population that is on a free ride
when it comes to impact fees. But all your new home buyers,
whether it's a million dollar house down to that starter home
somewhere, people -- every thousand dollars you put onto a new
home puts about 15, 1,600 people out of being able to get into
their first home.
MR. TINDALE: Well, if the tax rate goes up, if somebody
decides to tax rather than collect the impact fee, the impact fee
would go to zero. So you would have an option. All we are doing
is just calculating what your current policy is. CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Anderson?
MR. ANDERSON: Following up on some of Dino's line of
questioning, does your methodology factor in when you're
determining the functional population for EMS, functional
population, that we may have a number of people who work at
businesses in the county who commute here from Fort Myers?
MR. TINDALE: That -- the business where they are working
is going to pay the impact fee.
MR. ANDERSON: Yes. But isn't there -- maybe I
misunderstood you, that there had been a change in the
methodology to place more emphasis on single family residential
uses as opposed to commercial.
MR. TINDALE: Well, I don't know if we're putting more on
them. More than in the past, not more than what should be.
There is a change.
MR. ANDERSON: Right. If there is a change, the price is
more.
MR. TINDALE: I think what we've also done is we've
actually taken the total population, and there's something like
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April 5, 2000
7,000 employees migrating, in other words, during a day you
have 7,000 more employees here that move in than go out to
work. We actually looked at census data, and the total
population we're dividing by is greater than your total population.
So the cost per person is lower because of both the employee
migration and the people coming in to buy, et cetera. I think we
end up with 6 or 7 percent more people we're dividing by, which
is several thousand people, to come up with a cost per person,
than actually live in the county.
MR. ANDERSON: Okay. And I just want to point out for
county staff that they have used in the past -- and it was an
executive summary on April 14th, 1998, they used a permanent
population figure that works out to 1.6 persons per dwelling unit
for Collier County, as contrasted to the figures that they have
given you to use. And I would like for them to maybe check that
out.
MR. TINDALE: We'll definitely check it out.
MR. PEEPLES: I don't know if Vince heard that.
MR. CAUTERO: No, I didn't. I'm sorry.
MR. ANDERSON: Vince, I was just pointing out that there is
a discrepancy between the numbers that county staff has used
before and given to the county commissioners for purposes of
population build-out than what are being utilized for these impact
fee studies. April 14, 1998, executive summary to the board
about build-out in the urban area, came up with a figure of 1.6
persons per dwelling unit as a permanent population.
MR. TINDALE: My guess is that's probably forty to fifty years
from now. We were at 3, 5, and then we moved to 3, zero in the
seventies and eighties, and you're two, four. And forty or fifty
years from now we may be down to 1.6.
MR. CAUTERO: I don't know if we've given the board new
numbers since then. If we haven't, then we need to reconcile
that.
MR. TINDALE: These are currently noncurrent numbers.
These are build-out numbers, and whether they are correct or not
we can check. There is a trend, a significant trend of the
persons per household significantly going down. What's odd in
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April 5, 2000
transportation is the persons per household is significantly going
down, but the travel per house, per home, is going up. So every
time we reduce the personal home, the demand for service per
person has been outreaching it in terms of just mobility.
But we'll check the build-out and your 1.6 and make sure
that there is some logic between what -- historically where we
are and what's going to happen probably in forty or fifty years in
terms of your persons per household. MR. ANDERSON: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: That's impressive research.
Any other questions?
Thank you very much for the presentation.
MR. TINDALE: This is a document that's a work in process.
The one that we've done now has been modified since some
comments. We'll take all of what you have done to the next
document. If we do find that something needs to be adjusted
based on your comments, there will be a modification to it as we
move forward.
MR. JONES: The parks and fire and the other impact fees,
are they also in your analysis at this point?
MR. TINDALL: No. The parks was done, updated, last year.
Roads, we just did. Utility was updated -- that's water, sewers,
updated in '98. That's probably going to be coming up -- probably
within the next year or so. I can check on that for you.
Some of the others, such as public schools and all that, we
really don't get -- we're not aware of any push up like that any
time soon. Basically for the next several months, this should be
all that you see.
MR. JONES: What about fire?
MR. TINDALL: That's basically established by an act of the
state legislature and it's not by a county ordinance, except for
the Ochopee and Isles of Capri's fire districts done recently.
That's not something the county commission would act on, for
the larger fire districts.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Anderson?
MR. ANDERSON: One last comment, and this is directed to
Phil Tindall. Please, as you're doing these impact fee
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April 5, 2000
ordinances, come up with consistent definitions that will apply in
each and every impact fee ordinance.
MR. CAUTERO: That's part of the assignment given to our
consultant. And, to complement what Phil said, the consultants
that were hired, Mr. Tindale and his partners and associates, and
Mr. Bill Merrill (phonetic) from Mike Cardinaro (phonetic), a law
firm in Sarasota, part of this assignment not only involves
updating the fees for roads, which they've completed, and EMS
and the library, but a recodification of all of the ordinances,
including standard definitions and a procedures manual for the
county, which was recommended by the auditor's office. So
there is a lot more work to be done after the fees are '-
MR. TINDALE: We'll be coming to you again in the coming
weeks with a presentation having to do with our consolidating of
all of the impact fee ordinances from an administrative
standpoint to let you know how we're making those
improvements Mr. Cautero is referring to.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Very good. Was this information or do
we need action on this item today?
MR. CAUTERO: We did want action, to answer your
question, however it's a work in progress. I would ask you to
probably hold on a recommendation until we can get more
information.
MR. TINDALL: I will prepare an updated table that shows a
percentage change from the present fee to the new fee, just so
you'll have that as a reference.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Pursuant to Mr. Peeples' request?
MR. TINDALL: Yes. And other information we have here.
COMMISSIONER DISNEY: Good. So we'll see that with our
next meeting then?
MR. CAUTERO: We should be able to get it.
MR. TINDALL: We'll definitely be able to do that.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you. Thanks for your
presentation and for waiting.
Our next item is the item VI(C), which was added, the noise
ordinance. I understand we have some papers.
MR. CAUTERO: Yes. Mr. Chairman, what I have is -- the
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April 5, 2000
hand-out for you is a draft executive summary prepared by the
office of the county attorney and a proposed ordinance
amendment to the noise ordinance. Several months ago, late
last year, I believe, the Board of County Commissioners
authorized the legal department to work in conjunction with the
Code Enforcement Department on potential revisions to the noise
ordinance amendment. And a consultant was hired by the
county under the auspices of Mr. Weigel office, who is with us
today, the county attorney, to propose revisions to the
ordinance. And we have those for you today.
Again, my apologies for the lateness of this. It is not our
custom to do that. What we would like to do is have Mr. Weigel
and Mrs. Arnold, our Code Enforcement Director, walk you
through it, answer your questions, and tell you what the board
intends to do next week. Consultants will be here making
presentations, making the presentations to the board, and we'll
just go from there and try to cover as much ground as we
possibly can today.
So I'll turn it over to David at this point.
MR. WEIGEL: Thanks, Vince. Hi, Mr. Chairman and
committee members. I haven't seen some of you for a long time.
Some I see with some regularity and some of you I don't know. I
haven't had the pleasure. I'm Dave Weigel, the county attorney,
and I am sure pleased to see you today. Although I'm not the
expert in the sound field, I think I can probably answer a lot of
questions and help us all out in the process here.
I'll pass out also --just probably more iljustrative -- these are
reports that have been created by an outside consultant. You
can pass them around and take a glance. I'll be talking a little
briefly about what they comprise. And it appears that you have
had not only the noise ordinance, did you also get a copy of a
drafted executive summary? MR. CAUTERO: Yes.
MR. WEIGEL: Okay. Good. The executive summary will go
a long way to explain fairly cogently what the ordinance
amendment, proposed amendment states. I would like to just
mention at the outset, the county attorney, working with
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April 5, 2000
Michelle in Code Enforcement, we have provided a technical
legal document here that the board is going to consider. You'll
see that neither staff nor the county attorney are advising
adoption of this, but, as the result of board direction, which was
essentially citizen driven and citizen requested, we have come
up with, I think, a fairly comprehensive review of our 1990
ordinance that's been amended only slightly since that time. The
board will consider and discuss what, if any, changes they may
wish to have implemented. They may determine that there are
none to be implemented. They will look to see.
You'll note that the draft ordinance and the report that is
provided deals with site testing data where they worked at six to
eight different sites throughout the county, some of which were
brought to their attention by staff and some of which by some of
the citizen input that we, the staff, had. And in their report -- and
the draft ordinance amendment itself will incorporate some
methods and standards that have been utilized in other
communities. There's nothing here that hasn't been utilized
elsewhere or been tested in other communities.
There are perhaps a couple items I'll mention, if I have the
time, that may be testworthy here, or may be of contention here.
But we've essentially tried to put together kind of a color-blind
list of options that the board may wish to consider.
If you want to follow me with the executive summary, I'll
note that at the bottom of the first page, probably the more
cogent things to note is Number 2 at the bottom of the page that
indicates an amendment to clarify throughout the ordinance that
there is a real relationship, more clearly established with this
amendment than our current ordinance, relative to background
or ambient noise at any particular geographic site. The idea is
not to hook up any particular noise producer, whether it's
commercial, recreational, music, amplified or non-amplified,
without taking into account a rather close relationship with
ambient noise in that specific vicinity. And, within that -- within
this amendment package is in fact amendments to show that
there must be a relationship between 7 and 9 decibels of
background noise before you kick in with any changed standard
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April 5, 2000
at a particular site. In general what we see is the kind of age-old
concept of daytime decibel level from a site and a point of
measurement and a nighttime standard. Those have always
been different. Why have they have been different? Well,
because the ambient noise at night is obviously very different in
most situations than it is in the daytime with the hustle and
bustle of activity and traffic, et cetera. But -- and sound carries
differently at nighttime, often.
These basic decibel levels are being reduced approximately
five decibels, particularly at nighttime. Again, there is a clear
standard and relationship to ambient noise. So if you have a
particular geographic location, be it commercial or otherwise,
where you find that the ambient noise is a pretty dog-gone close
decibel level to the noise that's being generated, that is
potentially objected to, then we will find that there may not be
an ability to cite for a violation of the ordinances proposed.
Moving on a little bit, on the second page, Paragraph
Number 4 talks about an amendment requiring one or two
downward decibels adjustments which are credited to potential
violators when sounds as tested don't exceed that background
noise by less than nine decibels.
Few of us, including me, are sound experts, but decibels and
decibel relationships are exponentially related. So when we're
talking seven or nine decibels, we're talking about significant
noise gradients here. Again, the idea is not to hook the unwary
but to arrive at a standard that not only takes into account a
certain type of, call it scientific or field imprecision and testing,
but also just the fact that noise varies. Noise is somewhat a
problem, depending on the beholder. And when you try to use
technical equipment to apply it to what may be in some cases a
visceral problem, we want to give the benefit to the standard
that's being applied. So that's what we offer up at this point in
time.
Paragraph 5 mentions that we looked at the National
Institute of Municipal Law Officers model sound ordinance. And
some of our amendments, taking into account what they
provided, do provide for reduced decibel standards at an earlier
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April 5, 2000
time than our current ordinances provide, 7:00 as opposed to
10:00 p.m. The last sentence of Paragraph 5 notes that the
applicable time of day periods for tourist residential and
commercial sites are not being changed. I think that's very
important to note.
Paragraph 6 mentions something that was new to me, and
that's something called octave bands. It requires -- it would
require new equipment by the county in conjunction with their
current sound testing equipment. And why octave bands? As a
layperson I can tell you that one of the reasons they would use
that as a test is it provides additional -- we'll call it stability, or
constance, to the otherwise noise meter or applause meter kind
of test equipment that's generally used without this other
equipment used in conjunction with it.
Octave bands. It has a particular set of standards which is
referenced in the draft ordinance amendment. And, again, it's
supposed to I think work, as it states in the middle and latter
part of Paragraph 6, to assist in concerning where we have pure
tone or repetitive noises.
Another thing that we've come to grapple with here is the
fact that our current ordinance requires there to be a constance
or a duration of sound which often isn't approached by what
appear to be sound violators. And it may be a very short sound
and it may be occurring at unconstant, inconstant but repetitive
intervals. Our current ordinance doesn't pick up on the ability to
enforce against those particular type sounds, even if the decibel
level is very high. We've attempted to capture some of those kind
of noises here where there is inconstant duration, repetitiveness
within an hour period. And, at the top of the next page, which is
the very bottom of that last Paragraph 6, it talks about occurring
six times or more in any hour. And there is an exclusion in there
in regard to a ten decibel increase allowance. We do capture
these things but, where we give a little in regard to a ten decibel
increase allowance, referenced at the bottom of that Paragraph
6, on these repetitive sounds, we don't give there. That's up to
the board to consider.
How do we get to this particular staff project in the first
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April 5, 2000
place? Well, some of you may know that there have been a
group of residents. Some, if not all, from the Imperial Golf
Estates subdivision that had concerns about the nearby
industrial noise that came from -- I think it's Krehling Industries.
And it poses interesting issues in the sense that Krehling has
been there a long time. Imperial has been there a pretty long
time, too. And the fact is that -- I'll bump ahead a little bit, now
that I've broached this delicate subject. But Paragraph 10 in this
ordinance, we're giving the board the opportunity to delete any
grandfathering exemption that exists in our current noise
ordinance. Grandfathering in regard to business, commercial or
other activities that were in business at the time of the
ordinance -- the current ordinance was adopted in 1990. The
reason being, and it's a tough call. But the reason is that we
believe that legally the Board of County Commissioners does
have the ability under police regulatory standards for health,
safety and welfare, to determine what is appropriate in the
community, throughout the community. And that, by virtue of the
fact that this is a nice ordinance, that they have the ability to
amend that ordinance, up or down, based upon the public input
that they have, and establish standards. And, if they establish
these -- go the whole route and establish all these standards,
they may find that they don't work. But even if they establish
part of these standards, we believe that they have the legal
authority to do so, and if they are challenged by a property owner
that believes that they are unfairly impacted or illegally
impacted, at this point our research would indicate that it
probably is an appropriate vehicle for the court to determine and
let the chips fall where they may, not trying to create enmity or
problems with people. But the county attorney's office will be
advising our board that we do think that they have the ability to
exercise some prerogatives in this area.
Paragraph 9 mentions music. That's another thing that's
come up from time to time, and code enforcement has received
questions and complaints about music. And we've taken away
any distinctions between amplified and nonamplified music and
just going to noise levels of music generally. And we also --
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April 5, 2000
you'll note in there, about five or six lines down, it's reducing
standards for regulated music from forty-five decibels to forty
decibels, when measured inside a unit in residential use or
zoning, but not for units in tourist residential use or zoning. That
includes the hotels and things of that nature. Measured inside a
unit. If there's music from outside a unit, whether it's a condo
unit or a home -- those are units -- if you're hearing music from
some source outside the unit that's higher than currently
forty-five, but we would be reducing it to forty decibels, then it's
an actionable item. That's what the idea is, that people should
have the opportunity to have relative quiet within their home.
And that's what the intent and purpose is of that.
I mentioned the deletion of the grandfathering exemption in
Paragraph 10. And Paragraph 11 mentions the delayed effective
date because there are some homework that would have to be
taken care of if the board were to go forward with this ordinance,
because it would involve potentially purchasing some new
equipment, as well as some training and certification of staff to
adequately enforce it in the time ahead.
The figures that we have proffered to us in this regard is
three octave band or sound instruments, and costs
approximately $4,300 apiece, putting that around 13,5, or so.
And one estimate of training and certification at $12,500, for a
total cost that the board may consider of around 26 or 26,5.
Michelle, forward thinking, has mentioned that there may be
an opportunity for some economies of scale where possibly the
cities, Naples, Marco, might want to come in and take advantage
of the certification, that, if we go forward and they do so, too,
and share some of our costs in regards to training.
MS. ARNOLD: As well as the sheriff's office.
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you, Michelle.
That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Pardon me. One of the
reasons we're going for the next date is because the board's
been looking for this for some time. We just got the final
finishing touches of data from our consultants, reaching hard to
meet our advertising requirements, which we have met. One of
our consultants comes from Chicago, and they are slated to be
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April 5, 2000
here on Tuesday. The board doesn't necessarily have to finish
its work on Tuesday, but I think we do have an opportunity, if all
five commissioners are there, it would be great if they could hear
it, even if potentially they didn't have your ultimate comments in
that regard. But if I can facilitate you in any way here, I'd like to.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Longo?
MR. LONGO: I would like to make a couple comments. I
extremely have a hard time with the grandfathering deletion. I'm
sure Hank Krehling and a few like him would -- I don't disagree
with your legal perceptions, because I'm not an attorney, but I
think you have some problems with that.
I also have a -- I would ask that, if the complaint came from
the neighborhood in Imperial Golf Estates, did the county staff go
up there and measure the noise coming from Krehling's plant or
did we just start initiating a change to the noise ordinance
because a small group of people decided again that they are
going to make a, for a lack of words, a loud noise, in order to
affect the rest of the community?. And, no disrespect, but you're
talking about taking grandfathering away from -- I can't even
figure out how many businesses we're talking about. And I just
think this is not good, aside from the technical aspects I don't
understand being presented to me here today on a point by point
issue. I wouldn't want to be in the same room with Hank, given
just him.
MR. WEIGEL: Well, I appreciate all your comments there.
This is for the board to consider, both the pros and cons in
regard to that. And we're not advocating removing the
grandfathering but they to have -- this is calling for an
opportunity for their consideration of that and the legal ability to
do so.
One thing that we'll note is that -- and part of your question
had to be, are they violating a standard right now or not? They
have been tested in the past by county code enforcement based
upon a complaint driven process and found not to be in violation.
However, in the testing -- my understanding is, in the testing
process that was done by these outside consultants with their
equipment, the rumor has it they are in violation of even the
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April 5, 2000
current ordinance, let alone the change that might occur. But
they haven't been cited for that prior to the testing '-
MR. LONGO: Again, no offense, but I don't always have
confidence in the new testing that comes out by consultants that
all of a sudden gets us the answers that we need in order to
move forward on an amendment to a '-
MR. WEIGEL: We're not saying that these are answers that
anyone needs. We're just trying to provide some data and site
testing information for the board.
Is there another question I didn't address?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Anderson?
MR. ANDERSON: David, on Section 3 on Page 4, the
vibrations part where we're adding vibrations to the noise
ordinance?
MR. WEIGEL: That's true.
MR, ANDERSON: Don't you think we need to put some sort
of exemption in there to recognize somebody who might have
gotten a blasting permit in cases where they're authorized to
blast at certain intervals and levels, but I think we need to have
something that recognizes that?
MS. ARNOLD: I think there are guidelines for that that are in
another ordinance, and it's governed under that permit, that '-
and there are guidelines that they have to meet. And I think it's
outside of this ordinance.
MR. WEIGEL: Let me take note of that, Bruce, to make sure
that it's covered, in any event, because we don't want to not
address an issue, if it's not there. But I think Michelle is correct,
that we had in mind in the course of this that the idea was that
that which is properly permitted otherwise is not supposed to fall
afoul of this.
But I'll make sure that we follow up on that.
MR. PEEPLES: Does it say that, because, even though it's
properly permitted, it could still violate this ordinance?
MR. WEIGEL: I want to make sure it's there. I can't cite it to
you right at this moment. That's a very good point.
MR. ANDERSON: Next question, Paragraph Number 6 at the
bottom of Page 6 of the ordinance.
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April 5, 2000
MR. WEIGEL: Okay.
MR. ANDERSON: It talks about music emanating from a
nonenclosed area located within a residential or tourist
residential use or zone and such music exceeds any of the
standards of subsection 2 immediately above.
Is that intended to apply this to somebody's home that may
be playing their radio out by their pool? MR. WEIGEL: I believe so.
MR. ANDERSON: And is that the case today; are those
people subject to regulations today?
MS. ARNOLD: Yes. That's part of it.
MR. ANDERSON: But the permissible sound level is
changing, is it not, and it's being lowered? MS. ARNOLD: Correct.
MR. WEIGEL: That's correct.
MR. ANDERSON: One more. Just to follow-up on Dino's
comment, Section 2 where we're removing the grandfathering,
sure you can litigate that and the county can spend some money
on behalf of the people of Imperial Golf Estates, maybe they
ought to fund that themselves. There's a principle of law called
coming to the nuisance, where if you know that something is in
existence and you build your home near there, you shouldn't be
allowed to complain about it later, and I think we ought to honor
that.
MR. SAVAGE: Thank you for saying that. That's about what
I was going to say about Krehling. You know, all of a sudden
we're going to have a cemetery here in Collier County, no noise,
no nothing. I think of right now these little young people that go
with these whatever you call them in the water, you know, and
people are complaining about it on Marco Island in the
condominiums, yet, on the ground, every morning "burr, burr",
you have all these noisy things going on, blowing the weeds from
one end to the other. They don't say anything about that, you
see. But, because there are young people out there having a
little fun, they are going to make a fuss about that. I'm glad to
hear what you're saying about Krehling, because I think --
MR. WEIGEL: And we're certainly not unaware of that. What
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April 5, 2000
we have learned is that the Krehling operations have changed,
some would say significantly in recent years, with the strong
construction industry where they are going six or seven days a
week, twenty-four hours a day, and they used to quit at midnight
or so and then start up in the morning. And now it's all night.
I made a site visit myself February 18th, an off site visit, I'll
say, at Krehling. But it's significant. But '-
MR. SAVAGE: What I wanted to ask you, in the very -- as an
architect talking about zoning boards and variances, a Krehling
could come and say we want a variance from this ordinance for
our operation. Is there such a thing as that?
MR. WEIGEL: There is, and also a Krehling conceivably at '-
well, depending on one's point of view, as modest, nominal or
some expense, could take some noise reduction methods on site,
arguably. They, in fact, have a PUD which came in -- they have
been in existence for a long time. But they came before the
board with a PUD, actually just subsequent, if my recollection is
correct, to Imperial Golf Estates. And there is the argument that
a PUD kind of creates a new ball game, you get a new
recognition of zoning, things you can do on site. And there is
some language in the PUD which talks about taking care of noise
issues, as practical. So, it's a little bit complicated here. And,
again, we're kind of giving the board the plate and saying we do
have issues here. We will try to respond as best we can on that.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Brian, I see that you had a question?
MR. JONES: Yeah. On the vibration issue I was just
concerned -- and I think it may have been addressed, like with
driving a piling, it's properly permitted, and jackhammers and so
forth.
MR. SAVAGE: Permitted.
MR. JONES: Construction, they would most likely be in
violation. Is that taken into consideration? MR. LONGO: Vibratory rollers?
MR. WEIGEL: It's supposed to be and I would be surprised if
it's not. I'm afraid that I can't cite you to the place and say that
it's not. It's a very important point that you've brought up and
we're not looking to play double jeopardy on this.
Page 62
April 5, 2000
MR. JONES: Other than this Krehling issue, is there
something that -- is there a problem with the existing ordinance
that was deemed ineffective or that needed to be revised or '-
MR. WEIGEL: Maybe, Michelle, do you know from the '-
MS. ARNOLD: I'm sorry. I didn't hear the question.
MR. WEIGEL: He was asking, other than the Krehling and
the citizen input in regard to that, and clearly that got the
board's attention, but were there some other issues also that led
to the board's direction for yours and our staff to provide this
kind of overall review?
MS. ARNOLD: The Krehling concern was what initiated it
and I know of one other concern within the community that's not
an industrial use, it's residential to residential, that has been a
very big concern of late.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Which is '-
MS. ARNOLD: In Pelican Bay, the Marbelle condominium.
They have got air conditioning units placed on the ground, and
the residents of the adjacent condominiums are concerned with
the noise that's emanating from those chiller units up into their
homes.
MR. LONGO: An after the fact type thing. I have one
question.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Dino had a question and then we'll get
to Bruce.
MR. LONGO: How do you define tourist residential; where is
that definition? Is it in the land development code?
MS. ARNOLD: That would be hotels and those types of
things.
MR. LONGO: Under the definition tourist residential, it says
hotels?
MR. PEEPLES: Yes.
MR. SAVAGE: It ain't easy.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Bruce, you had another question?
MR. ANDERSON: Yes. A question and a statement. Am I
correct that this ordinance is being amended to get at something
that isn't a violation today, in the case of Krehling and the
Marbelle? Okay.
Page 63
April 5, 2000
I have to declare a conflict. I was contacted this afternoon
about a letter that was received from Code Enforcement by the
Marbelle people. So I've asked Vince to provide me a conflict of
interest form and I'll have to abstain from voting on this. It
stinks to high heaven.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Okay. Very good.
MR. PEEPLES: And further comments, right?
MR. ANDERSON: No. I can still talk.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: And we welcome your input.
MR. SAVAGE: I know you can, but may you?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Other comments?
Mr. Masters.
MR. MASTERS: Just a question as to really what's expected
of us. I guess we can't quite approve this in a blanket form
because they are going to pick and choose the elements out of it
that they probably like or don't like, or are you looking for
recommendation to approve it but not approve portions of it?
MR. WEIGEL: Well, I'm not really looking for a
recommendation necessarily at all. But Vince '-
MR. CAUTERO: I'm looking for any recommendation that you
care to give the Board of County Commissioners about the
ordinance, the components of it, in its entirety, a combination
thereof, so that they have as much information as they can get
prior to their deliberations.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: A comment, if I may, just in relation to
this. We have been very displeased with things being dropped on
the table in an afternoon and expected to make a decision on it
without review, or make a comment on it without review. I'm
uncomfortable not having read this very thoroughly. MR. WEIGEL: Sure.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Making any sort of a recommendation
that we go forward to the Board of County Commissioners.
That's me personally. I think some of the levels that are in here,
in my personal understanding of them, lead us to some potential
conflicts, particularly at nighttime with my neighbors' air
conditioning compressor running beside my house. The noise
levels are higher than you're going to allow in the evening. I
Page 64
April 5, 2000
know they are. So, without completely understanding this and
fully having an opportunity to fully read it this afternoon, I think
that that's an unfair thing to ask us to do. And, beyond that, I
think there's an awful lot of legitimate concerns and comments
here.
So, with that '-
MR. JONES: My comments, there's two complaints that
seem to be spurring this, one of an industrial nature and one
condominium in Pelican Bay, and we're totally rewriting a code.
We've got bigger and better things to do than re-write the book.
MS. ARNOLD: This was board directed. It wasn't staff
initiated. Please understand that.
MR. JONES: Thank goodness.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We understand that, but I think that
comment applies not only to staff but I think -- well, one of the
other comments that I had here was, you're talking about noise
levels. You made a comment about twenty-four hours a day.
And I recall just recently in the newspapers about roads
construction, the chairman of the Board of County
Commissioners proposing that roads be constructed twenty-four
hours a day.
MR. WEIGEL: Right.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: So what does that do to a guy that's
living behind where all of this road construction is happening?
MR. WEIGEL: The facts are the facts, and I don't argue with
the facts in that regard.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: It seems silly.
MR. JONES: This is going to rock the boat from the
standpoint of people who are in compliance, as the band at the
bar, and all these types of things. A, we turned it to three, and
that's what was okay. Now you call the police and now we've
got to turn it down again. And that's the typical complaint that
they probably get more of. You open that whole can of worms
back up.
MR. ESPINAR: I'll go one step further. I know I'll probably
get in trouble for this, but I have a problem doing an ordinance to
accommodate somebody who lives here for three or four months,
Page 65
April 5, 2000
when you have Krehling trying to pump out and work twenty-four
hours a day to meet our socioeconomic needs of this county.
And, for a person to come in and sit there and say, it's going to
interrupt my tee-off time, I don't care. And, I mean, I'll get in
trouble for that, but I think we're all in agreement. We're
creating a mountain out of a molehill out of this.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: And to expand on Hank Krehling, what
happens when his plant out on the East Trail has a bunch of
people that are moved in next to it?
MR. ESPINAR: I can tell you right now, Naples Lumber is
four months behind on trusses. If you tell Naples Lumber now
that they cannot work in the evening, you're going to see this
county '-
MR. LONGO: Shut down.
MR. ESPINAR: -- shut down. They are four months behind,
and that's working practically twenty-four hours a day.
MR. SAVAGE: Mr. Chairman, that's the reason I said we're
going to have a cemetery. Okay? That's what we're going to
have, if we follow all sorts of controls about sound.
MR. ANDERSON: Well, these folks are just doing what the
board directed.
MR. ESPINAR: I know.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Hopefully you can take some of these
comments and assimilate them back to the Board of County
Commissioners.
MR. WEIGEL: Very much so.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: And I for one will be happy to be there
to express my comments regarding this.
MR. LONGO: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a motion.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Mr. Longo.
MR. LONGO: Based on the conversations today, I would
make the motion that we not accept this ordinance for
recommendation to go to the county board for approval, based on
the considerations we've already talked about. And I think that
needs to be reiterated at the county commission so they are not
thinking that we are just blanketing a refusal of an ordinance but
that they need to understand our concerns behind the ordinance
Page 66
April 5, 2000
as well.
So my base motion is to not accept this as it stands and to
not make the recommendation to the county commission that
they accept it, and to make the recommendation that -- Vince
make the recommendation that this be tabled for further
discussion at the appropriate committee level.
MR. PEEPLES: I second, and then a question.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: There is a second.
MR. PEEPLES: This is going before the Board of County
Commissioners regardless. All we can do is make a motion to
recommend disapproval; is that correct?
MR. CAUTERO: Yes. It's going to the board. You can make
a recommendation that they not approve it, delay it, a
combination thereof. I think I've heard the motion loud and clear
that you recommend that the board not approve it on Tuesday.
MR. JONES: We strongly recommend not approving it, with
an exclamation point, if that's '-
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Other comments?
Mr. Savage?
MR. SAVAGE: I've always said the user needs to get
involved, you see. Here we are, lawyers, architects, engineers
and so forth. And twelve decibels versus six, how loud is twelve
decibels?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: It's pretty quiet.
MR. SAVAGE: The point is, how do we know what twelve
decibels is compared to six, unless you have equipment? I was
in a court case one time where they sued Deltona because the
equipment room down below made so much noise the lady
upstairs couldn't sleep. So the judge says -- they had the testing
equipment people, pro and con, the one that was suing, the ones
being sued. They each had a piece of equipment. The judge
says, don't say anything. Would you turn on your equipment,
both of you? What rating have we got in this room right now?
And they tested it. And they read what the sound was, without
anybody saying anything. And it was hardly any different than
what that lady was hearing in her condominium. So, you know
what the court ruling was, you see. We all think that it's loud,
Page 6 7
April 5, 2000
but like what you said earlier about it's above the standard.
MR. WEIGEL: That's right. We tried to put some protection
in there rather than just willy-nilly shoot a dart and get it. I
understand that these consultants are going to have some sound
equipment there. They have done site testing at six or eight
different sites, and those are -- well, they are listed in these
books a couple pages in. And I expect that they are going to
play some of those tapes, which will show the ambient noise and
then the noise beyond ambient noise, if it's like a beating or a
thumping or a shriek or whatever the commercial or other noise
may be.
Again, I appreciate very much the opportunity to talk with
you and '-
MR. LONGO: One more question.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We'll call the question.
MR. LONGO: What was the consulting fee to do this study;
how much was it?
MR. CAUTERO: Approximately 14,000.
MR. LONGO: $14,000 for two singular complaints.
MR. WEIGEL: No. No. No. It's really not that simple. The
board had a hearing at one of the Board meetings last year in
regard to particular petitioners. But, at the same time, Michelle,
code enforcement, reported other issues to the board in regard
to sound. They made the directive and then we just tried to
follow it. And what this purports to be is just a sampling of data
at representative places around the county, and it tells what the
ambient noise is as well as certain other noises that occur at
these sites. So the board, and hopefully the public, will
understand and be able to make an intelligent determination if
they want to up the standard or not. We're not a protagonist
behind the change, we just wanted to give the board the vehicle
to look at it.
MR. MASTERS: I just want to make a comment and go on
the record. I think this goes in the right direction. I'm not in
favor of all of it and I think it definitely warrants quite a bit more
study.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: We have a motion and a second on the
Page 68
April 5, 2000
floor. I'll call the question.
All those in favor of the motion, which was to not make a
recommendation to forward to the BCC, say aye, please.
MR. LONGO: The motion was to '-
MR. ESPINAR: For denial.
MR. LONGO: -- disapprove.
MR. SAVAGE: Changing the ordinance, yeah.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Disapprove. Pardon me.
All those in favor of the motion, say aye.
All those opposed?
(No response.)
None.
MR. ANDERSON: For the record, I abstain.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: And Mr. Anderson abstains. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your presentation.
MR. WEIGEL: Thank you. Thanks for having us.
And, Mr. Savage, I just have something as a postscript. We
have been working throughout this period over many months
with Mr. Krehling, and particularly through his Attorney Ken
Cuyler (phonetic), and we have been faxing everything that we
have as it comes forward. And we haven't had any comment from
them for a long time now.
MR. SAVAGE: From Krehling?
MR. WEIGEL: Yeah. We expect we will very soon. Thank
yOU ·
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: They are trying to be quiet.
MR. WEIGEL: For the moment.
MR. CAUTERO: Mr. Tindale had a quick announcement on a
typo.
MR. TINDALE: There is a typo I need to point out in the
back-up data in your packages, but I'm afraid if I don't point it
out it may cause some confusion. Mr. Jones pointed this out
and he's correct.
On the first page of the EMS impact fee report, the section
entitled Executive Summary, in the last bullet item it refers to
the new EMS impact rate for the mid-sized single family home as
being $237.74. That is incorrect. The correct amount is $103.59,
Page 69
April 5, 2000
so there's a difference.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you.
MR. TINDALE: The amount in the fee schedule is correct,
which is 103.59, but I wanted to make sure that there's no
discrepancy between the paragraph and the table.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: I had that underlined in red.
MR. JONES: There are two of these, one we can have or do
we need one of the sound ordinance?
MR. WEIGEL: I gave you two. If I could have one back?
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: I think it would be great if --
MR. SAVAGE: It would be good to have.
MR. WEIGEL: You're among the first to get them.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: Thank you very much.
Our final item in this marathon meeting is member
comments, if we have any. If we can dispense with that item --
MR. JONES: Motion to adjourn.
MR. ESPINAR: Second.
CHAIRMAN DISNEY: And a second. All those in favor, say
aye.
Any opposed?
(No response.}
There being no further business for the good of the County,
the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 6:10 p.m.
DEVELOPMENT SERVICES
ADVISORY COM M ITTEE
DALAS DISNEY, CHAIRPERSON
Page 70
April 5, 2000
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT
REPORTING SERVICES, INC., BY: ELIZABETH M. BROOKS, RPR,
NOTARY PUBLIC.
Page 71
-. A~__I)ERSON ROBERT
1.670 Crayton Road
CITY
Naples
OATE O~ WH~-"~ VOTE occunn~ --
POR 8e EUO ANDU OF VOTING
__ COONTY MUNICIPAL, AND OTHFR LOCAL' PUBLIC OFFICERS
BRUCE ~ OF ~' ~'~ ~I~8~N. ~qMORIw, OR C~I~E~
_Development Services Advisory Co~ittee
C~N~ O ~ ~ O OTHER
Collier ~o~m~~
Collier County
April 5, 2000
WHO MUST FIlE FORM 8B
Th;$ form is for use by any person serving at the. coonty, city, cr other local ~evel of government om an appointed or elec~e~l boatit, council, l
commission, authority, or committee. It applies equally to members ef ad¥;,scry and non-advisory bodies ~ho are presented with a votin9 i
conflict o! lnleree~ uriclet Section 112.3 ~ 43, Florida Statutes.
Your lesponsibilities un.~er lhe law v~,en faced with votinG, on a measure in whi=h you have a ~onfrmt of ;ateres! will very greatly depending
on whether you held an elective or appo!n!Jve po~ilion. Fc.r ~his re.on, please pay close at~entioP, to the i~strt;ctions on this Iorm before
octopisUng the reyes'so side and Ifilrig the form.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLIANCE WITH SECTION 112.3145, FLORIDA STATUTES
A person ho!ding elect~¢e ~; acpolntive county, municipa!, cr other local public office MUST ABSTAIN from voting on a measure which
;nur~s to his or her spec;~t~. private gairt o~ loss. Each elected ~ ~ppointed IDeal officer al~;o f~ proh.:bited from k~owingly voting on a mea-
sure which inures to the speciEll gain or toss of a p;incipal (olher than a government agency) by whom he or she is ,'etain~d 0nctuding ,'he
oareat o'ganizaiion o~ $ubstd~a,'y of a corporate pdncipa! by whi~ he or she is retained,; ',o Ihe spareel private gain or loss ot a ~elalive: or
(o the special private ~ein or lass of a business eeocciasa. Commissioners c.f community redevelopment agenci~ under Sec. 163.~56 or
~63.357. F.$,, and cfficer.J of independent sp~[a! tax d,'stdcts elected o.'4 ~ on~-ecre. one-vo',e basis are not prahibited from volroe in that
capacity.
For purposes ol this law, a '~elative" includes only the officer's father, mo[he~, son, da~lhter. husband. wife. brother. si~ter. t~ther-in.law,
mother-in-iaw. son-in-Jaw, and daughter-!n-law, A 'business a~ociate' means any person or entity engaged in or carrying o,q a business
emerp;ise ~th ~he officer as a pa~.ner, jo'~,t venturer, coowear of profab', or corporate"~%sreholder [w~her~ t:,~e shares of the coq'~oratJon
a~e no{ lis~ed on any national or regional stock exchange).
ELECTED OFFICERS:
In addition to abe{sEeing from voling in the situations d~crk)ed above, you mu~t disclose ~he conflic;:
PRIOR TO THE VOTE BEING 7AKEN by publiCty stating to the assembly the nature o! yo[ir into?eat ~n the measure on whlct~ you
are eb~tainin~ from voting; and
WITEIN 15 DAYS AFTER THE VOTE OCCURS by completing and filing this form w;'th the persc~, respons;b:e for rocoreros. the mi~-
urea oi t~e meettnD, who shoul~ incorpora[e lhe form in the minutes.
APPOINTED OFFICERS:
Allh,:~Jgh you must abstain from ¥o,'ing in t13e situations descalled above, you olhern4se may p~rlic~pate in these matters. ;-towever, you
must disclose the nature of the conflict be!ore mariani any at~er~p[ to influence the decisio~'~, w~ethet orally o~ in wd[ing and whether mede
b/yot~ or at your di,*ection.
IF YOU It,TEND TO MAKE ANY ATTEMPT TO INFLUC-NCE THE DECISION PRIOR TO THE MEETIN~ AT WHICH THE VOTE WiLL BE
TAKEN:
You mu~[ complete end file thi~; form (b.Hofe making any nttem~.t to influence the decision) with the person re.'-2on~ible for rocordial]
minute= ot ihe ~1eetlng. who will incorpnfate the Ion-n in the rainurea, (Continued on other side)
FORM .,t.3 · REV. 119,,. PAGE 1
RPr-06-00 81%46P~
APPOINTED OFFICERS (continued)
- A copy ol the form must be provided {mmedialely to the other members of the agency.
· T/~e form mus[ be read publicly at the next meefJng alta(the fo~m is
IF YOU MAKE NO ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE THE DECISION EXCEPT BY DISCUSSION AT THE MEETING/
· You must dL~clo.~e otalt~, the nature o~ your con.~tic! in the measure belove particlpatir, g.
° You must comp~et~ the to~m and f~e Jt within ~5 days after lhe vote cccur~ with l.~e pe,'~on responsible tot recording the minut=s of the
meeting, who must incorporate the I'Dtin l~, t~e minutes. ^ c=py of the form must be provided immediately to the other mernt:.er~ of the
agency, and ~e form mus', be read pub!icly at the next meeting after the {orm {s filed.
DISCLOSURE OF LOCAL OFFICER'S iNTEREST
I: R. Bruce Anderson .. , hereby ~'~clo~ [hat on_ April 5_,. ,~.~._0~
(a) A measure came ~ will ccme before rr~y s~;ency which !check one)
~ inured to my speci~l private gain or loss;
~ inured to the Special gain. or loss ol my cueing= associate
~ inured to the special gain or loss ot my relative.
~ inured to the special gain or los= of WCI Communities, Inc. ..
who~ I a;n retained; or
~ inured to the special ga'm or ~oss o~
is the p~'~t organization or 6ubsidiary of a principal which has retained me.
~b) The measure before my a@ency and the nature of my conflicting l~!eres! in the measure is as foilowe:
which
The Development Services Advisory Committee was requested to make a
recommendation on amendments to the County Noise Ordinance and one of
the amendments may have an impact on WCI Communities, Inc. responsibilities
to make modifications to an air conditioner serving the Marbella condominium
in order to reduce noise levels.
Sigr~ture
NOTICE: UNDER PROV!SIONS OF FLORIDA STATUTES §1~2.317, A FAILURE TO MAKE ANY ~EQUIRED DISCLOSUFiE
CONST1TOTES GROUNDS FOR AND MAY BE PUNISHED BY ONE OR MORE OF THE POLLEWING: I~MPEACHMENT;
REMOVAL OR SUSPENSION FROM OFFICE OR EMPLOYMENT, DEMOTION, REDUCTION iN SALARY, REPRIMAND, OR A
CIVIL PENALTY NOT TO EXCEED $10,000.
CE FORM 8B - RF.,V. I~8