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BCC Minutes 04/12/2001 W (Informational: Zoning & Land Development Review; IT; Community Notifications; and Hearing Examiner)April 12, 2001 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS DEVELOPMENT REVIEW WORKSHOP Naples, Florida, April 12, 2001 LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special districts as have been created according to law and having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:10 a.m. in SPECIAL SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRMAN: JAMES D. CARTER, PH.D PAMELA S. MAC'KIE DONNA FIALA TOM HENNING JIM COLETTA ALSO PRESENT: THOMAS W. OLLIFF, COUNTY MANAGER MARJORIE STUDENT, ASSISTANT COUNTY ATTORNEY ROBERT MULHERE, PLANNING SERVICES SUSAN MURRAY, PLANNING SERVICES CHERYL SOTER, PLANNING SERVICES FRED REISCHL, PLANNING SERVICES Page I April 12, 2001 JOHN DUNNUCK, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Page 2 NOTICE OF BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS INFORMATIONAL WORKSHOP Thursday, April 12, 2001 9:00 A.M. Notice is hereby given that the Collier County Board of County Commissioners will hold an informational workshop on THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2001, at 9:00 A.M. in the Board Meeting Room, Third Floor, Harmon Turner Building (Administration) at the Collier County Government Complex, 3301 East Tamiami Trail, Naples, Florida. The Board's informational topic(s) will include, but may not be limited to, an overview of the following subjects: Overview of Current Zoning and Development Review Process Enhanced Public Participation Strategies, to include: Technological Advancements for Public Information Access, Notification and Input in the Development Review Process Enhanced Community Notification Strategies Hearing Examiner Process for Quasi-judicial Land Use Petitions The meeting is open to the public. Any person who decides to appeal a decision of this Board will need a record of the proceedings pertaining thereto, and therefore may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA James D. Carter, Ph.D., Chairman DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK By:/s/Maureen Kenyon Deputy Clerk April 12, 2001 MR. OLLIFF: We appreciate you coming. This is the seventh workshop in a series of twelve that we have initially set up for you. This one, I think, our intent was to try and make sure that, from the board's perspective, you understand how primarily a -- a piece of property goes from an agriculturally zoned undeveloped property all the way to a -- a C.O. On an actual construction project and to understand, in -- in more importance probably, where is -- where are the opportunities for the Board of County Commissioners to influence that project as it moves along the process; where are the staff points of review; what is the staff reviewing for; and then, lastly -- and perhaps with a little more emphasis than maybe we've placed ever in -- in the past -- looking at some opportunities for better and improved public notice and participation in that process as it moves along. And I -- I think we are trying to provide for you some of the things that we have consistently heard in terms of criticisms about the county's land development review process over the course of at least the last 17 years that I've been here. And hopefully this workshop will lead to some directions for some policy changes, I think, that will improve that process for everybody. With that I'll turn it over to Bob. MR. MULHERE: Thank you, Tom. Am I being picked up audibly without getting too close to the mike here? MR. OLLIFF: Good. CHAIRMAN BERRY: Yeah. Our mike system works very well here. MR. MULHERE: The -- you should have in front of you a -- a packet that -- that contains the issues that we're going to discuss today. It starts out with a memorandum that I think in the narrative fashion explains the issues. But if you wish to -- some of these slides will be a little bit difficult to see. And for Page 3 April 12, 2001 the public there are copies of that information up on the table over here. Some of these slides will be a little bit difficult to see, so in the back of that you have copies of the slides and, actually, color copies of the slides so -- if you wish to follow along. I know some of those, especially the ones that Tom referred to that show the - - the flow chart of decision making and points of -- of board input and staff review, may be a little bit difficult to see. I've got several staff members here to assist me, and I'm -- oh, there's Susan. I'd like to introduce them. Behind me is Susan Murray who will be operating part of the time the -- the visualizer, and then we'll step over to the notebook computer as we go through some of our technological enhancements. Susan Murray is the interim current planning manager at this point in time. To my left, Fred Reischl, who is the principal planner and been with the county -- started just before I did, so about 12 years; and Cheryl Soter, who is a Planner 1, recently promoted to Planner 1. And Cheryl has been intimately involved with the development of our information management system, Perconte system, which we're going to talk about a little bit and both in -- in her former position with the building department and now with the planning department. And, Cheryl, how long have you been with the county? MS. SOTER: Fourteen years. MR. MULHERE: Fourteen years for Cheryl. I raise those issues because I think it's important to know that we have a lot of staff that's been here a long time, and -- and I think that speaks well of the county. We're going to start with going throughout slide, and we'll give you a little bit of an agenda, if -- if we could go to the first slide there. What we're going to talk about today primarily are three things. There is, actually, a sort of a sub-element to that: Page 4 April 12, 2001 first, an overview of the current process followed by an opportunity for us to show you some of the things that you hear us talking about a lot but I don't think you really have the opportunity to see them. And I'd like to spend a few minutes to show you some of the technological enhancements. And those enhancements are primarily aimed at two things: enhancing the staff efficiency and enhancing the public's access to information. So that's why I think they're timely and an important part of this discussion. In addition, I want to talk a little bit about something that's not up there as an item but is related, and that is a process that we're going through now which is really a procedural audit of both the planning department and the building department that we're conducting with an ad hoc committee of the develop -- Development Services Advisory Committee to look at how we can improve our process and procedures. So I want to talk a little bit about that. And the last thing will be our point-by-point recommendations for policy and procedural rec -- en -- enhancements or improvements. Next slide, please. As we go through the development review process, we are going to focus primarily on the rezone process which really is -- is a process that is the same for all types of quasi-judicial land use petitions, largely the same. So we want to talk about that. We've focused on the rezone, but it would be the same for a conditional use or for other types of land use petitions. MR. OLLIFF: And, Bob, I'm going -- I'm going to stop you whenever I think we get too technical and I think we need to -- to bring it back down to a simplified term -- and I may even have to get the attorney's office to help in certain questions -- but the difference between quasi-judicial decisions and others? MR. MULHERE: Good. I can handle that one. Page 5 April 12, 2001 MR. OLLIFF: Okay. MR. MULHERE: And I'm glad you raised that issue, because this really is -- is a critical issue, I think, largely that -- that adds to the perception out there that the public has not had the opportunity to be fully engaged in this process. And in the '90s -- and Marjorie can quote the case, I'm sure. It slips my mind momentarily. MS. STUDENT: Snyder? MR. MULHERE: Snyder, right -- the Florida Supreme Court determined that with the advent of required comprehensive plans, that land use -- that quasi-judicial -- which really means, you know, a judicial rendering with a finder of fact to look at the evidence and make a decision versus a legislative decision in which you have broad discretion in how you make a decision. In a quasi-judicial land use petition -- and the legislate -- the Florida Supreme Court determined that all land use petitions are quasi-judicial in nature -- you have less discretion, because if an applicant demonstrates that the application is consistent with your comprehensive plan and consistent with the land development regulations that are in place, the burden of proof now shifts to the board should you be inclined not to approve that petition to demonstrate how it is not consistent. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Could I take a shot at saying that even more plainly? MR. MULHERE: Sure. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We basically have two roles. One is we're a legislature; we make laws. We can make any laws we want as long as they comploy -- comply with health, safety, welfare and within the police powers and within what the legislature has given us the authority to do. When we're doing -- when we're making laws, we can just about make any law we want. Page 6 April 12, 2001 But when we are looking at a zoning or a land use petition, we have already made the law. The law already exists. It's the comp plan and the Land Development Code. And so our only authority is to say, does it match or does it not match? If it doesn't match the current law, we can change it. But we can't not enforce the law that we've already adopted. And that's when we're judges. That's when we're quasi-judicial. And, you know, that's hard. And the public doesn't get that. You know, they think that you're making the law. You make the law; you can change it whenever you want. But you can't change it on a case- by-case basis. We're stuck with enforcing it the day that we look at it. MR. MULHERE: And -- and that -- that's exactly the point, because you'll have a room full of people here who may be opposed to a particular petition, but during the hearing there's no competent substantial evidence placed on the record that would refute the competent substantial evidence that their experts, their representatives, have placed on the record. And the public says, "Well, you are the law. You can make these decisions." well, in fact, the Florida Supreme Court says, "No, you cannot. You know, you -- you must follow this process." and I think that probably brings it down to simple terms. MS. STUDENT: Yeah. And one of the things that when I've explained it to people to try and have them understand it at a level that they might have had experience with is if you have a case in court and the guy that's suing you or the guy that you're suing goes off and talks to the judge and you're not there, you know -- you know, in terms of ex parte aspect of it, then -- you know, you would have a problem with that, I'm sure. And I try to explain it that our board sits like judges. And they're to be guided, you know, by the principles that are in our LDC and -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that goes to the issue of why Page 7 April 12, 2001 we have to make disclosure at the beginning of a -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. COMMISSIOMER MAC'KIE: -- quasi-judicial. We have to say who we talked to and kind of what we talked about so if the other side wants to cross-examine on that point, they have the right to, or we've made adequate disclosure for them to know what we talked about, because we're kind of judges when we're - CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, you know I understand all that. And if it was all black and white, I don't think any of us would have any problem with that. I mean, it's either up or down. However, since other sides bring legal representation and they argue finer points of the law, we're caught with sitting there as judges without any legal background or basis to try to separate out those fine points of the law -- MR. MULHERE: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- whatever that is. COMMISSIOMER MAC'KIE: That's true. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And we might even say that their legal counsels in some ways could be taking them down a path which is not one that's going to be successful. But how do you explain that to the public to say, no -- you really got people who, A, may not understand Florida law, the law -- the ruling by the Florida Supreme Court, because they're from some other state and they're operating on the state of Connecticut or Ohio -- or you pick the state -- and they're coming here and -- and getting people pretty exercised over some land use decision. And I think that's a struggle we have all the time. MR. MULHERE: And I think you're absolutely right. And I think that the challenge really largely falls on your staff to do a better job of engaging the public and explaining the process to the public but long before -- you know, five or six days before the Page 8 April 12, 2001 hearing. And that -- that's some of the specifics we're going to get into. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. MR. MULHERE: And I think we-- in that way we really -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: And that -- MR. MULHERE: -- need to play a role of -- of being instructors, really, to the public in the process and how they can fully represent themselves and take advantage of their legal rights. And that falls, I -- I say, both on the attorney's office staff and the planning staff. The -- the other items that are listed up there, the second bullet, is site plan and plat review process. And I -- I put that up there because there is often, I think, some confusion about the administrative pro -- procedures, particularly sometimes with the plat review. And we'll talk a little bit about that. Those are both largely administrative. The site plan is completely administrative. Plat is largely administrative. And we'll talk a little bit about those. The other thing that I put up there is the process after an approval, and that's the engineering inspections process that I think perhaps a lot of people don't understand, and -- and so we'll spend a few minutes talking about that. The last three bullets I really don't intend to spend a lot of time talking about, but I put those up there so you could see, basically, the entire process from moving through after you've gotten your site plan, your plat approved and you go out there and make alterations to the land in accordance with that. You then can come in and pull building permits and have vertical construction and inspections and, finally, a certificate of occupancy. Next slide, please. The rezone process is very -- the public petition process is very similar for all petitions. Some may not go through all of the Page 9 April 12, 2001 steps, and I'll explain some of those differences. But, basically, you start out with a vacant piece of land. And an applicant comes in and attends a required preapplication meeting. And at that preapplication meeting we have all of the appropriate review staff in attendance. And we spend time with the applicant, you know, maybe an hour, maybe three hours. But we try to raise all of the issues at that point in time and put them in writing so that they can then be dealt with prior to submission by the applicant. The applicant then submits, and we go through a fairly lengthy review process. Number one, we find the application, whether it's sufficient or not sufficient, is everything there that needs to be there; if so, then it's distributed. Number 2, the professional staff in various jurisdictions review the -- the information, and they do sort of a secondary sufficiency re -- review. And the traffic impact statement may be there, but it may not be sufficient. It may not be completed in -- in a fashion that your professional staff feels is appropriate. So the project may go on hold. That review time -- if everything was great and correct and we had no comments or we had comments that we -- that we felt we could deal with as part of the approval process, that would take 10 to 12 weeks. Normally, though, and on average, rezones in this county take five, six, seven months to complete because they don't go through the first time or the second time or the third time and because your staff works hard to try to bring something to you that minimizes the points of disagreement. Once that -- that staff review and analysis is complete and we've developed a staff report, we then on most petitions go to the Environmental Advisory Council. There are some petitions that do not need to go to the Environment -- Environmental Advisory Council because there aren't environmental issues, but Page 10 April 12, 2001 most do. Yes. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: When -- when would be the appropriate time to talk about what does go to EAC and what changes we might want to consider, because I think there are things that should go that aren't? MR. MULHERE: Right. Well, let me -- let me suggest one time. We're going to talk about the hearing examiner, and that's going to change the whole process -- COMMISSIOMER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. MULHERE: -- anyway so ... COMMISSIOMER MAC'KIE: You're right, so I'll wait. MR. MULHERE: The next -- the next advisory board -- and this advisory board is --and let me just say that the way the Environmental Advisory Council is structured today, they really perform two roles: one, to look at the environmental issues and - - both on a site-by-site, petition-by-petition basis and also from a policy perspective; and, two, they look at the conceptual water management plan and those types of relationships. And, again, that would be site by site and also from a policy perspective. The next body would be the Collier County Planning Commission, and they are statutorily required as the local planning agency. And their responsibility is, also, to look at these petitions broadly for compliance with all of our regulations. They also will look at the Environmental Advisory Council's recommendations and staff recommendations. And they will formulate a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners that we do carry forward to you. Oftentimes the staff and the Planning Commission are in agreement; sometimes we're not. We always identify those issues of separation before you, Then, finally, the petition is brought before the Board of County Commissioners. Now, I want to point out the points of Page 11 April 12, 2001 notice, public notice, in that process. There is no requirement for public notice in the form of a mailing or newspaper advertisement for a specific petition for the Environmental Advisory Council. The agenda is published, but there is no separate or specific notice requirement. There is for the Planning Commission, and we notify all property owners within 300 feet. And we're going to talk about that a little bit later. That's -- but we notify all property owners within 300 feet. We post the property with sometimes one sign, sometimes three signs or four. It depends on how big the property is and where we think it's appropriate to locate those signs. And we also place a required ad in a local newspaper of general -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Circulation. MR. MULHERE: -- circulation which translates to the Naples Daily News. Sometimes we do put ads in the Immokalee Bulletin or the -- for example, the Marco Island Eagle, if -- if that was appropriate. But most times it's the Nal~les Daily News. Now -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm sorry. MR. MULHERE: Go ahead. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But when we're on EAC, is that changing significantly, they're not going to be reviewing petitions, because I think there ought to be notice for them, too, if they're to continue to -- . MR. MULHERE: I -- I agree. And, yes, I think that when we get the hearing examiner the recommendation is to change that and have those -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. MULHERE: -- two bodies be largely policy oriented. COMMISSIOMER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. MULHERE: Now, the greatest -- the greatest, I think, criticism that we have consistently, as Tom referred to, for the Page12 April 12, 2001 last 17 years heard, and -- well, that he's been here and 12 years that I've been here heard fairly consistently is that notice is often confusing, the notice is not timely or not timely enough to allow neighborhood associations and individuals to organize and be prepared. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. MR. MULHERE: And in the case of the Environmental Advisory Council, they might not even be aware of the application and the implications because it isn't advertised, not in the same way as the other. So, anyways, you see a total time, four to six months, depending on the complexity of the application. It may be longer or a little bit shorter. And that process is very similar for all types of land use petitions with the exception of a couple -- I think the one that comes to mind is -- actually, one is boat dock petitions which, as it's structured currently, do not go to the board unless they're appealed to the board. The Planning Commission has the final approval authority on that. Next slide, please. MR. OLLIFF: Bob, before you move to that one, just some -- some other little notes: Generally what is the time that it takes to get from the Environmental Advisory Council to the board from the time that you advertise it? MR. MULHERE: Yeah. Generally, that can be accomplished in a month to six weeks. MR. OLLIFF: Okay. MR. MULHERE: The required -- I'm glad you raised that question, because I do want to make another point. Interestingly enough, I said we advertise before the Planning Commission, and we do. And we notify property owners and put an ad in the paper, and we post the property. We do not have a separate or specific advertisement for the board meeting. We are not Page 13 April 12, 2001 required. We are required to notice the Planning Commission. We do not have one for the board meeting. Your agenda is published, and people who are -- now, the premise behind that is get people involved at the earliest point possible. We've already seen that that's not necessarily true, so -- MR. OLLIFF: The reason I brought that up was in a lot of cases, some of the complaints I've heard from your level are that these things hit the public's radar screen sometimes at the employee (sic) advisory committee when it -- it becomes public at that point -- COMMISSIOMER MAC'KIE: Environmental? MR. OLLIFF: -- sometimes at the Planning Commission. I'm sorry. En -- Environmental Advisory Committee or sometimes at the Planning Commission when the Board of County Commissioners isn't aware of what that petition is about at all. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: John's helped with that a lot by giving us agendas and packets ahead of time. MR. OLLIFF: We're trying to do that. And in addition, I just wanted you to know that your office has asked -- and I think it's a good idea, and John and I talked about it this week, as a matter of fact -- of providing to your office a list of petitions when they actually get submitted. And when they get submitted, then we will provide you a list of not only by petition number but the common name, the general location, and a brief description of what that project is so that you will have -- you will be informed when the petitions hit our door so that you'll know what's going on, particularly in your district so when people come to you and want to talk to you and ask questions about it, you'll at least have something on your radar screen about what that is. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Tom, I might also suggest reading the first part of this report that just as soon as they become available to us, they're put on our net. Page 14 April 12, 2001 MR. MULHERE: Yeah. That's -- that's going to be -- that's a recommendation I'm going to make, and I want to talk a little bit specifically about that because I think it provides a great opportunity. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And one other comment just before we leave this slide is I've been disappointed that the EAC, the timing of EAC meetings, Environmental Advisory Council meetings, seems to be -- is such that we often don't have their minutes or the transcript, whatever, their recommendation in our packet. And for somebody who that's, you know, a threshold issue, like it is for me, that's unacceptable. You know, we've got to time that -- I won't -- I care a lot about what they have to say. And, frankly, I watch their meetings on 54, so I -- I get that. But it should be a part of our packet. MR. MULHERE: We will not forward any petitions to you that don't have that. And that's been conveyed down to the staff. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Tom, will this be part of the briefing book? MR. OLLIFF: No. It's actually going to be a separate spot on the web for your staff to have access to. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. But I mean as far as us getting the packets, is that going to come as a separate item in our mail? MR. MULHERE: Next slide, please. I'm -- I'm sorry about this. This was one of the slides that I said would be hard for you to read, but if you look in your packet, you do you have it in color, and I -- I'm at the same disadvantage because I don't have it in color, but-- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We could share ours with you. MR. MULHERE: I -- I just wanted to say -- this is the site -- thank you. This is the site development review process. As I Page 15 April 12, 2001 indicated, this is a completely administrative process, and you know the consternation that -- on occassion that's brought to the board as people have complained about approvals and those types of things. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What he means when he says administrative is staff does it. We don't do it. Totally staff's control. MR. MULHERE: And, of course, the rationale behind that is that we have zoning in place. We have development standards within the zoning district. And if someone comes in, they have a right to develop that. In some municipalities, site plans are approved by the elected body. I am not recommending that. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Like the City of Naples. MR. MULHERE: Correct. Because of the pure volume of activity, we're talking about -- we certainly would have to look at certain thresholds, and I think we have those thresholds in place. So I'm not recommending that the process be changed. I am recommending that we look over time at the policies that are in place that will provide the appropriate outcome. And where the outcome isn't correct, that's -- that's, I think, how we need to deal with it from a policy perspective. Anyway, I did want to tell you a little bit about this process. It's a similar process. It requires a preapplication meeting. Issues are raised. All of the appropriate staff are in attendance: Environmental, transportation. Sometimes we'll invite additional staff if there are issues: Parks and recreation, natural resources staff. We even have at times invited, for example, county facilities management staff if it was a co-location issue. So we try to bring everyone to the table at that preapplication meeting where there are issues, identify those issues in detail and in writing and in the preapplication notes. Then the applicant goes back and does their work, comes back with the package; the same Page 16 April 12, 2001 process. Sufficiency determination is distributed out to all of the various agencies, and we -- we have converted to -- and if you'll go to the next slide, I think it's a little -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And this is a process that happens after we're done. We've done our work already. We've done the rezone. You know, we're finished with it. Now you guys go-- CHAIRMAN CARTER: The only -- the only troubling part I have with this -- and I'm sure there is a workable solution -- is that I would like to see a more comprehensive presentation, particularly on PUDs and that. We get pretty pictures. We get these little things, and that is about as worthless as a glass of water because they're going to go back and rework and change those things. And our assumptions about what it might look like in reality is never what it is. And we've got to find a better way that when you come to me with a PUD, I want to know are we going to have the curving streets and that to do the traffic con -- thing. I want to know what it's -- all of that stuff. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Commissioner, I tell you, you know, I -- I -- I want to know it, too, but it sure does scare the heck out of me to think about what would happen if we required that because -- because when we -- when we do an 800-unit PUD that has some commercial and it's going to be developed over a 4-year period, the market's going to determine whether there's going to be single family in this neighborhood or multifamily here. And, you know, we have some -- some things that we set in stone, but the other is -- is so market driven. And in -- for example, in the City of Naples, you don't do a -- they call them PDs -- a PD is our PUD -- you don't do it without also simultaneously submitting the site plan. And the city council says, no, the bike rack should be here and -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I don't know-- don't mis --just Page17 April 12, 2001 misunderstand me, Commissioner. I don't want that kind of detail, but I want to have some general concept, going back to the Dover, Kohl recommendations, to integrate that into this so we have a pretty good idea. I don't know how much, you know, commercially it may change this, but I want to know where it is and how it's going to be configured. Is it going to be around a piazza? What -- what is it going to look like so that you don't get all of this -- . COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I just got to say one more thing because I'm so excited about that Dover, Kohl because what it gives us, Commissioner, that we haven't had the chance to do our job is to establish policies that say thou shalt arrange your commercial this way. Thou shalt -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- have interconnecting streets, thou shalt -- and then we get a PUD application that says it meets these or it doesn't meet these. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. I agree-- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But if we've established enough policy and the correct policy, then we don't have to see where the bike racks go. MR. MULHERE: You know, I -- I would tell you that we -- we hear and understand exactly what you're saying. And -- and I think we've done a better job of having more conceptual design attachments, but we can still do a better job. And -- and I can give you, really, I think a perfect example. We had the work over there along Livingston -- Livingston Road, behind Livingston Woods, where we had the wall. And then we had people show up and say, you know, "The wall doesn't look anything like what the wall -- they said the wall was going to look like." and you know what? Absolutely a valid criticism. And I think that we, in that case, found out there were two reasons: We were not specific Page 18 April 12, 2001 enough in our requirements and needed to be more specific when we brought the PUD to the board. And, two, we had a breakdown between -- because we weren't specific enough. The inspector out in the field, he's going to go on a -- on a site plan, and the site plan showed a wall, you know, 6-foot high with landscaping. Well, we need to be more specific. And we understand that, and we -- we're committed to -- to doing that for you. But I think the other element is ensuring that we have the right policies in place and identifying where the PUD doesn't meet those. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Ms. Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Something that I was surprised at, being new on the commission, was how many PUDs were brought before us. And then after -- after all was said and done, they're sold to somebody else who is going to do something different than what was presented to us in the first place. And that's kind of disconcerting. MR. MULHERE: To the degree that they have the flexibility within the PUD, they can do that. And I think, you know, if I understand what you're saying, you need to be made aware of the degree to which there is flexibility so that you can address that when the PUD is brought to you. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Before we move on the point of site review -- and you brought up Livingston Woods as -- as a great example, and I spent a lot of my time, which I really don't want to do on these site plan developments, the issue about the wall. Harley-Davidson is a great example of the e-mails that we've been getting that construction is continuing but the walls are not there. So if we have some safeguards to protect neighborhoods, I would like for those safeguards to be put in first -- . MR. MULHERE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- before the other elements are Page19 April 12, 2001 put in there. And another thing that -- that I'm dealing with is egress and ingress on PUDs that have been approved but it has significant impacts on -- on existing neighborhoods. So I hope during this review process that we look at that very closely and find out the best avenue of less impacts on existing neighborhoods. There's a few examples out there. MR. MULHERE: I think you're absolutely right. And just -- before we move on, you're absolutely right. The public record was somewhat unclear in terms of when the wall was required to be constructed. But your intentions were not unclear. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. MR. MULHERE: And -- and the fact of the matter is that we will do -- we will be sure that those stipulations and specifications are very, very clear. The wall should have been constructed prior to commencement of construction of the principal structures, number one. Number two, I hear loud and clear what you want to see is the staff should address how construction traffic will enter and exit and what impacts that will have on neighboring properties and/or developed properties. And we need to be dealing with that because you don't have time to deal with all those issues. That's our job. MS. MAC'KIE: But, you know, we need to take responsibility, too, for -- if we come up with these creative things on the record. You know, sometimes we're really bad about talking about something for 30 minutes and then saying, "Well, I'll incorporate that in my motion," and then '1'11 second it." and, you know, we need to state it much more clearly. Tom's administration has done a much more better ]ob of sending us these little summary sheets, does this include every -- all of the conditions that you intended. But, you know, we need to be real clear. If what we mean is put the wall in before you break a shovel of ground, then we need to say it, you know. Page 20 April 12, 2001 MR. MULHERE: Yeah. MR. OLLIFF: Bob, the other -- the other thing I want the board to help us with is when you get these issues where you've got constituents issues that come up about the site development plan, rather than focusing on that particular project, if you do have a concern about distance between ingress and egress that the staff is approving a site development plan, think about it, draw back, think about it from a policy perspective. And if you want to bring it up at a board meeting to discuss or have the staff bring back what is the Land Development Code policy in regards to ingress and egress distances from this or that or the other thing, let's talk about it at a policy level, because rather than talking about it in terms of that individual site development plan, a lot of times some of these things do point out policy-level issues that you will want to see us change, and let's talk about it in terms of the land development codes or let's talk about it in terms of comp plan policies, and -- and that's where you make the overall broad change that then every site development plan will be reviewed in a different way. MS. MAC'KIE: Let me tell you a place where staff could help us with that, because you guys know when what we're talking about is a policy, a county-wide policy. When we're expressing frustration -- this has been -- one of the most frustrating things in my six years, to be blunt, is when we as a board are sitting up here, frustrated as we can be, that this is not the way we want it, that somehow unless I do a memo or put it on the agenda or formalize it in some way, you've heard five board members up there saying this interconnection incentive policy doesn't work, doesn't work, doesn't work. And we said that for three years or something before finally we said it in the magic way that made staff hear we want to discuss this as a policy issue. Page 21 April 12, 2001 What would be helpful is if when you hear us talking about policy, you say, "How about if I put this on next agenda." . MR. OLLIFF: Right. MS. MAC'KIE: Because otherwise we talk about it for years and never change anything. MR. OLLIFF: Right. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I -- I can act with those feelings -- is that would be the time to say, okay, this is what we need to change; let's talk about it at the next meeting. Thank you. MS. MAC'KIE: Right. MR. CARTER: I think also we can help staff when we are in neigborhoods and when these issues are raised that we generate the memos to staff and say we've got some concerns in this area, how does this affect policy, and how can you help me answer these concerns. I don't want to go out on a limb and say, oh, yeah, we can take care of that when it's a bigger policy issue. MR. MULHERE: I agree. And I think the time for having a simple response from the staff that says, "Well, we followed all the procedures, we followed all the rules is not enough." we need to say, "How can we address these issues?" and by -- and that's the direction we've gotten from Tom. And, you know, that's the path we're going to take. I think that's evidenced by some of these recommendations. The other thing is these workshops, I'm not suggesting that you have them, what, 12 or 14 workshops every -- you know, every year or one every other week or something. But these are very helpful to your staff. I want to reinforce that because we have an opportunity to talk to you at a different level than the pressures that we may experience during a particular land use petition or during a very controversial issue at a board meeting which is much more formal. So even though we're wearing a tie, Page 22 April 12, 2001 this is less formal. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I -- I'd like to add also it's great for us to be able to focus on one subject and pour out our ideas. I've had many comments from the public as well who appreciate this. It's been quite a learning cre -- a learning source for all of us, I think, as we break it down. Pam, I love the way you bring it down to laymen's terms so we all understand where it's actually going. Sometimes we -- we're so familiar with the subject that we speak in our own lingo. MR. MULHERE: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And -- so I think this is good for all of us. MR. MULHERE: We're -- we're largely guilty for all of that. I mean, I just -- I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Before we go away, the statement about workshops, I do not mind this type of settings. And how often that we need to have them for planning for the future and -- and the small details like that ain't bad. I mean -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Ditto, ditto, ditto. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You won't have any objection of this board at all. I mean, Pam and I struggled for -- well, I've only struggled with it two years. Pam had a longer stint with that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thanks, Tom. MR. OLLIFF: Well, that's good to hear because I've got the next series to roll out -- . COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good. MR. OLLIFF: -- very shortly. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We're ready. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, that's fine. We need it, particularly as we get into Land Development Code cycle. The better we're briefed to understand those cycles to deal with things, we don't come up at the 11th hour trying to piecework Page 23 April 12, 2001 things together on the dais, which Tom keeps reminding us is a disastrous way to try to accomplish something. So I'll -- I think it's great the board's -- MR. MULHERE: This slide is only intended to show you the -- some of the reviewing entities or, you know, your -- your departments largely that -- that will review an administrative approval such as an SDP and a plat. Now, I wanted to -- I mean, you can see current planning. We have an address saying an environmental landscape architectural for commercial buildings; engineering, looking at stem -- storm water and utilities and transportation, looking at fire. We have environmental health review in some cases and many other departments as are necessary. Remember, in 1989 we created what has been referred to as a one-stop shop. I always like to follow that by saying not a one- hour shop. And that's for sure. And we still hold that concept somewhat sacrosanct in that we want to facilitate the review process because we have greater efficiency and greater capabilities of -- of collectively having people in close geography. And with the advent of electronic enhancements, it's not as critically important. However, you should know that -- that -- that -- that this process was developed back in 1989 and modeled on other similar types of county governments and local governments that had this one-stop shop concept in mind for redevelopment review. And it's worked largely very well considering the volume. The only other thing I wanted to talk a little bit about was the plat review process because I've heard a little bit of confusion in respect to that. And I want to say that the plat a -- a -- a preliminary plat is submitted to staff, and it goes through a very similar process as a site plan would. And -- and what's the difference? Well, a site plan is submitted for everything that is Page 24 April 12, 2001 more than single-family or duplexes, so all multifamily, all commercial, all industrial, all institutional. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'll make it easier. Site plan is anything that goes above the ground. Plat's on the ground. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right. MR. MULHERE: Right. Except -- except that a plat is approved for single family. You don't go through a site plan for single family. That's -- that's the one thing I wanted to make understood. A single-family neighborhood doesn't have to go through a site development plan. It only goes through a plat that establishes the lots, and then the lots are conveyed, and then you build your -- your homes. Plats are not completely administrative. And you can have a plat for a commercial development if you've got 10 parcels in there that you're going to sell off fee simple. Then you will have a plat for a commercial development or a multifamily development, but you don't necessarily have to have a plat because that's -- you know, you can have condominiums with common land and so on and so forth. But if you're going to sell something fee simple, you're going to create new parcels of land , you go through a plat. Now, the plat is also largely administrative. Your staff reviews the plat submittal for all the types of things that are important, sewer and water, infrastructure, road construction, road specifications, sidewalk specifications, landscape buffers, all those types of things. But we do bring that document because, by law, I think the -- the board must make the final approve -- approval on the plat. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: May I? MR. MULHERE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just to say they approved the plat for landscaping and roads and all those things, to be sure Page 25 April 12, 2001 that it complies with what we said it should do in the PUD. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And that's why you have a consent agenda that looks like this. MR. MULHERE: Right. And, of course, there's always -- and I'll just throw it in. There's always sort of some great pressure. When it gets to that point in time where a property owner is ready for a final plat approval, they've usually got significant money on the line, and they're looking to get that baby approved. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And they're paying interest every day. I mean, it's a nightmare for people when we hold up their plats. It's just -- it's nightmarish. They're paying big, big bucks every day. And that's a place where we ought to be -- provide good service. MR. MULHERE: But largely -- and the point that I wanted to make really I think that's important is largely your review. If we have done our job and I assure you that we have then that -- that review is perfunctory, really, in nature of a final plat. It doesn't mean you can't bring up questions or issues, and if there are things that are outstanding that you have concerns about, absolutely you have the right to bring those up, and -- and they become -- they become, you know, part of the poll -- the discussion on that item. But that's why they're on the consent agenda. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The only time I ever fought over a plat was with Twin Eagles when they got creative and how they were drawing the 5-acre lots, you know. And so we talked about a plat then. But in my six years, that's the only one I've ever seen pulled off and talked about. MR. MULHERE: Okay. Next slide, please. I wanted to talk I a little bit about engineering inspections. I'm not sure that everybody understands that's -- we have building inspections, but this is a whole different function here. You probably hear about Page 26 April 12, 2001 it occasionally because of blasting or clearing. Remember, the neighbors, the residents in a community, the first time they see something happening is usually when the land is cleared or some sort of physical alteration. That's when you start getting the calls, and that's why we need to do a better job of letting you know what's in the pipeline. But I wanted to give you some idea of the volumes. The environmental inspections, we do 20,000 a year. Those are where we've approved a clearing plan or we've approved a plat or a PUD or a site plan that protects certain lands that has these areas. Well, during that process of improvement, we need to be there several times to insure that those are adequately protected with enviro fencing and those types of things. You can see what -- what they do specifically: Clearing, exotic removal, preserve areas, and single-family drainage. Utilities, we do about 2,500 reviewing the actual construction of wastewater and water installation and reviewing them before the county accepts those. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You know they make people send, like, a videotape through -- through the lines and show that there's nothing in there. And they might see a piece of dirt inside the lines they don't like; they have to go clean it out again and send another videotape. MR. MULHERE: Right. And we retain those -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Very thorough. MR. MULHERE: -- videos so -- and that's to insure that when we've approved -- I mean, once the thing's covered and buried, it's -- you get into an argument. It becomes difficult and so -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's a good thing. MR. MULHERE: Next slide, please. Some other inspections. We've got site drainage. Remember a few years ago the board required even drainage plans for single family because we had Page 27 April 12, 2001 MR. MULHERE: MS. STUDENT: MR. MULHERE: MS. STUDENT: it breast height. some flooding issues. All -- all projects have to have a drainage master plan. Underground pipes and structures, storm water, and on-site containment, we inspect all parking lots for meeting the dimensions and requirements of parking, for aisle ways and for handicap parking and all those kinds of things. We do 20,000 landscape inspections. Those are very detailed. We have specifications on how -- what the DB -- DBH of a plant -- a tree must be at midpoint. I mean, they're -- they -- they really require some time. They're very detailed inspections. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What's a DBH? It has to do with the -- Rest height? Yeah. The height, the -- It has -- I forget what the D is, but the rest of tree COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It has to do with the size of the ? MR. MULHERE: Diameter at breast height. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh. MR. MULHERE: You -- you asked a tough one there. Anyway CHAIRMAN CARTER: You got his attention fast just like that. MR. MULHERE: We -- we have right-of-way permits, and those are critically important. We coordinate -- by the way, on many of these there is a lot of coordination. While the inspections take place in -- in the engineering section of the current planning, if we're inspecting for utilities, the policies, the requirements, the issues come down from the utilities department. So there is great coordination. The same thing with transportation, and we do -- we -- we Page 28 April 12, 2001 need to do a little better job than we have. And last year the board approved additional inspectors to make sure that how we impact the right-of-way during construction, let's say, of a turn lane is critically important. And you remember some horror stories of having blocked off two lanes of a three-lane road and those types of things. So we're much more involved in that process now. Blasting permits, about 1200 a year; excavation permits and -- and potable wells, mainly in Golden Gate Estates, 2800 a year. So that's -- that's something we do. And I -- I just felt like maybe the board needed to sort of have an understanding of what that section did. Next slide, please. MR. OLLIFF: And -- and, I mean, maybe put that into perspective for anyone, when we start talking about 20,000 inspections over the course of a year, you take that into working days, you're talking about over 75-a-day inspections that we're doing in both just environmental and in landscaping. And I will tell you, even with that many, your environmental inspection staff will tell you that in -- in terms of chasing down PUD environmental commitments, we don't do a very good job. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because we were understaffed, Tom. I hope we're going to see that in this year's budget cycle. MR. OLLIFF: That's one of the things we've already been talking about that I've asked John to submit as a expanded service request for next year. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because -- because we put all these conditions in there for a PUD that you've got to -- I mean, there's some famous ones out there that, you know, the Hardy's (phonetic) haven't done what they said they were going to do about canals and that kind of stuff. And they just -- they just happen to be the one in the news. We tell them you have to build these canals and you have to restore this place, and then nobody Page 29 April 12, 2001 is watching it to see if that actually happens because we don't have staff. So, please approve that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And that's all paid for out of fees anyhow. So it's not like you're going in ad valorem taxes for that. So that's why we've always been pretty lenient. You tell us what you want; we'll give it to you. MR. MULHERE: And as we move forward, I have some recommendations from a tracking perspective and a technological perspective that will help the staff track those things in a timely fashion. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I just ask, there's a piece that I don't understand about how it all works together. As I understand, on water management, so flood -- flood planning, flood prevention planning, that the only thing the county reviews is one single-family lot? MR. MULHERE: I'm -- I'm glad you raised that question. And I apologize for maybe not clarifying that because that is important. The South Florida Water Management District has complete and full authority and responsibility for reviewing storm water management plans for projects. They have granted the county the authority to conduct that review -- and I think I'll -- I'll hope I'll get this completely right -- on projects that are 40 acres or less in size, provided there are no listed species issues or wetlands. If there are wetlands or listed species issues, as I understand it, that review still must go through the South Florida Water Management District. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: There's got to be 90 percent of what -- of this county. MR. MULHERE: It's -- it's the majority. You -- you have a lot of small commercial tracts or single family, those types of things. Obviously they're not going to look at those. But, yeah, anything of significance or has any environmental value, it goes -- Page 30 April 12, 2001 it goes to the South Florida Water Management. Now, we coordinate very closely with them, and we're trying to do a better job. They obviously have staff constraints too. But we're trying to have them in attendance, at least for those types of petitions that have signif -- significant issues related to flood or storm water management or wetlands and those types of things. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The confusing part for me is we don't make any of those rules. Those are all South Florida Water Management rules about how much water can be retained on site, how much wetlands can be impacted -- MR. MULHERE: Correct, correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- etc., and then we just are -- staff is in the job of enforcing this water management district's rules. MR. MULHERE: Correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But other counties, in some other counties, Martin County, I know, they have their own rules about how much wetlands -- MR. MULHERE: Correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- impact is enough, and then we would make those rules. I -- I don't know enough about what the rules are to know if we need them or we don't need them because it's somebody else's job. MR. MULHERE: You -- you are -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's troubling because it's such an important issue in this county. MR. MULHERE: And, Pam, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. You're absolutely right. And we will be -- this issue will -- is directly related to the -- the proc -- the rural assessment process. And let me tell you how. While the rural assessment process is intended to develop natural resource species and wetland protection standards and do other things, protect ag Page 31 April 12, 2001 lands and also identify lands that may be appropriate for conversion -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. MR. MULHERE: -- that is -- that's the process by which we're going to develop those policies. But those policies are not limited to the rural lands. We will also apply and develop policies -- develop policies that will apply to the urban lands as well. And so during that policy development process, we will be bringing to you -- and I think there will be some discussion on this at your April 17th natural resources workshop -- wetland -- draft, you know, wetlands protection policy recommendations. The policy in this county has been, up till this point in time, no -- and we're getting off the subject. Real quick, no net loss of wetlands, viably functioning wetlands, or no not -- no net loss of wetlands, period. And that has been interpreted by policy by the board to mean you go through the permitting process. If you have to mitigate or if there's exotic infestation, whatever the jurisdictional agencies allow to you impact through that mitigation process, that is -- translates to no net loss of wetlands. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In other words, we have just said if the water management district will approve it and the Army Corps will approve it, then we're satisfied. MR. MULHERE: That's correct. And the two issues there that we have to look at and we'll look at April 17th and then beyond that through the assessment processes, we've got to try to remember, we're talking about two different levels. We're talking about a regulatory process that's at the site-specific permitting level. The county's obligation's to develop broad landscape plans, how do we plan to protect habitat, how do we plan to protect wetlands broadly, largely through policies. And, you know, then you have the site-specific permitting process Page 32 April 12, 2001 underneath it. So we can -- we can -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: As long -- as long as they don't violate policy, we're okay. MR. MULHERE: Correct. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And what I'm hearing is what we adopt from the other studies we can take universally across the county, number one. MR. MULHERE: That's correct, if we choose to. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That way we will accomplish much more than I knew until just now than anyone listening or any of the public understands. It is not limited. It is total. It's global. MR. MULHERE: Correct. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And that's why it's taken us so long to get there, but we're doing it thoroughly so we have the integration, corps of engineers, water management district, our own policies, and do a total network. MR. MULHERE: And -- and critically the data to support the recommendations that we developed. It doesn't mean that it has to be the same policies for the urban area or, for example, the largest connected natural systems are in the rural lands, and they need maybe a higher level of protection than -- and, you know, something -- we're going to deal with those issues, but we have to address it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We'll do it based on science and data that's been being collected. MR. MULHERE: Correct. COMMISSIONER HENNING: And let me just say we also have the Florida Department of Environmental Protection looking at it. So we do have a lot of big brother out there looking at the small pieces. MR. OLLIFF: And that was one of the reasons why we have taken the position we have was one of the criticisms you always Page 33 April 12, 2001 have about government is redundant regulation. And if you've got a very large project, you need to appreciate that there are Army Corps wetland permits. There are South Florida Water Management District wetland permits, and there are DEP wetland permits, all three of which agencies, from my understanding -- I don't think it's changed. John, correct me if I'm wrong, but their definitions for what is a wetland are all completely different. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. MR. OLLIFF: So when they come out and they draw jurisdictional lines on a large project, they are dealing with each of these different agencies who are defining agencies completely differently, and rather than adding a fourth layer to what is an already confusing mess, we decide let's just try and enforce what's already there. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And if we were doing more of that, I'd be satisfied. I'm not sure -- I mean that -- MR. OLLIFF: I won't argue with that. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, it makes enormous sense to me. But what I'm always troubled by is we're ordinance and permit driven versus management driven, and you've just hit it right on the head. You've got four different groups coming up with four different interpretations, and how do we manage this process? And the better we can get it not adding another layer of blockage to it, managing what's there would get there. Last point is, do they include restoration in this process, because we're going to have one soon coming to us which is a beautiful example of restoration. Under definition, it's called wetlands. But if you look at the whole history and how it ended up being wetlands, it was uplands. It was flow -- flooded by water coming from the north and destroyed the -- the pine woods. It destroyed the palmetto prairie and everything else, but it really isn't wetlands. Page 34 April 12, 2001 MR. MULHERE: I think two things: Yes, we do need to have restoration as part of it, and we are looking at restoration and how we can encourage -- foster, require, incentivise, whatever. The second aspect of that is how -- you need to be careful not to be so inflexible that when a project comes forward that has, really, fine restorative qualities and/or largely beneficial qualities that go beyond it's borders -- let's just say, you know, minimizing flood through the creation of a flow-way -- well, we want to be able to look at that positively and not prohibit ourselves from some impacts in order to achieve that greater good. Now, the greater good may be debated, and some people may agree or disagree. But -- but we don't want to put the board in that position where they can't look at those situations and make a decision. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But what would be helpful -- and we're getting away, and I know we got to get back. What would be helpful is when they have those kinds of decisions to put it to us in a way -- if you can tell me on this particular project -- I know we're talking about Mirasol, that -- that the restoration of the flow-way is what CREW wanted to accomplish when they wanted to buy those lands, and they still want to buy those lands. If that accomplishes what CREW wanted to do, then that's real important to me because I've done it -- the private sector has paid for something that otherwise would have had to be done. But even so, then I have to measure it against the -- what is it? -- 40, 50 percent impact on the other wetlands outside of the flow- way. You know, the challenge to staff is to put those questions to us in policy terms. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Exact -- exactly. And my point -- and you're -- you're right. That's the project. But there have been some excellent engineering work and studies that we all need to understand from -- from staff and how that's all integrated to Page 35 April 12, 2001 what Commissioner Mac'Kie is talking about so that we can make, I think, an intelligent decision. We need to know what we're doing here. MR. MULHERE: And in the case of some of these, with due respect to the board's time and incredibly busy agenda, I think it's very important sometimes for us to spend a little bit more time and hear some of the background information. And there was an excellent presentation that went on at the Environmental Advisory -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. MR. MULHERE: Excuse me. The Planning Coun -- Planning Commission. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the EAC also. MR. MULHERE: And the EAC. And that might be something even in the shortened version that might be very beneficial for the board. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, it's too long the way it is. If it were shorter -- in some it could be condensed and take a lot of the technology out of it, but just get it there so the layperson can grasp it and say, you know, that's an aha coming out of that. MR. MULHERE: It's a big-picture item. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And, guys, if, you know -- if the engineer and the lawyer for the developer are coming wanting an hour of your time to talk about it, you know, likewise, spend an hour with staff to get a more neutral -- you know, they're advocates -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: One at all. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- God bless them -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: One at all. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- and they should be. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm sorry. MR. MULHERE.' We will -- the other aspect there is we're Page 36 April 12, 2001 striving to bring the types of experts that are not advocates but that, for example, represent the South Florida Water Management District and where do they stand and these types of things. Now, we are trying, and the DEP -- we're not always successful, but -- but -- because we don't control how they spend their time, but we're trying to make them a part of at least those very important petitions and -- and come to the board. It's educational for the staff as well. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The good news here is in this development discussion we're getting off into the natural resources workshop. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that's the good news because it ought to be connected. MR. MULHERE: Now, that -- we're moving in -- and at this point we're going to leave the -- the visualizer and then take you over to the -- the screen here. And I'm going to turn off one of these lights because I think you can see it a little bit better. Thank you, Tom. Those two right there are -- yeah, that's good. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And -- . MR. MULHERE: Now, what we -- we do want to spend a little bit of time showing you some of the technological enhancements that you're always hearing about but you probably don't have the opportunity to look at. And we'll -- we'll be as brief as possible. The first thing I wanted to show you is that we've developed, as you know, a divisional website and a departmental website. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Go to this website, guys. It's worth the trip. It is so interesting. MR. MULHERE: And -- and we're putting -- for example, you see it says North Naples Sewer District Information Bulletin and - - and other types of -- this is -- I want to credit Don Blalock on my staff for the incredible advancements that he has really single- Page 37 April 12, 2001 handedly forced to come into reality. I know what I want. I'm just not sure how to make it happen. He helps me make it happen. We have all of our applications available in Word or PDF format. We have links to all of our important other websites. You'll see community character and rural assessment. I'm going to show you the rural assessment website in one second here. There is an SDP list, and that's -- that's something I wanted to show you. And we're trying to improve these every day and make them more available. Would you type in pelican under the project name? And the public can access this and search -- at this point it only gets you to the kind of in -- there's all the SDPs that have been approved that have the word "pelican" in them. And then if you'll click on one -- I don't -- I don't know -- water, some -- some -- not insubstantial change, but a -- but a site plan, if you can find one. Then you get another screen that gives you more specific information: The planner, the site, the name and other -- other things. We're -- we're populating that with information more every day, so it will be enhanced. You also have the PUD spreadsheet on our website that lists all the PUDs, the number of dwelling units, whether it has golf courses, the square footage of commercial. You can track a lot of information. We know we need to do more, and we're working on it, but I wanted to show you that we're -- we're doing a lot. I believe this has already translated into significantly reduced impacts and greater efficiency, for example, on the front counter planner. We used to have -- we have two full-time planners up there to answer questions. We used to get a hundred, a hundred and twenty walk-ins, a hundred phone calls every day. They're still very high. But realtors, appraisers, people that use this information every day have learned to go through this source for the Page 38 April 12, 2001 information, and we continue to publicize it. Zoning maps are all available on there. The Land Development Code is available on there, and soon the growth management plan will be available. So -- could you click on the -- the rural assessment plan. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that the same thing that we've all gotten on a CD? Yeah. MR. MULHERE: Well, this is a website that we created in partnership -- actually, I guess we hired Neighborhood America which is a company that specializes in public comment or public access websites. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Kobza? MR. MULHERE: Yeah. And he created both the community character website and the rural agricultural assessment website. And that's called a splash page. You can bring it to either one of them. We still have bugs to work out. We're working with them. We're the first, I think, kind of local government that's begun to work with them with these issues. I had calls from television stations, newspapers, magazines. Obviously they're doing more business now. But -- but -- but this -- this is the wave of the future in terms of providing information. And if we click on the rural assessment, that will bring you to that. And I want to spend just a couple minutes showing you some things here. If you will go up to the general information, this provides you with a dropdown list that tells you about the assessment in very general terms. Then it tells you about the rural fringe area and the eastern lands area. Go to rural fringe, if you would. Throughout the document there are links. If you'd click on the final order up there. Throughout the document when we use a term or we discuss something, there's a link there; you click on it, brings you to the final order. If it was a map, it brings you to the map. If you go Page 39 April 12, 2001 back -- I think you have to -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The maps are very cool. MR. MULHERE: Go to -- go back up to general information and go to contacts, project contacts. You click on this. You -- it lists all -- the staff, and you can e-mail directly from that to the staff. It lists the people on the committee that we didn't provide you the opportunity to e-mail them. Would you go -- go up a little bit, Fred. That's an example. You can just e-mail directly. Go up a little bit to where I think there's a -- a link there. Technical advisory group there, click on that. It's right -- yeah, there you go. That lists all of the technical advisory groups of the state and federal agencies, and most of those can be e-mailed directly if you have questions. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: As far as I'm concerned, there's the guts of that committee because those are the people with the expertise, since the others are the citizens who are shepherding it through but those are important. MR. MULHERE: Yeah. You can e-mail, you know, Clarence Tears or Jim Beaver, Limbaugh from the Department of Transportation. Okay. Can you go back? Go back again all the way to the -- okay. Now, going down, if -- if you would, just briefly on the general information, there's a tab there called related links. We have -- I don't know -- 40 or 50 links to informational sites that deal with all the plethora of issues, if it's natural resource protection, if it's the governor's growth management study commission, whatever the case may be. And we add to that when we find out as the water management district -- okay. You can go back, if you would, Fred. I'm going fast because I don't -- I don't want to spend a lot of time, but I do want to show you this. COMMISSIONER FIALA: But I have -- I do have a question. Will that allow us to see the whole picture? For instance, if we Page 40 April 12, 2001 have something coming before us or -- or if the community is looking up and they see a PUD for Mirasol, for instance, okay, will it then allow us to also see what other developments are being planned in that area ? MR. MULHERE: Great question. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. MR. MULHERE: Not this website, but that's a recommendation that I'm getting. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. MR. MULHERE: And I will. I'll deal with that. I'm get -- I'm going to get to that one. If you would show the public doc -- or click on public documents. It's the second box there. Just give that a second, I think, to -- there we go. Okay. What you have here -- and we're working on this just -- we're -- we're making some changes to this. There's some duplicative information on there and some other things. So we're working on it every day. You have general documents; you have countywide information. All of this relates to the assessment. If you'll scroll down a little bit, you have rural fringe reports. Keep scrolling down. You've got mapped information there. Hold on a second, Fred. Click on -- i'm trying to find -- there was some -- for example, Florida panther and black bear habitat, the top one up there, if you would click on that for a minute. It might take a second. Okay. All of these maps, all of these resources, all of these documents are available to review and/or to download. Okay. Go back. Moving down, I just want to show you one other thing under public documents. All of the minutes and agendas for the committees are available and up to date as soon as they are approved by the committee. So you really can follow this process -- the idea is 24 hours a day, 7 seven days a week, 365 days a year. Page 4t April 12, 2001 Okay. If you'd click back. I do want to show you just a couple of other things real quickly. If you'd click on public notice, the third box, this is one of the great features about this. You can subscribe, any member of the public -- I don't care if you're in -- as long as you have internet access. I was going to say Antarctica. I don't know. Wherever you might be, you can subscribe, and you can subscribe either to be notified of calendar events or all events. If you click on all events, you will be notified by e-mail every time we update the website, and it will give you a link to the website. So that's really nice. You don't have to go back to the site. We'll tell you when we've updated it. And we'll tell you if you choose only for calendar events, a new meeting, the scedule. If you'll go back. Multimedia gallery: I do want to show you that real quickly. It's -- if you'll click on the sprawl, urban sprawl. These are Powerpoint presentations that we've made. Every Powerpoint presentation or even a video presentation can be placed on here. The public can look at them. If you'll click on the -- the first slide, you can enlarge that. You can bring up each slide independently and look at -- at whatever that information is. Wilson, Miller has done a lot of -- you see that one is snowbird moving and welcome to Florida, and the racoon's running across the street. Anyway, going back -- yeah, go all the way back. I just want to show you all the Powerpoints and those types of presentations are available. Go back again. If you just go down to the calendar real quickly, there's just a couple more things I think are important. If you'll click on R -- RFAC on the 11th which is a Rural Fringe Advisory Committee that tells you we have a meeting and where it is and -- go back again, if you would. We're in the process -- click on the EAC meeting right there. It's already over, but -- we're in the process Page 42 April 12, 2001 of getting these maps for all the locations, and so that will show people how to get there. Okay. Now go back again. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And even better be a link to the agenda for that meeting and -- MR. MULHERE: Yeah, we can do that, because we have the agendas on -- the agendas are on our planning web, so we could create a link right to that. There -- that's a good -- that's a good suggestion. COMMISSIONER FIALA: The minutes from the meeting. MR. MULHERE: Minutes are on there as soon as they're approved. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They just need a link. MR. MULHERE: Now -- and they're already on the web -- the minutes just -- but now until they're approved. If you go down to public comment, this is the last thing I wanted to show you I think is important. We don't have -- don't click surveys. Click public comment. We can put surveys on here. Remember, they will not be -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. MR. MULHERE: -- statistically valid surveys because there is really no way for us necessarily to prevent duplication of responses and those types of things, but they can give us a broad or general trend. Anyway, it's beneficial for us to know what the people who are involved in this process think, and -- and that's an opportunity. Now, I had a survey on there, and I want to tell you right up front that the two committees were not -- did not feel that they had been involved enough in the creation of that survey. My -- my mistake. They felt some of the questions were leading. No problem. We've pulled the survey. We're working it with Chuck Mohlke and with the committees, and we'll put it back up there as quickly as we can. We can have as many surveys as we want. Page 43 April t2, 2001 This little thing here, I just want to tell you, is sort of the caveat that I created· It basically says, look, we want your input and we'll use your input to tell the elected officials what you have said· But if you want your comments to be specifically included as part of the public record, you need to send those to us in writing, not some comment to survey. I mean, generally we're going to know that, but if you really want to make sure and insure that your comments are part of the public record -- and they can e-mail them to us, but they need to send it to us. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But that's to preserve a legal position to be able to appeal later· MR. MULHERE: Correct, correct· So -- and if you can click on -- go down a little bit. There's something there that says you can -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Go down· MR. MULHERE: Yeah· No, down. I'm sorry. Scroll down· Thank you. Is there something that will get us to the next slide? I can't see · COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: To lock on. MR. MULHERE: No, the next one up. Okay· Click here· If you're browsing -- I'm sorry. I can't find it. The next thing here is-- COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's it. Simply browse -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Browse -- COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- the topics· MR. MULHERE: Yeah· That's what I'm looking for. There· Right there· Perfect. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Click that right there· MR. MULHERE: Thank you. COMMISSIONER FIALA: When you get to be 63, you -- MR. MULHERE: I can't see that, and my glasses don't help· Page 44 April 12, 2001 We can post -- this is called a web board. Basically, we can post any type of topic or discussion, and the public can at any time comment, and they're -- the idea is to create some sort of a discourse electronically on topics. And you see the question there: Should the county have green space acquisition programs to protect and preserve environmentally sensitive lands? Should there be an urban -area component to acquire green space that it can easily be used by the majority of the citizens? So just a general question. I'm sure we'll be criticized for how we structured that as well, but that's life. MR. OLLIFF: Generally speaking, Bob is very proud of this and rightfully so. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I am too. MR. OLLIFF: This is cutting edge for local government. I will tell you we are actually not just contracted with this company. This is almost a partnership with this company -- . MR. MULHERE: Yeah. MR. OLLIFF: -- in that they -- we are fortunate that they are local. And they're available to work with us, a local government, to try and figure out what is it that's important to local government, what's important to the public, what do we need to get out there. And I'll tell you, I don't know of any other government in the country that's working on a system that will provide as much public information as this anywhere. MR. MULHERE: And the good news is that they're willing to adjust their sort of template to -- because that makes the product more marketable for them as well. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I'll just add, didn't you say right in the beginning that communication is your prime motivation ? MR. OLLIFF: Absolutely. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And, boy, you've carried it through. MR. OLLIFF: Absolutely. Page 45 April 12, 2001 MR. MULHERE: If you'll just go all the way back, Fred. I was -- I'm not going to take the time to show you, but there's a similar site, similar template for community character -- and we're going to leave that up there because we have a workshop coming up and more discussion on that. And we -- we did slip a little bit not having that report on there in a timely fashion, though we -- we will strive to do that. The good news is we are the ones that are responsible for maintaining the currency of this. The bad news is we're the ones that are responsible for maintaining the currency of this. So we need to do a little better job. Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Bob, I was just going to make one suggestion. I love what you're doing. This is the thing I've been pushing for since the day I hit shores here. It's great, the direction we're going. One of the things I'd like to see us look into -- and I understand it's not expensive, just as a equitable logical solution tool -- but one of the problems we get, how do we get our meetings out to the public? We got Channel 54, but a good part of my district doesn't have Channel 54 available to them. Also I've had a lot of people say, you know, that they cannot during the day pick up Channel 54. We could use real audio. They have it on the internet now so that all the public meetings are played at real time and they have it where people could listen to them on their computers as they're doing other work. MR. MULHERE: Yeah. You're absolutely right. And it's not that -- we can -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Legislature does it. You can, The Florida legislature is hooked in. You can even watch it in video. MR. MULHERE: You can do both. And -- and so noted, and I see Tom -- Tom noted that one. MR. OLLIFF: Actually PlO is already working on -- on -- and -- and tells me we're fairly close to being able to live strain video -- Page 46 April 12, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's great. MR. OLLIFF: -- board meetings. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Before we go on, I don't know how the other commissioners feel, but we have a lot of correspondence that come to us, and we've been receiving the rural fringe when they meet in -- in paper form and all the other type of meetings. To me it would be much simpler just to e-mail those instead of, you know, take the time in the paper form. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Trees would live. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. That's another point. And my calender's right there, right where my e-mail folder is, and I can just go to my calendar and put it on. MR. MULHERE: You're absolutely right. In fact, we e-mail the committees. I guess it's just old habits die hard. You're absolutely right, so duly noted. Someone's write -- Susan's writing that down. If you'd go back all the way, Fred, we'll move on. Actually, I think we need to change places here. The next thing we wanted -- the next thing that we were talking about -- I just listed the GIS. Tom is -- is -- has been working on moving that forward. And hopefully within a year or so we'll have a functioning GIS. It's critically important, and so I put it on there. I don't think I need to talk about the benefits of that for the public. The -- the only component that I will say that -- that with all of these technological enhancements is right now some of them are only available for the staff. The next step with all of this, I mean obviously the websites are available to the public, but as we move on, the next step is to make all of our electronic records transparent and available to the public and interest groups. And we are very, very close to that. And we'll move on now, Page 47 April 12, 2001 I think we'll go to CD Plus if you want to switch. Don Blalock tells me that, for example, we're very, very close to being able -- we're going to talk about the electronic file conversion in a little bit of a -- in a little bit and that those files are -- we're very close to being able to make those available off the web so that the public or interest groups can search for site plan files. And this we'll get to a little bit -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What Commissioner Fiala was saying. MR. MULHERE: Susan Murray is going to show you and Cheryl, I think, are going to show you we just recently went live with the last module of the Perconte information management system that's called CD Plus. And we several years ago went live with code enforcement and contractor's licensing, and then we went live with building and permitting, and now we're going live about community development which functionally is the first in the process. But as far as the system, we're -- we're the last because those other two had such volumes of information that it was better to move forward with them first. This is an integrated information management system that will allow us, as soon as we completely populate it with information -- and we're not there yet -- will allow us, really at the touch of a button, to retrieve all of the information that's -- that's in our system as it relates to a piece of property. And it's all integrated by an address record which is tied to a folio number. So we have a relational piece of information. So right now, if someone sends us a letter and says -- and they do all the time -- lawyers mainly, bankers too -- "Please tell us what the history of this property is, zoning, permitted uses, code enforcement cases, growth management plans," it takes between seven and ten hours for an employee to put all that information together. I would estimate that when we -- and when Page 48 April 12, 2001 you factor all the people in that have to touch it, it costs several hundred dollars to produce that. When we have this system populated with the information, we'll be able to do something like that in less than an hour, maybe a half an hour. So this is just one example of the efficiency, but the main thing is having the information available in an electronic format. And, Susan, would you just show them a little bit about the CD -Plus program. MS. MURRAY: Sure. Like -- like Bob says, this is one of five modules. We have addressing; code enforcement; permitting development review, which is our newest one; and cash management. And these are all integrated or will be in the future. That is the plan. The function of the development review module is primarily to control the entire development application process. Previously that was a very large paper trail. If you've ever been in our records room and tried to look at a record -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's a nightmare. MS. MURRAY: Yes. You can see a lot of paper. So this is hopefully in con]unction with the application extender program that Fred's going to show you where we're actually scanning a lot of our records and our PUD master plans and our site plans and all of that. This information can also tie into that electronically. And then eventually we'd like the public to have access to that, and this would be of particular interest more to the development community, the engineers, the planners, and that that have projects in the system so that they can look --just go on line and look directly and see where their project is in the system, who's reviewed it, what the review comments are, when it's due, when it was deemed sufficient, and -- and route it to staff. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Susan, even before that's Page 49 April 12, 2001 available on line, I assume people could access that from a county computer, I mean, via public records process. MS. MURRAY: Correct. And also one of the nice things about this, too, is we used to have one individual who had all that information. Now all of our CD Plus users can open this. So anytime we get a phone call to our desk, we don't have to shuffle the phone call to that one individual. We can open up the computer and give the information right over the telephone or an e-mail to the person. MR. OLLIFF: And just so you don't think this is decades away, Bob or Susan, tell them how far back in the archives we already are and then what's sort of our schedule. MR. MULHERE: Yeah. We've -- in terms of -- of this system, this system will be populated -- let me give you a real quick example. What we found eight years ago when we looked -- we began to look at this was when a street address was manually entered into our system, like, 123 times. Well, that street address now will be entered once. Wherever this project comes into the system first -- if it's a code enforcement case, if it's a -- one time. The next time you look up that address or folio number, that information will already be populated. So -- so it will be in the system. So -- we will -- we will populate the per county system through that process as things go through. We're not going to go back and spend a lot of time entering historic data over the period of a year or two. It's just not cost effective to do it the other way. However, the other thing -- we're going to show you in a few minutes the conversion of all of our paper records to an electronic format. We -- we developed and the board approved and the development community supported a surcharge, an electronic conversion surcharge, and we collect that. It's about Page 50 April 12, 2001 $200,000 a year, and it pays for 3 full-time staff members that are in the process of culling files and converting them. At this point in time we've converted 2001, 2099. We're working on '98 site plans. That is about a thousand site plans. And when we show it to you, we're talking about every piece of information, every drawing, every document. So that's an issue that we should be done with the site plans within, I'd say, another year, year and a half. We'll make that available, and then we'll move on to PUDs, and then we'll move on to other files. We always have the choice of expediting that process if we want to pay to hire a company to come in and scan that stuff. But we have chosen what is a slower process but we think more cost effective. It doesn't mean that we wouldn't want to expedite it if the need seemed to be more pressing, so that would be always a choice, a -- a budget choice. COMMISSIONER FIALA: So would it also show us the impact, for instance, if we're -- coming before us shortly is a 10- foot building and -- but we have no idea that other things have already been approved around there and there's maybe just a 2- lane road that can never be widened? Is there some way for this to show us the impact, or will that still have to go back to -- to some kind of a council or -- or -- or -- MR. MULHERE: It will. Not in this system. I still -- I understand what you're saying, and I'm going to still deal with that as a recommendation. You're going to hear some recommedations that will largely address what you're talking about but, I think, not -- not completely. We're going to talk about the creation of a website that has all the information that you're talking about. But these ones are really dealing with, you know, historic applications, files, and/or the review process. Page 51 April 12, 2001 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I see. MR. MULHERE: But we'll -- we'll get -- we'll get to that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. MS. MURRAY: Bob, would -- would GIS be something that -- MR. MULHERE: GIS -- GIS would be the kind of thing where we can layer information, and you'll be able to see it graphically. And that's -- that's what you -- that's what we need for that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: That is -- that's really high tech, isn't it? COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I see what you're getting at, Donna. You're talking about the day will come when you'll be able to look at something and say, well, because of the fact that the road won't be concurrent with this particular entity going in, we're not going to be able to issue a permit based on that. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right. It's going to help us see the big picture and -- and -- and the ramifications of our decision, if -- if we, you know -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Right. Right. We can -- that -- that thing will be evident to us. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We'll be getting, also, to such things as sewage treatment plant, the water issue. Everything will come out. It will all come out. All the numbers will be there. MR. MULHERE: I might as well go ahead and -- and tell you -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Go ahead. MR. MULHERE: -- something that I wanted to tell you anyway. This system -- we purchased this system -- as you know, we have a concurrency management plan that looks at -- looks at the concurrency management plan on an annual basis, the annual update and inventory report and those types of things. We purchased this system with a module that will allow us to look at impacts, concurrency impacts, on a real-time basis Page 52 April 12, 2001 minute by minute. Now, it's not populated, and it's not operating. We have to plug in formulas, and we have to, you know, make the module work. We haven't done that yet. But we have a system that will allow us at any point in time to look at where we are in terms of concurrency any day, any minute, any hour, and what a - - impact a particular project will have on those concurrence issues, from library books to parks and recreation to sewer to roads. CHAIRMAN CARTER: My question, Commissioner Carter, is how soon? I think Commissioner Coletta has already asked the same thing. MR. MULHERE: I think -- and this is an off-the-top-of-the- head educated guess. It probably would take some amendments to our contract with Perconte to be able to populate it and create the formulas. The system is there, but we would have to do that. So we would have to work out that sort of amendment process. That would take a few months. I'd say probably six months to a year. Maybe we could do it quicker, but I would say six months to a year to have that functioning and operating. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I, as one commissioner, would suggest that we try to put this on the fast track to have it done as soon as possible. I see it as an answer to a problem that's out there that's not going to go away. COMMISSIONER HENNING.' May I expand on that, please? It's not only the -- what I would like to see not only the -- an applicant for an LDC -- or -- or a site development plan, for example, what we have in Vanderbilt. But the surrounding zonings that are there, let's look at the whole picture of model, everything, if it was built up, and apply that to the whole -- the whole system. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner, you're exactly right, because if you use the Vanderbilt example, it's not a straight Page 53 April 12, 2001 piece of sand along a basin called RT. You will see some configurations in there, and you will wonder how it ever happened. I don't know how it happened, but we have to live with it. Then there's all the other zonings in there, and it's all grouped into and called Vanderbilt Beach. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Uh-huh. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And we need to see the big picture, how everything integrates and -- MR. MULHERE: And, again, I think that GIS system will provide you with that graph -- that's the whole beauty of graphic information systems. It ties your information in a map format that allows you to look at things. CHAIRMAN CARTER: But back to the other, your six months to a year -- MR. MULHERE: Well-- CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- and this has to be fast tracked, I think what -- I'm getting the nods here. I think that what we're looking for, Tom, is how soon, what does it take to get on that? MR. MULHERE: I think we need to look at that and come back to you to be sure. But let me -- let me just say one thing. There are two -- there are two elements here. The system is in place and can be developed and populated so that it provides you with that information. But there's another level to that. That's the policy discussion, the policy level. And that is going to be a little bit slower, because what we're talking about, if you want to utilize that as a concurrency management tool in your growth management plan, you've got to have policy discussion, you've got to have public meetings, and you've got to have debate, and you end up having to amend your plan. The tool can be there for you to use regardless, and we can move forward with trying to develop that. But if you want to change the growth management plan in terms of how you measure concurrency, that -- that Page 54 April 12, 2001 process will take a lot longer. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I, for one, am in favor of changing the growth management plan that's tied into concurrency based on something like this to include not only the sewer but the roads, medical facilities, schools, everything else, to -- that affects our way of living here to try to -- MR. MULHERE: I -- I would recommend that we -- that we -- that staff prepare some policy discussion for you when we come forward with our AUIR, which we're going to have to do legally anyway. And that would be the time for those types of discussions. But we can -- in the meanwhile, this is a good management tool, regardless. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. MR. MULHERE: So we can move forward with the development of this. We won't lose any time on that, and you can have those policy discussions. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah, but we're still locked in to current policy. MR. MULHERE: We are. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We are. So, I mean, this is nothing more than showing us that we're wrong and we have to go with current policy. I kind of lost the point here. MR. OLLIFF: Well, I think the point is -- the point is this summer you will have the opportunity, rather than in a piecemeal fashion, where -- like you did with transportation where you looked at the concurrence management system for transportation and said we don't like this, we want to change it and gave us some direction during the transportation workshop to do that, in the summer we will look at the entire concurrence management system through the AUIR process. The board will then make some policy decisions that we will then take back and amend our plan, create a new concurrence management system. Page 55 April 12, 2001 But what we're telling you then, it doesn't make sense for us to go build an electronic system based on the current concurrence management system when we know good and well that this board is going to want to see some changes in that. So make the changes in policy; then we go fix this electronic system to put it in place. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Tom, would you lay out a sheet for us showing us some sort of time line that's realistic that will bring us down to the final results. MR. OLLIFF: Sure. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. MR. MULHERE: Susan, go ahead and just -- we just want to show you briefly a little bit of how this system works. You're not going to be dealing with this on a day-to-day basis, but we want you -- I guess we want to brag a little bit about some of the improvements. So-- MS. MURRAY: It's just interesting, and it kind of relates back to how Bob described the rezoning process and the subsequent site development plan process or plat approval process. The system sets up kind of a hierarchical mechanism through what are called projects or master projects. A master project, for example, would be a PUD rezone or straight rezone. From that master project, you have that ability to tie in -- subsequent application requests is the terminology we use, and that would be your plat approval and your SDP approval. So if you pulled up a master project, you could see all of the projects related to that master project and know what the current state of the development of that property is in terms of approvals that have been given or have not been given or -- or are in the process. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Susan, can you show us some of the links to this particular PUD or -- or can you? Page 56 April 12, 2001 MS. MURRAY: Some of the -- are you talking about this tab right up here? MR. MULHERE: I think just the information. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Just the information that's here, PUD. Is there any other information? MS. MURRAY: Oh, yeah, sure. MR. MULHERE: Yes, because you go down there. MS. MURRAY: Are you talking about this, or you actually want to see the reviews associated with this? Is that what you're -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right. MS. MURRAY: Okay. As you can see, there's an application request for a preliminary subdivision plat. And -- oh, this is a neat thing I wanted to show you real quick before I get to your question is if there's direction from the board or a project that's been approved with certain stipulations that may necessitate some development commitments further on in the review process, the system has the ability to warn the users when they go in that certain things or certain commitments are required by a certain time frame or -- and they can define the commitments. And so that way we hope it would be lot more efficent for staff to be able -- and anybody who goes into this project to know that some of the commitments and some of the requirements of the project. And this is -- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you. MS. MURRAY: And it actually -- how do I get out of this thing? MS. SOTER: You click it twice. MS. MURRAY: Twice? MS. SOTER: It was twice yesterday. MR. MULHERE: Pull it down and minimize it. That's all. MS. MURRAY: Actually, I think I can -- there you go. Okay. Page 57 April 12, 2001 This is what I wanted to show you was it actually has a flashing red light when we've got certain types of comments attached to the project so that it's real obvious that -- and, again, that screen pops up as soon as you open the project, so you don't have to go looking for it; the user doesn't. It's the first thing that pops up in your face, and you're forced to read it. So it's kind of an interesting feature. If we take a look -- this is neat, too. This is actually the -- the heart of the review process, if you will. And when we load the particular application request code here, this being a preliminary subdivision plat, the computer automatically loads all of the departments that are required to review the project, and you'll see the department here and their description. And then as they review the project, the status of their review will be shown here. The due date is shown. The in date is shown. The out date of their latest review is also shown. And if you actually click on -- I'll go to water management. If you actually click on their review, you can view their review notes. And this is all set up in what we call a checklist format. So what we've done is we've taken the code requirements and procedural requirements and combined them into a checklist so that -- it's basically a procedural manual with the code requirements thrown in. So -- MR. MULHERE: Electronic. MS. MURRAY: Staff is -- correct. So you don't have to look through books or procedural manuals or go off the top of your head. Everything that you're required to look at when you're looking at a project is listed here. You're required to check it off if you've looked at it, if it meets the code requirements, or if you're taking the next step in the procedure. If it doesn't meet the code requirement, you can highlight that with a no, and then you can add some detail to the applicant providing -- you know, telling them what they need to do in order to meet the code Page 58 April 12, 2001 requirement or to have their -- their plan approved. MR. MULHERE: Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yes, if I may. I find this amazing. It's absolutely beautiful. I wish we could have done it ten years ago. Of course, technology wasn't there. Two things: One, is there a fire wall from preventing a hacker from going back in there and disturbing these records? MR. MULHERE: Yeah, there is. Again, I promise, real quick, there's a couple of options that we're looking at. We want to make this available to the public. We also want to make it available to the users. And one thought would be perhaps a -- during the review process providing for maybe a subscription process so that if you're one engineering firm and you want to look at your comments, you could pay a fee, and you would be limited to -- you get a password, and you'd look at your -- your stuff. We have to talk about the public records. These are all open. Anybody can come and look at it any way in a paper format. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Two -- a couple of notes I'd pass on to you. As we go into the process -- and I know we do receive a subscription fee -- I may be pushing for total access for everyone. MR. MULHERE: That's fine. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Number one. Number two, as soon as this technology starts to come up to the point where it has some meaning to it, I'd like to have it installed on my computer, and I'm sure the other commissioners would like to have it on theirs. MR. MULHERE: Sure. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Can someone give us a little rundown on it? Then I'd like to have public classes held -- MR. MULHERE: Absolutely. Page 59 April 12, 2001 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: -- for the public to become proficient in the use of this particular thing. Public records belong to the public. MR. MULHERE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And easy access to them is a criteria that we should be aiming for at all times. MR. MULHERE: Yeah, I agree. And we -- we can make this stuff a lot easier to use as we begin to move it to the public realm. It will take us -- I think Susan will tell you, we estimate six months to work out the bugs -- we just went live with this -- maybe a little longer. It took a year in the building review department. We want to work out the bugs, but at the same time we are moving towards making it accessible. Also, we don't want to put it out there until it's populated at least significantly, Because the worst thing you can do is ask the public to look at something and they can't find what they are looking for and then they don't use the system. So we want to wait until we feel like we got it to the point where it is working well and populated. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I might add that one of the reasons that I am going in this direction is the best $60 I ever spent in my life was when I was charged 5 years ago for access to commission records in this very building. Thank God that happened. I'm very much aware of what public records are all about and about public access too. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm going to tell your wife you said that was the best -- the marriage license didn't cost 60 bucks? Come on. Your marriage license -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It was what got me -- $60 -- MR. OLLIFF: Is there anything else in the CDs system -- MR. MULHERE: Anything else you wanted to show them, Susan? MS. MURRAY: Just real quick because it's related directly Page 60 April 12, 2001 to you. Oh, here we go again. Let's see if I can -- MR. OLLIFF: When we get through with this module, I'd suggest, Mr. chairman, we take about a five-minute break, give our recorder a chance to rest her fingers. Bob, when we get back, can we jump straight into policy? CHAIRMAN CARTER: Certainly. MS. MURRAY: This will be real quick, once it comes up. I give up on this. MR. MULHERE: Go down and minimize it. You know what? Here. That will take care of that. Okay. I just wanted to show you real quick, and unfortunately, I didn't have the Board of County Commissioners up here because this process doesn't -- the preliminary subdivision plat didn't require your approval. But we also have the ability to record all of the committee status reviews. For example, when a project goes to the EAC, CCPC, and BCC, we have the ability to record the date that it actually went to the meeting, the meeting results. So, for example, if you had a conditional approval, the Board of County Commissioners had some conditions they placed on approval of a project, we would note that in the system. And then we could type remark -- detailed remarks in here, and that would forever be retained in the system as well. The system actually automatically schedules the -- the board meetings. We probably won't use that too, too much because we're on more of a flexible schedule. But all of your meetings are programmed in here, and it does record all the dates for the whole year as well for all the other boards too. So I thought that might be of interest to you. That's about it. MR. OLLIFF: The other thing I wanted to point out is early in the session we were talking to you about current project to look at development review times. We -- we also need to recognize that the development community, while they always wear the Page 61 April 12, 2001 black hats around, they are also a customer of ours and in this particular essence. And the orig -- one of the original concepts of the one-stop shop was some guaranteed-type turnaround times where you submit a building permit. You know that you're going to get on average a returned approved building permit, assuming everything is done correctly, within a certain number of days. And this system gives us the immediate ability to track our turnaround times on every single review process that we have in the system. And so we're working now with the development services advisory committee to develop what are the reasonable turnaround times from the development community's viewpoint in terms of what they're paying for, in terms of service, what are they willing to pay for, and making sure that we have a way of keeping the staff accountable and making sure we're getting those things turned around quickly. MR. DUNNUCK: And just to add on to that real quick, the final benefit of that part of that in our division is to put this out to the public, as Bob had said, but also, you know, to keep the development community straight about when our review times are. I -- I've consistently heard exaggeration since I've been over there, and it usually comes up to the board office, well, we took X amount of time for a project. When we actually go and look at it, it doesn't take that long. By putting it out in the public knowledge, we'll be able to see exactly where we are slow and where we're actually quick. They will be quicker to -- to take a second look at when they make those exaggerations. MR. MULHERE: There -- Tom, just quick. I wanted to -- it will take only three or four minutes. I wanted Fred to show them the electronic files that we're converting, and maybe we can take a break right after that and go into -- Fred, if you can spend just a couple minutes. This is really fast, but it's pretty impressive. Page 62 April 12, 2001 MR. OLLIFF.' While Fred's bringing that up, it's always my job to be the bad guy sometime and keep reminding you about some of the downsides of some of this stuff. The requirements for a government to keep this information current and accurate is -- is enormous. And the amount of time that it's going to require for staff to keep this stuff up to date is going to be huge. I think the benefits of it -- no doubt there -- there is tremendous benefits. But for every electronic process that we put in place, we're not eliminating a hard-copy process in most cases because you have to have that because everyone does not have electronic access. So pretty much any time you see something that's being done electronically, it's an additional layer of responsibility and staff time that's being required. It's not a replacement in a lot of cases. So there's going to be a continuing growing need. And we can't avoid this. We -- we have to go in this direction. But it's -- it's going to be a continuing need for us to have staff there to keep this stuff current or it's -- it's not worth anything at all. So you'll just -- you'll see that as we go through the budget process. MR. MULHERE: That's a -- that's a really good point. I just finished submitting -- I haven't gotten graded yet -- on my capstone or master's thesis, and the topic was the use of web- based technology to enhance public access and involvement in the planning process. Oddly enough, that was the topic. And one of the things I found there was it -- you do not recognize any efficiencies. In fact, you become less efficient during the development process of these technologies. But it's critical that you do as much of that as you can in-house because the final product really meets your needs better than if you farm it out. So we're not going to recognize greater efficiency until sometime after we've got the system finally implemented, downloaded and running smoothly. In the interim it actually -- Page 63 April 12, 2001 MR. OLLIFF: Right. MR. MULHERE: It hurts from a staff resource perspective. CHAIRMAN CARTER: But at the end will it promote -- it promotes effeciency? MR. MULHERE: And access, absolutely. CHAIRMAN CARTER: You will able to prove that in your thesis? MR. MULHERE: Yes. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Very good. I give you an A on your -- MR. MULHERE: Thank you. Go ahead, Fred. MR. REISCHL: This is a page that is available for all site development plans going back as far as, I believe, 1998 now and will be available going back for all site development plans. You can see a -- a menu -- oops. I guess it timed out here. MR. MULHERE: Go ahead and log in. MR. REISCHL: We had the bright idea of having this set up beforehand, but I guess there's a time on it. MR. MULHERE: Okay. MR. REISCHL: Well, you'll see it from the very beginning now, MR. MULHERE: you? MR. REISCHL: 99, I don't remember the number Fred. Do Yes. MR. MULHERE: Okay. Good. You can search by any of those --just as we're going through, you can search by any of those topics there. The more things that we make the search available from, the easier the public will have to find something SO '' MR. REISCHL: Again, getting back to this main menu -- and let's pick correspondence -- you can find -- you have a little scroll here. An approval letter. You can -- you can see the amount of Page 64 April 12, 2001 detail on it. MR. MULHERE: Basically every document that's in that file will be -- that's a piece of correspondence for review, will be available for the public to look at and for you to look at. Show them, if you could, a drawing, Fred. MR. REISCHL: Sure. MR. MULHERE: I think we have a site plan. MR. REISCHL: Take a look at site plan. MR. MULHERE: Okay. All of the drawings, water management, site plan, parking layout, everything has been scanned for each one of these. And they're also available electronically. Now, can you just use that little square magnifying glass? Is that available? MR. REISCHL: That timed out on this, but we can zoom in -- MR. MULHERE: There is -- MR. REISCHL: -- and get some good amount of detail. MR. MULHERE: You won't be able to. That's just -- this notebook doesn't have the ability, but from a home computer you'd be able to do that. There is a tool bar that's normally up there that has a magnifying glass. You may be familiar with it. And you can go to the very -- little detail and bring that up and look at it, and you can print this thing. There's a -- there's a little better detail. But that -- we're in the process of scanning every single site plan. The first part of that is to reduce the duplication in the file. And Tom's right. For a period of time we do have to keep the paper. There's two elements to that. One is something called the digital divide where maybe some people don't have access to electronic. We are -- I have some recommendations relative to that. And the second part of that is, though, after a certain period of time we are legally at this point permitted to retain these files only in electronic format. So we have to look at some of those issues as we move forward. Page 65 April 12, 2001 COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, the day's going to come when the electronic format will be the only way to go. MR. MULHERE: Right. It's just so much volume of information. MR. REISCHL: And one of the other amazing things just to throw in, the speed that a 2-by-3-foot plan is scanned to give you this amount of detail, just a couple of seconds and the detail is on the computer. MR. MULHERE: We can do a hundred pages of document a minute scanned in complete detail. We can add notes to this, but we can't change it, and that's the way it should be. So that -- that -- I think it's time for a break. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. On break could I see David Weigel and Tom Olliff and John Dunnuck in my office for a moment, please. (A break was held from 10:50 a.m. To 10:55.) MR. OLLIFF: Bob, you're on. MR. MULHERE: This leads us to the last part of our presentation this morning during the workshop -- and this is the nitty-gritty -- which would be specific policy and procedural recommendations. Some of these are really small and can be done very quickly; others are going to require land code amendments and some cases even a comprehensive plan amendment. But for Commissioner Fiala and for many of -- of other folks who have requested, one, that I think the principal recommendations that I'm going to make is that we create another site similar to the rural assessment site, and you've heard me talk about this before, but another site that would allow us to locate all site plans and all land use petitions within, say, two weeks of being deemed sufficient, we have all of that available on a website for the public to look at. The biggest criticism that we get is they don't know about Page 66 April 12, 2001 site plans because they're not advertised and they don't know about land use petitions until too late in the process for them to have sufficent time to be involved. A lot of these are directed towards that. This first one would be a singular location where any citizen -- and the way I envision it, there would be a map that would be arranged maybe by planning community or by commission district where they could click on that And get a dropdown list of all the petitions in the process in that area. And they could go to look at them, and, of course, there would be some e-mail contacts either the planner assigned or perhaps Anon (phonetic} puts them a -- a planning tech or Planner I, somebody that would be a contact person for them to ask questions to electronically. It's not difficult. Technology there. Could be up and running in six months, eight months, maybe less. So that's the first recommendation. The second one is related to that, and that would be to establish or try to establish an electronic submission protocol for these types of things. It would make it a lot easier if we had a standard format and then we just convert it and drop it onto the web. We're working on that now. And as I said, the development community was very supportive. In fact, they supported the creation of these surcharges for this conversion process because it benefits them as well to be able to access this information. What I would suggest is that we create a surcharge that -- that's - - that is an incentive to supporting an electronic format and a disincentive not to. But there may be some ma-and-pa shops out there that have difficulty and we would still have to convert their data and we would be willing to do that but just charge them a little more for the time it takes to do that. Next slide, please. We used to have a pretty good users guide back in -- Tom, Page 67 April 12, 2001 I'm sure you remember -- back in 1989 or 1990. Somehow that sort of fell out of the process and is not updated. And I think we would want to create a user's guide that explains the process, including the zoning, code enforcement, provides key contact information. And that user's guide should be available on the web but in brochure format as well. And I think it should include a specific section titled a guide to public participation and planned -- planning and land use matters that explains that whole quasi-judicial thing in human and understandable terms. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: There's another piece to that too, that David Weigel some time ago did a policy manual, a compendium of policies of Collier County. And we need to integrate that to the extent it relates to development services matters with this -- MR. MULHERE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because I often get -- or when I sometimes get a complaint call and I'll try to find out what is the source of the staff's interpretation on a particular matter, it will be, well, that's been board policy forever. And I need -- I -- I think the public is entitled to a book that says these are the board policies on this subject. And if it's not in there, then bring it to us and ask us to adopt a policy because it gets lost in the translation. Plus, this board -- I think if we had a list of policies that were adopted over the last ten years, we'd probably see several that we would like to change. And so I wish it -- I wish such a list existed and were somehow put before us for consideration. COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I'd like to add, in laymen's terms. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Amen. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think that's key. And if we as a board agree to go forward and do this as part of policy, then I think it Page 68 April 12, 2001 would probably require the integration of these to have at least a block time at a regular board meeting or a separate meeting to go back and sit around a table like this and review it because it -- MR. OLLIFF: And -- and perhaps we could just even -- I may kick myself, but we may set up a series of quarterly workshops or something where we actually just go through your policies, because, as a new board, one you don't -- most of you don't know what policies of previous -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Right. MR. OLLIFF: -- approved boards are. We could go through those. And as Commissioner Mac'Kie says, there are probably a number of those that you would like to see changes in. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Until we change them, staff's continuing to enforce them. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right, and -- I'm sorry. Commissioner Fiala. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Go ahead. CHAIRMAN CARTER: No, no. Please. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Another thing to add to that same thing is we don't even have something to compare with. If everyone talks about the wonderful growth management plan that was established, worked over so diligently and then has been changed and changed and changed to a point where people are very unhappy with it and it's really taking us in the wrong direction, we don't even have anything to compare with. I would love to see what was originally created to what it is now. Possibly there are some changes that we would like to move back to where they were. MR. MULHERE: Yeah. I think that's a very good point. My guess is that a lot of the dissatisfaction, even though it was an award-winning plan, we're not alone. Statewide, nat -- nationally, Page 69 April 12, 2001 basically, but statewide the feeling is that the growth management structure has not resulted in what the intentions were, and that's why we're looking at this whole issue again. And some of that may have to do with -- you're correct -- you know, interpretation policy and also amendments to the plan, but largely I feel the public has felt disenfranchised in the process, and that's why this focus here. You know the example I can give you is that the in -- in the planning department, we make -- and it's part of our job -- probably scare you, but we make, you know, interpretations on a daily or weekly or monthly basis. And we keep a log of those interpretations, and that's kind of what you're talking about. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. MR. MULHERE: Now someone can challenge that, but there are interperative issues. That's why you get paid the big bucks. CHAIRMAN MAC'KIE: Yup. CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's true. And Tom was saying maybe doing a quarterly review on policies, and maybe we can integrate that against specific areas that are coming in front of the board. If it's healthcare, if it's this or that, we don't know historically what's evolved, and if we're going to change it, excellent point, Commissioner Fiala, that we can look at all of that and say, wait a minute, this is what we want to change or this is want we want to reinstate so that we all know where we are, where we've been, where we are, and where we want to go. MR. MULHERE: Next slide. This is something that's already in place. I know that Tom is working with IT. I put it down because I think it's important. That is that we have a countywide strategy for moving toward this whole electronic -- because of the controversy related to land use stuff, we're at the cutting edge of it, but you're going to see an exponential growth in demand through other areas, in other areas, and we need to Page 70 April 12, 2001 have a -- and I know that Tom is working on that. So I wanted you to know that that we're aware of that and we're working on a strategy that's countywide. The other one, I talked a little bit about the digital divide and the -- I guess obligation upon the part of government to make information accessible universally. And the more we go to electronic, we do disenfranchise some groups. And studies vary. There's really no -- no clear line as to who -- I guess one argument has been that if you make the stuff available, you make it easier for people who are already involved in the process, but you don't increase the numbers of people who are involved. And I don't know that that's true. I think you have to do a lot to make that happen. Therefore, this recommendation that we install kiosks -- and we are -- John is working on doing that already in our own building, but I think we should think even broader and create some public partnerships to install computer kiosks at some of these appropriate commercial locations that are open much more expanded hours than we are, and perhaps those -- those public/private entities will even want to cover the cost of that as a good service to the public. And you can go into the Home Depot, for example -- and I don't want to use them solely -- Wal-Mart, whatever the case may be, and while you're doing business on a Saturday morning, you may be able to go up to the computer kiosk and do some government business or solicit -- find some information, so that would address it for -- I mean, I know we have this available in our libraries, but I think there are communitites in this country doing this right now. I mean, I know we have this available in our libraries, but I think there are communities in this country doing this right now. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think the Economic Development Council, CBIA, I think all these groups would cooperate and help us identify the best places to do it. Page 71 April 12, 2001 MR. MULHERE: Yeah. And that's tied into that whole move towards E-government to the degree that we could allow some permitting to take place electronically. The more places we allow that to happen, the better off we are. Next slide, please. I think we do this now, but we need to do it more, and we need to do it better. We had a -- we had a session that we did on growth management; a short course we called it. We invited a whole group of neighborhood and civic associations, and we largely were making that presentation to ourself, which is why I chuckle. We need to -- we need to just do a better job reaching out and -- and offering our -- our service in terms of -- and I think we would get a greater response if we were telling people what you want you to understand is how you can be involved in the process and how you can get your points across instead of using the legalese and the growth management terms that we normally use that -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. MR. MULHERE: -- people don't have the time or patience with. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Just a -- a thought. We have Leadership Collier, and we have all of these interesting organizations. They do an excellent job. But maybe we need to establish kind of like a leadership institute or condo presidents, association presidents, where they might come and participate in this thing, really understand how all of this works, better serve their associations, better serve the condominium groups. I don't know how many participate, but if we got the key leadership in many of these communities to do that, you know, that becomes a real nucleus of people who are knowledgeable and informed. And then when something happens, they are -- become the working group for us as commissioners and staff to deal and work with to help communicate what we're trying to do. Page 72 April 12, 2001 MR. MULHERE: That's a great idea. And that also helps us provide a database of contact information. And that's going to be critical as we move on. The middle one, the short sort of recommendation, is a very big recommendation and very important recommendation, and -- and that's the implementation of a hearing examiner program for quasi-judicial land use petitions. You will be dealing with that on a -- in a more policy and detail as -- through the Land Development Code amendments when we bring that forward. The -- I know that the bill is in the legislature to amend the special act to make that something that we can accomplish so that the act doesn't prevent us from that. But you -- you will be, as a board, looking at this in more detail raising the concerns and issues that you have during the land code process. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I met-- I met with Dudley Goodlette on that in Tallahassee. And he tells me, "1 think we're on track with that, and we're going to be okay getting there." . MR. MULHERE: The -- the reason that -- I mean, the reason that that's -- just very briefly, the reason that that's so important - - we've talked about it before, but from a staff's perspective, is that whether in reality or perception, it doesn't really matter. This will be a process that will allow all sides to feel that they have an acc -- an equal opportunity to -- to be involved in the -- the land use petition process. That's the good news. The bur -- the bad news, as I said before and earlier, that puts a burden on everyone to understand what their responsibilities are to represent themselves properly. And that brings us back to this education process. Next slide, please. I would recommend -- and this is a land code amendment -- that we increase notification requirements for land use petitioners from 300 to 500 feet in urban areas. And that has been a criticism forever. Page 73 April 12, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. MR. MULHERE: And Lee County recently made that change in their notification requirements. I'm going to take it one step further and tell you that in the estates and in the rural areas it should be a thousand feet. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: God bless you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' And measured from where? MR. MULHERE: It's measured from the boundaries of the proposed project. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' So 500 feet in every direction ? MR. MULHERE: Yeah. MR. OLLIFF.' From the property lines. MR. MULHERE: They actually draw a circle around the properties lines. We -- we're going to notify all of the neighborhood associations and civic associations. And -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In addition -- . MR. MULHERE: We're going to have that website. And so there will be -- yeah. I mean, if you-all endorse that, you'll see that another recommendation is -- there are several. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. MR. MULHERE: Well, as we move through, I think, collectively these -- these will be significant. The next one is develop more understandable language to notify the public of proposed language changes in newspaper ads, notification letters, and signs. If you've looked at a newspaper ad, it's real small and meets the legal requirements. have one here, and it's -- it's a photocopy, but, you know, this is the ad. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh. MR. MULHERE: And -- I'm not going to read it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But it means -- it translates to Page 74 April 12, 2001 nothing in English. And, you know, we have to do them, but that's not all we should be doing. MR. MULHERE: It's just there -- they're little on the visualizer. It can be very, very difficult, I think, for the public to see that and know that, so we need -- can do a better job. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: You think? MR. MULHERE: We do have to meet the legal requirements, but I think we can use electronic notification and other notifications to make that more available in -- and in more understandable terms. Go ahead. This is -- this final recommendation on that slide is to develop better sign specifi -- specifications for public notice signs including larger signs and better, more specific placement requirements. If you would put this on the visualizer real quick, here's an example of a posting. It meets the legal requirements, but it can be hard to see from a distance. It -- it's hard to read. It can be easily knocked down or fall down, and we also need to have a better I -- more specific idea of where we want those signs placed depending on the -- the application and the exposure and the right-of-way and the landscaping and vegetation and these types of things. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And speaking of community character, that's tacky. We could do better. MR. MULHERE: Well, if you'll move to the next slide, I'll tell you what my recommendation is. Next slide. I'm sorry. What I -- what I was recommending is that we could develop the specifications and adopt them in the Land Development Code and the Iocational specifications and then make those specifications available to any sign contractor in the county. We don't necessarily have to be responsible for providing the signs, that an applicant could go to any sign contractor they want, Page 75 April 12, 2001 purchase the signs, but they would have to provide us with an affidavit and pictures as to when they were placed and where they were placed. That puts the burden on the applicant, I think. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You're heading in the right direction. I made this suggestion about four months ago. And I know this has been alive in the system for a while. I would say probably a minimum of 4 by 4 and how many would depend on the setting that you would be dealing with as far as if it's a four- lane highway, two-lane highway, the business, and how big the lot would be. But I would suggest that we strive for uniformity so people can identify these. And if they are tacky, Pam, they're going to get a little more attention. People won't mi -- will -- will - - will not miss them. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: COMMISSIONER COLETTA: COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: are, But they could be -- Possibly a purple and orange. -- a little better looking than they MR. MULHERE: Well, that's what we want to do is create this -- the design specifications, have our beloved turkey and some other things on there and, you know, size and size of letters and notice requirements and location requirements. So we're not at that -- but that's the -- this is the policy. We'll get to the detail through a land code amendment. And we do want to work in the development community to make sure that they are -- they are comfortable and that they -- oftentimes they have very good recommendations that we haven't considered. And so it's important that we involve them in this process too. I already covered No. 2. Number -- this is, I think, a very significant issue: To implement a required citizen participation plan for all land use petitions. Now, I say all. I do mean we could create a threshold. You may not require the same degree of a citizen participation plan for an 8-inch variance as you do for Page 76 April 12, 2001 a 2,000-unit rezone. But we would require a citizen participation plan for all public hearings. Next slide, please. As you can see, that ensures early and effective citizen participation, and it's -- it's intended not to achieve consensus or resolve all of the issues but, really, to foster community understanding and communication and to develop a forum for strategies to mitigate the objections, whether they're real or perceived. It will ensure that the citizens and property owners have an adequate opportunity to learn about the land use petition and the applications that may affect them, and it does facilitate property owners and citizens working together with the applicant to resolve concerns at an early stage well in advance of the public hearings, which has always been a bit of a problem. Next slide, please. Again, I -- I want to reiterate, it's not intended to produce complete consensus on any particular application. That's not the point. The one thing I want to say is that this is not my -- it's not my idea. It was recommended by the governor's growth management study commission, and there are many communities -- and I found a great sample in Glendale, Arizona, faxed to me by the DCA, Department -- Depart -- Department of Community Affairs -- where they have a very specific plan and certain elements applied, depending on thresholds. And the second element of this is that you would submit a report. The plan would happen early. The notifi -- they would be required to hold a public meeting somewhere and notify all the neighborhood associations of this -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Uh-huh. MR. MULHERE: -- and the property owners within that 500 feet or thousand feet and the commissioner whose district it's in and the staff of that meeting. And that meeting would be required at least 30 days prior to the first public hearing. That -- Page 77 April 12, 2001 that's what I'm recommending, at least 30 days prior to the first public hearing. Then -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The first public hearing being EAC -- MR. MULHERE: Well, a hearing examiner or, you know, whatever, an EAC, whatever the case may be. Now, we're also requiring that a report which in -- next slide, please. No, that's it. Okay. We're also going to require that there be a report that details what actions they took to engage the public in this plan and what the results were and what the issues were and how they intended to resolve those issues. And that will be submitted by the applicant at least 15 days prior to the first public hearing. So that will be available through the website for the public to look at and for the advisory committee to review. That concludes my recommendations, and -- I open it up for questions. MR. OLLIFF: And just to close on that point, we're recommending these changes. You know, when Bob closes by saying we're going to require this report or that, there's a lot of legwork that needs to be done before we get to this point because we would have to workshop this obviously I think with our DSAC and bring this back to the board in the form of some Land Development Code amendments before this could ever become effective. But again, we're just trying to find those common-sense areas where we continue to feel there's public frustration out there, and this is one of them. This is the public participation portion that we're trying to -- to find a way to do better, and that's -- that's Bob's recommendation. I think we just -- we agree with it completely, and we hope that you give us some direction to follow up on it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We can't take official action in Page 78 April 12, 2001 today's meeting, but -- MR. OLLIFF: No. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- for my intentions, please follow up on it. Please go forward with all deliberate speed. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I would agree with that 100 percent. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah. I -- it's great recommendations for -- for change in the development process. There is also one thing. I think everybody knows that I've been working on the situation in Briarwood. That is between, you know, the homeowner's association and -- and the developer, there's not a lot of things that we can do in this situation. And -- and actually they need to go to court over it. Ladies and gentlemen, we or the -- the -- Collier County approved this development. I would like to see the county be, through the PUD process, is -- is some kind of obligation from the county, obligation from the developer for the citizens of this area. And -- and I can assure -- just say that we have -- we have good and bad in every industry. And this is just an example of -- of some of the heartburn on the citizens out there. We have a lot of great developers in -- in Collier County that -- that are responsive and -- and hold up to what they say they're going to do. And I just want to try to put some -- some kind of teeth in the -- anything that we approve so that it -- it's not a real burden on -- on the residents to buy into these -- some of these communities. In other words, learn from our COMMISSIONER COLETTA: mistakes? COMMISSIONER?HENNING: Yeah. Exactly. So-- MR. MULHERE: We -- that's what we talked about tracking developer commitments and doing a better job of making sure they're clear with the approval and then that we track them and make sure they happen and we have the hammers in place that Page 79 April 12, 2001 we need to have. A lot of these things will cause that. These technological enhancements will cause that. There is one other thing I did want to say. I didn't deal with it here. I did have it on my notes to discuss because I think the board asked questions about it several times, and I think it's real important that we raise the issue. One of the things I intended to discuss here -- and I'll be quite -- quite frank. I forgot to add it to this list of things and made a note about it -- was a review of the PUD sunsetting provisions. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh. Bob-- MR. MULHERE: And I know you-all are -- are interested in that in terms of the time and how we review them and all of those things. And that requires a full-blown analysis by the staff to bring that back to you. And, you know, I apologize for raising it at the last minute here, but it's -- I know that each board member individually and collectively at times have raised the issue, so we would -- we would bring forward -- we would look at that issue and work with the development community and bring forward some recommendations relative to PUD sunsetting. Somebody will. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I ask this? What -- what is complicated about bringing to us in a LDC, the next cycle, something that says instead of -- what is it now? Five years? MR. OLLIFF: Five, yeah. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It reduces to two or three, whatever the lawyers tell us is the minimum amount with the legally permissible. COMMISSIONER HENNING: Three. MR. MULHERE: There's nothing -- there's nothing complicated about that. I -- I do think, though, we need to look a little bit more about how we -- how we track it, what we ask for, Page 80 April 12, 2001 how we get reports, what hammers we have in place, because we spend a lot of time. I have to say this: We spend a lot of time trying to get these reports that should come -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We need a penalty for if they don't submit them, it's some -- something serious. MR. MULHERE: Correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' But in addition to that -- I mean, you're absolutely right about that, but the piece that we have authority over is the sunset and what we do with the PUD that has sunsetted. And in the past we did -- you know, we said it didn't meet parking requirements or landscaping or some minuscule bit of nothing. And, frankly, we were told that that was about all we could do. But I -- I know that not to be true now. And I would like -- I would like to even know if we can have a bite back at the PUDs that we -- that did sunset but that got away with having no change because the board wasn't serious at looking at them because that's where the rubber meets the road on all of these things. They're too much already permitted on the ground. COMMISSIONER FIALA: Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And if we don't -- we don't change those, we're not going to accomplish much with our community character study. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Coletta. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you. I agree with you very much. Would that change the number? We -- I understand there's something like 84,000 possible permits out there, depending who's doing the counting, to 120. Would that change that number significantly if we brought these back to review? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Absolutely. If we -- if we had the guts to reduce some density. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I got the guts. Page 81 April 12, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I got the guts. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Let's go for it. MR. OLLIFF: If that's what you really want to do. I mean, in some cases I think the community character plan is telling you reductions of density are not what they're suggesting within the urban area. In fact, quite the contrary. MR. MULHERE: It's the design and how the things come forward. Access will be a -- I would think one of the most important things that you're going to want to look at, be integrated. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But what he means -- you know, the density isn't what matters as much as getting rid of all these gated communities. That's what I want a bite at. I want a bite at requiring some interconnected roads and some gates within the community. They can have all they want, but some free space. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Free space but -- . MR. OLLIFF: Again, I'm going push you to make policy changes in your land development codes and your comp plans so that when you bring these PUDs back for review there is some standard that you're bringing them back to. Right now you're only bringing them back to the old code standards. And there's not a whole lot of difference between what was approved five years ago and the codes of today. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that's basically why our review is so meaningless. MR. OLLIFF: Right. MR. MULHERE: That -- that's absolutely true. Just so that everybody does understand, the way it is right now is you look at a PUD during sunsetting to apply any changes in code that have occurred since it was approved. Well, generally speaking, there are very few or very minimum, maybe some enhanced landscaping, but usually density falls well within the parameters. Page 82 April 12, 2001 Comprehensive plan it's consistent with. So to be able to go there in and change those types of things, I'm sure your attorneys will take a look at that and -- and advise you as we get further along with the process. But if you change your policies -- if you look at your policies and change your policies, then when a PUD sunsetting comes to you, you have the ability to implement those policy changes. CHAIRMAN CARTER: And that will take us back to community character, which we accepted. Now we got to go back and see what we really want that deals with growth management changes, LDC changes so when you pull the PUDs back, you can say now you have to do it this way. MR. MULHERE: Standard in place. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I -- I tried for that, Tom. I think that's great, but we have to do that in some sort of a system. We'll look for staff to give us a system to get there. MR. OLLIFF.' I also need to point out that you're talking about some fundamental changes in the way that county government does business and versus what it has done since its inception here. And these things are not going to happen tomorrow. And -- and one of the things that we're -- we have to recognize is that whether you're talking about comp plan or land development codes, you know, some of these things when we're talking about changing these policy issues, that's why I'm telling you we need to focus on those as quickly as we can because those processes will generally take longer than a year. So in order to get those policy changes made, we need to start getting on that as our highest priority making those, and then we can start looking at what else is out there. The second thing I wanted to point out was we continued to focus on this number of zoned and unbuilt units out there, and -- and I need to keep pointing out that zoning does not create Page 83 April 12, 2001 impact. A zoned piece of property that's sitting there fallow and unbuilt is not really an issue for us. It becomes an issue when it starts hitting into the development process and becomes a site development plan and it starts pulling building permits. That's when you start seeing the impact. That's the point where we have concurrence management that also kicks in. And that's why we need to focus a little more, I think, on what we call final development orders and our concurrence management system that make sure that we keep up with our obligation when those developments come on line. And it's not the zoning. Zoning in and of itself is not a bad thing. Zoning doesn't create more people here. And then we just need to keep that in mind as we move along. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Except I just can't let that go without saying, Except that because of Burt Harris -- that was always true in the past that you didn't have any invested rights to zoning. And maybe I'm wrong about what Burt Harris does, but you can't take away a development right without compensating for it now. And if we -- if we get a development right, is a zoning a development right that we -- if we take it away -- MS. STUDENT: It goes to what -- the legislature, in my opinion, purposely was ambiguous when they drafted Burt Harris. But it goes to what a reasonable investment-backed expectation might be -- I think that somebody that does a PUD may have a bit more of that than somebody that just relies on straight zoning and nothing more because they've had -- they've got some costs in doing -- applied and going through a process. And they have some engineering costs and things like that so -- MR. OLLIFF: But, frankly, to get to the rezoning stage for a PUD, your investment costs are not a great deal, I mean, in terms of the total development costs of a project. And I would have a hard time making the argument that that vested me. Page 84 April 12, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But it does give you -- it does put the county at risk for some damages. Maybe it's for the damages only for the amount of your investment. Maybe it's the $250,000 you've hired engineers and planners and lawyers. But in any event, I really, really disagree with the statement that zoning doesn't matter as far as what's going to actually happen because it -- that used to be true, but we need to start thinking of, particularly our PUD rezones, when somebody comes in and they come in for 799 units because 800 is the DRI threshold and everybody knows they're not really going to build 799 because that's 6 units an acre and they only build 2.4 an acre because that's what the market supports. But if we decided that when we look at this PUD and sunset that we want to reduce it to 2.4, they could at least make a case for the county having to compensate them for the difference between the 2.4 and the 6, and so we don't need to keep going there. MS. STUDENT: There's another aspect of this just beside the cost to get the PUD. But when land is, say, changed from ag zoning to another classification, then for the purposes of the valuation of that property, it goes up. So there's not only the actual costs that they have to do the PUD but you're looking at the effect on property values. Unfortunately, the legislature hasn't given a lot of guidance with Burt Harris, and because there's an alternate dispute resolution process as part -- that most of the cases, if not all, settle out. So there's not a lot of report -- there aren't any reported cases to help us flush out. And it makes our job rather difficult in advising you, our client. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They sure better tell us that we've got to be more cautious. I understand that if there's a million units out there approved in PUDs, it doesn't really mean Page 85 April 12, 2001 that there are going to be a million new houses, and that's what Tom was telling us. It doesn't mean because every PUD is approved at a higher rate than they're ever built out at. But we need to stop looking at PUD rezones as if they are, oh, it's just the first step, nothing is really vested. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Marjorie, I got a question for you. If we were to sunset these and bring them back up for review, in the meantime could we possibly work something into our code that would prohibit them for a period of time, maybe tie it into the contingencies out there as far as roads go or sewer or water? MS. STUDENT: Well, that -- that's complicated because as far -- you're talking about concurrence issues, and we have a process in place, and our concurrence management system in our adequate public facilities ordinance was based on the AURI. And for roads, ASI for areas of significant influence have to be established. So you know the area that's impacted where there might be a deferral in development approvals. And for water and sewer, I think it's not as complicated. But there are processes in place that would have to be looked at and evaluated, you know, in terms of changing how we might approach -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I think we're prime -- prime to be considering some changes. Possibly water and sewer we may have under control at the moment. But who's to say that ten years down the road we won't be revisiting this again? Also, roads: Suppose the time comes that our roads are going to be deficient in a given area. That area should be blocked off so we can redirect development. We should know three, four, five years ahead of time that that development won't be allowed to proceed in a certain area and if there is a development, a large development, underway here, that at that point no new permits would be issued until the point that the Page 86 April 12, 2001 road was brought up to the point that it was concurrent, whether another road's built or improvements made to the road. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This is so important and so right on. And this is one of those times, Tom, where I wish you were over there writing down the Board of County Commissioners wants to reconsider some policies. And you need to put them to us so that we can reconsider them because I hear this board saying, "We don't want this 5 percent of impact as the threshold for traffic anymore.". COMMISSIONER FIALA-' Uh-huh. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I hear -- I hope I hear this board saying, "We don't want our water/sewer impact to be something that the state has to watch and ours is meaningless." but -- but when then? When -- if we've already given you that direction, when are we going to see that? And -- and we know from the -- we know from the redevelopment process what we've done over in Gateway and those areas that it is possible to do -- oh, God, I'm going to be shot for this, but it's possible to do a quasimoratorium pending changes that as soon as we adopted in the Gateway where we said this is the way we want the -- this land to be redeveloped, we have some vague and general plan about this area should be redeveloped as -- in a certain way so nothing -- no applications can be processed that contradict that general plan. I don't see why that same theory can't be used to say, "We today -- I mean Tuesday at the earliest possible opportunity -- adopt a policy that says we're going to measure traffic in whatever the different way is, and you know we need to talk about it, but we know it's not the 5-percent rule anymore and that that begins to apply immediately." why can't we do that? MR. OLLIFF: We're talking about growth management plan amendments, and that's coming to you as part of your AURI, and that's where we're going to look at the entire concurrence Page 87 April 12, 2001 management system that you've all talked about not only just in transportation but you talk about going to what you would almost consider a real-time inventory system, and that's pretty much the kind of thing that the -- we are pointing out to you that this module will allow us to do and give you almost at a point in time snapshot of what you have in the way of -- and I think it's important you focus on Category A. That's -- that's those -- your critical health, safety, welfare -type public facilities, what is our current available inventory versus what is the current use of those facilities and then what is already permitted and -- and -- and out the gate, if you will. And then we are heading towards making that presentation for you this summer. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But, you know, I've got a year and a half left in this term. If it takes a year and a half to get this going, that's just unacceptable. I want -- I want -- it doesn't have to happen that slowly. MR. OLLIFF: It does. You know how long growth management plan amendments take. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But we can do special ones. We're allowed to do an unusual one, you know, outside the cycle. MR. MULHERE: We are. But even still, there -- there -- there are time frames. There's challenge periods. I mean, I don't -- I mean, we can expedite it as much as we want, but I don't see the process taking any shorter than -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: All right. Let me try a different tack. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Wait a minute. Let -- let me hear Bob. MR. MULHERE: I don't see it being any shorter than really a year before you have everything in place if we started right now, you know, and -- and, I mean, you have to have a system in place that works to do that which is different than the system we have today. Page 88 April 12, 2001 COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What if we had -- we -- I guess it's just too complicated. It just is so frustrating that it can't work in a more logical way. My thought was if we had this compendium of county policies, what if we had a policy that we officially adopted? MR. MULHERE: It can't be contrary to your growth management plan. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a shot. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Let me add one other variable here that we have to keep in mind, board members, that state legislature is looking at the state growth management plan. And that is a piece in terms of schools. We don't know what the final outcome is going to be on that. But some of the things that you're looking for -- if that's integrated in, one of the proposals there already is, is if a school district has not enough classrooms to compensate for the people in that area there, there is an automatic, quote, big M that takes place until that can be reconfigured. So we have to wait until the legislature comes forward with what they're going to do in the growth management plan for the state and then we can begin to integrate that into our process. MR. MULHERE: And if you think about that process, the legislature will enact legislation; then the rule-making process begins, and the rule-making process will take -- it will be 2003 at the earliest before you see anything in a -- in a rule that -- that local governments can -- or will have -- I mean, there are ways to expedite some of that. You know, I'm not saying that we're subject to all of that, but largely we are. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And, guys, just so that you -- just -- welcome to government work here. But the net effect of that is that for the next year and a half, two years, you're going to get special editorials, and you're going to get letters to the editor, Page 89 April 12, 2001 and you're going to get letters to you saying, "Are you people crazy? Do you not understand there's a sewer crisis? Can't you see the roads are clogged? You must stop approving these PUDs." and then we're going to turn to Margie and say, "They're right. Can we please stop approving these PUDs because the roads are clogged?" and she's going to say, because she has to, "But you have this rule that says 5 percent is the threshold. And if you can't overcome that -- if it doesn't meet that threshold, you can't turn it down or we'll be subject to a lawsuit.". COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I -- I've been turning them down right and left based upon the 5-percent rule. Maybe I was wrong. I apologize if I was. I plan to do it in the future too. MR. MULHERE: Well, you do have some flexibility. And I'm sorry. I know we're going a little long. Real quickly, remember the past policy had been because you can have a period of time in which you have budgeted capital improvements, you can approve a project, please -- keep in mind -- and we're telling you when we bring these things forward -- you can phase that approval or you cannot allow that approval to go forward unless it's concurrent with the improvements. You don't have to say you have three years to make the improvements. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. Commissioners, you've got -- we've got some tools here in the toolbox and are working on that where if -- if we don't have the infrastructure in place, they can't do it because it doesn't meet concurrence is what I'm understanding. Now, if you want it sooner than we have it budgeted for or we have it in the plan but we haven't funded it and you want to pay for it, fine. We can -- you can help us build whatever needs to be done in that infrastructure. That is another optional piece here that some counties do. Sarasota County uses that as an either/or. Page 90 April 12, 2001 MR. MULHERE: And we do that too, and I think we've done a pretty good job and increasingly a better job of that. One -- one thing I wanted to add because it's real important, you -- when we talk about density, please remember -- you endorsed, accepted the community character plan. Remember what Victor Dover said. He said they found it surprising. The -- it -- it has not been the density, though. That's what largely it's translated to from the public's perspective. You know, and it starts with their experience on the roads, and no more, no more. What they said when we look at your population which, by the way, is very Iow density, some cases that Iow density is largely the cause of our problems that we have today. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All you have to do is look at things like Venetian Village. I've never had anyone tell me that that is ugly, that they don't like it. And that's a high-density project. Design is always king. MR. MULHERE: It's design. We -- remember, that's what Victor told you, and that's what community character is about is how do we -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think we're all saying the same thing. Design is king. Urban Land Institute, whether it's community character, any of these, all these groups will tell you that is what is so critical in this process, and you can have a -- quote, higher- denser areas. The people associated with you say about density and the wrong things -- not wrong things; what they see, what they feel, what they -- what happens to them every day, and that's clogged roads or can't get into a restaurant because there's a line out to the -- the street. COMMISSIONER HENNING: May I say something is -- what we're talking about here is smart growth with the Dover, Kohl plan. And I hope everybody takes a -- a very close look at it because, in my opinion, it doesn't apply to all of Collier County. Page 91 April 12, 2001 It's going to be applying to certain areas so -- COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Very well put. MR. OLLIFF: And I -- I will continue to -- to support the idea that it -- it is not growth in and of itself that is a problem for this community nearly as much as it is the inability of -- of us historically to keep up with the public facilities necessary to support that growth that have caused impacts on the people who already live here. I mean, if -- if you didn't have to wait any longer at Airport and Golden Gate than you did five years ago because of the development patterns and the number of people that have moved here, the people would not have nearly the number of complaints about the rate of growth that we have. Or have we not had the sewer plant problems that we've had over the course of this first four months of the season, people would not have nearly the -- the impact on their lives from the new people that are moving here each and every day. Mr. chairman, there are some people who are here from the public and have asked if they would have an opportunity, and that's at your discretion. We -- we have not in previous workshops. CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think as our practice, we really should take public input, and if you could limit it to five minutes for each one of you to speak, it certainly would be helpful, but we don't want to ignore your input, so how many people have signed up for -- want to speak to us? I think we need to go there. MR. OLLIFF: We've got none signed up, but I just see a raise of hands. There's three or four out in the audience. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Then we'd like to hear from you. MR. OLLIFF: Okay. CHAIRMAN CARTER: If you would just be ladies and gentlemen and get in order, not fight each other coming to the podium. Page 92 April 12, 2001 MR. MORTON: Mark Morton with the Barron Collier Company. Boy, you guys hit a lot of topics. I originally knew what I was going to come here and talk about. But just from the time I sat there and moved forward, I think you changed what I was going to talk about. One thing I would mention to you briefly, I did follow the growth management study commission and the cost benefit revenue analysis that is going through legislation and will probably come out in one form. Either the governor is going to appoint a commission or the legislature will. They will address this idea of this modeling that the staff's starting to collect data for, the help you make -- help both governments make a decision on what it costs for development or new business and what the -- what the benefit or revenue could be so you can make balanced decisions, which is an attempt at addressing concurrence. In that program they are suggesting a series of counties be selected for a pilot program. It sounds like this county is way ahead of most counties, and it might be a good idea for us to step up to the plate when that comes through and say we want to be one of those pilot counties for this program. So it may be a year for the commission to do its thing and the pilot programs to be done, but at least we are at the cutting edge of that point and helping shape the policy for the state and our own county. I just wanted to quickly -- look at my clock here -- read from some stuff that you were given today on public participation that -- that Bob put in here which I think is excellent. The final measure of the effectiveness of public involvement program is to not just -- is not just that the public has been informed but the public comment has been solicited in a manner such that is contrib -- contributed in making a decision that is technically and economically feasible and environmentally sound Page 93 April 12, 2001 and supported by a large segment of the public. Through effective and broad-based public participation and government decisions, the public can hold the government accountable, thereby both protect the rights of its citizenry and ensure public support of government actions. When effuctive -- effective outreach programs, even though citizens who cannot easily access and utilize this technology, can be brought into the process. Early involvement, unimpeded access to information, and an exclusive process where all stakeholders have an early and equal opportunity for input will lead to increased public involvement, etc., etc., etc., going into talking about planning, goals, and policies. Well, I see in the document that you have today that suggested to you it's really pointed out kind of the implementation side of things, not the planning side of participation. It really does talk about the stuff the county does. The county does big comprehensive plan changes. The county commissioners today made many suggestions of new policies and things we want to go do, and I would submit to you that the public participation we need is at that level as extensive as possible, a heavy-duty outreach program, and that's really not addressed in this code change you're looking at. So I'm almost holding the county to the same standard that you want to hold applicants for a PUD because I would submit to you if we do that properly, we get public participation by all stakeholders, not residents, landowners, agricultural interests, environmental groups, whoever they are, if we get them all to the table and they all participate, then the implementation, the rezoning, and all that's going to be a lot easier later on down the road. So even these workshops, which are excellent - and I'm taking time out to come and listen to them -- we don't have a lot of public here. You know, people aren't showing up, and this is Page 94 April 12, 2001 highly educational. I've been to two and three of them. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Hopefully they're watching on TV, though, because they are publicized. MR. MORTON: Well, now that's true. But I'm just saying there's got to be some way. On the rural fringe assessment, for example, if you look at those two, one is the rural fringe, and one's a rural and agricultural. The rural and agricultural, you have six major property owners. They're pretty much the people that what's happening out there is going to affect, and that community out there in Immokalee is pretty well connected, and people knows what's happening. And the rural fringe, on the other hand, you have a huge amount of individual -- I to 5 unit -- you know, 1- to 5-acre owners, 5-acre owners, 10 and 15. You really need, once you -- as they move that committee report along, every one of those peoples needs to be notified and given a copy of this report. They are not going -- they don't know this is happening to them, I guarantee you. Some of them don't even live in the area and they own this piece of property. So those are examples. Community character, I'll give you an example. We had a slap yesterday on the rural fringe issue -- on the rural policy issue. I'll tell you the truth, early on when the community character program was being put together, I was going to be on that committee. I was -- me or Susan Watts, and you also elected Susan Watts because I was involved in this rural study. And we had a lot of discussion with the consultants, with staff, that how much of community character is going to get into the rural area because you have these two other study committees that the final order is required. And the -- and the word was very little. It will be mostly based on design standards and things like that. So guess what? Nobody paid that much Page 95 April 12, 2001 attention. And all of a sudden Technical Memorandum 3 comes out which seriously impacts what's happening in those rural areas. But then, you know, the people that should have been involved and notified and know what's going on weren't. So I just think -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm going to take a second of your time. If you looked back -- I guess maybe I need to go back and find it, but the county commission gave clear direction that there should be communication among those three committees. We even designated people to be the liaison between the different groups. I mean, I don't have the same recollection that you did that -- that they were not going to have anything to do with what goes on in rural lands. It was that the technical information, all of the data, everything that will be the guts of the decision-making process, will come out of the committee that you're on, but that didn't mean that others aren't going to be given opinions about what needs to be happening out there. And there was supposed to be coordination, in my recollection. MR. MORTON: And -- and that's a good example. For whatever reason it didn't work out. That's what's great about where your staff has had the direction they're taking. I guess my main overall comment is this participation program has got to be directed to the comprehensive planning large-scale changes this county is making to its citizenry. And that's my comments. Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Boy, do I agree a hundred percent. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So -- so if the majority of the board agrees with that, that ought to be changed in what comes forward to us as a recommendation on the Land Development Code because I agree. It looks like Tom's writing it down. Page 96 April 12, 2001 COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is anybody writing? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Tom, are you hearing that that's the direction from the board? MR. OLLIFF: I already wrote that down. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Gotcha. MS. LYNN: Hi. I'm Erica Lynn. I'm a year-round resident of Naples Park. I'm here speaking only for myself but the ideas that I've brought up and gleaned from a number of neighborhood meetings all over North Naples. First of all, the website and the technology for tracking the projects is super, super excellent. There's -- I mean, there -- you just can't say enough good things about that whole process. The increase in public input is, again, a hundred percent really super from Sally Barker in particular. The increase in notification for land use changes up from 300 feet is excellent. I'd also just like to point out that even 500 feet is a very small range. We recently heard a report from parks and rec about the application for neighborhood parks, and they're required to be a mile and a half away, diam -- radius away from any other park, and that seems to imply to me that the county thinks that a mile and a half radius is what your neighborhood really is. The other thing about the notification process is that the letter that comes is not clear at all. All it tells you is the location of the public -- and time of the public meeting. It no way tells you that you really need to be calling staff and talking to people well ahead of that public meeting if you expect to have any impact. I'm glad that Commissioner Coletta did the bit about public access and that Mr. Mulhere brought up the kiosks. You absolutely have to teach people how to use these websites, and you absolutely have to have them where the public can access them many hours of the days and nights. So that's, again, very super. Page 97 April 12, 2001 The one part of the plan that Mr. Mulhere has that there's some concerns about has to do with the -- the citizen participation plan that's developed by the developer and then the developer also reports on the result of that citizen participation plan. And some of us feel that's kind of like asking the fox to report on the hen's opinion of the henhouse adaptations and that one of the things you might consider -- and this is done in some other -- I don't know if it's in Florida, but it's done in some other states. There's a citizen committee whose responsibility it is just to review these plans and evaluate how they affect the quality of life in the community and that their opinions are considered very seriously in these projects. Another possibility, someplace else they said that the commissioners actually have their own independent staff to research these projects so that they are getting something that's genuinely an independent opinion and not coming from any one area specifically. I would like to comment about the private property rights and the Burt Harris Act. And what I see happening in Florida and in this county is -- is that we're focusing on private property rights. When I was growing up, I -- my parents taught me that with rights comes responsibilities. And in this particular case I see that the property rights are being respected without a look at the responsibility to communities. And since the Burt Harris act mostly hasn't been tested, it would be interesting to see a situation in which there was, whether it's a downzoning or changing in other aspects, whether if there were some pressing community reason why these should occur, whether that would really hold up. And, finally, I'd like to say that I think that Tom Olliff's recommendations for policy changes also are -- are really, really super and that when you get the whole process in place, there's Page 98 April 12, 2001 got to be penalties for the people that don't come through with what they've promised to. I thank you very much. MR. ANDERSON: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Bruce Anderson. And I wanted to echo Mark Morton's comments about providing individual notice to property owners of the amendments that are proposed to be acted on as a result of the rural assessment process. That's absolutely essential, and I -- I just want to offer a brief comment from the pri -- private perspective about the Burt Harris Private Property Rights Protection Act. The Harris act protects both invested rights and existing uses. Now, existing uses has a special definition in the Harris act. Existing uses includes reasonably foreseeable land uses, not just the actually existing land uses. And reasonably foreseeable land uses certainly includes land uses that are allowed by existing zoning and uses that are allowed by the comprehensive plan. So to the extent that you delete such uses or enact new environmental regulations that cause a significant loss in the fair market value of a person's property, the public must pay the property owner for that loss in value. For instance, let me give you an example: In the rural area, you have the typical 5-acre platted lots that are in a grid pattern that is clearly allowed under the existing zoning or was before the moratorium. You also have the Twin Eagles model where you, again, have 5-acre lots. They're not in a typical grid pattern. It's been clearly established by court ruling that those were allowed under the existing zoning. So as you move through the rural assessment process, to the extent that you take that right- of-way or infringe upon that and cause a loss in the fair market value of property, you need to be prepared to pay the price. Thank you. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I'll just say I think our Page 99 April 12, 2001 community, to some extent, ready to -- to pay the price on some of those. And -- and I think that Bruce makes the point that we better be careful about these rezones and not think they're free, because they're not. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Could I ask you what your spin is on the sunsetting of the PUDs? MR. ANDERSON: I think the 5-year program that we have in place is sufficient. I was on the Land Development Code ad hoc committee that first instituted the sunset review requirements, and five years was picked as a reasonable time to allow for a project, not only to -- after they get their zoning from the county; then they have other permitting that they need to go through with state and federal agencies. And that five-year period is really a reasonable time frame to allow them to get through the other permitting and -- and then go through the -- the additional permitting process at the county like site development, platting, etc. And I think you ought to stick with the five years. I mean, that's reasonable and realistic. And if you cut that down, you're not really giving the property owner a fair shake to try to get through the other permitting processes that he has to go through and -- after he leaves county commission chamber. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, while you're there, Mr. Anderson, in response to Mr. Coletta's question, I've heard other land use attorneys tell me they could live with three years. Can you help me with that? MR. ANDERSON: Everybody has an opinion. MR. MULHERE: One thing that might be helpful is in preparing this type of a policy change if the staff went out and looked at how long it actually took on the most part on the average for a PUD to commence construction after its approval date. And if it happens to be looking like it's five years for most of them, well, that tells us the answer. But if it happens to be Page 100 April 12, 2001 two years or one year or three years, that tells us another answer. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, that might tell us a whole lot. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. You're always delightful. MR. MULHERE: Anyone else interested in speaking? May I just put -- for the public record, both Mark Morton and Bruce indicated the importance of notifying each property owner of the fringe. And we publicly stated at yesterday's meeting of the fringe committee -- and we -- we have developed a -- a property owner list, and we will notify each and every property owner of the upcoming June 14th special meeting of the board, and we will try to copy all those property owners or make available to them our -- our report on those conceptual issues. So we will be notifying each and every property owner on the fringe of this, also give them the opportunity to know about the website and some other things so -- MR. OLLIFF: Mr. chairman, we really appreciate your taking the time. Unless the board has any other questions, we promised you we'd get you out of here by noon, and I think we're -- we're right on that -- that schedule. CHAIRMAN CARTER= Can I just have -- Commissioner Mac'Kie, please. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: When are we going to hear more about the hearing officer process ? MR. MULHERE: June, the June LDC amendment cycle. MR. OLLIFF: And hopefully after the special bill gets approved in Tallahassee. CHAIRMAN CARTER= Commissioner Henning. COMMISSIONER HENNING: There -- being a commissioner for as short as I have, that has positives and negatives, and we -- we have so many -- where we hear about the complaints about growth and we need a moratorium and -- and so on and so forth Page 101 April 12, 2001 and even the small details. I can just say for -- as far as for me, this process today is -- is a benefit of being a county commissioner because we are going to make changes to better this community. And I had --just appreciate everybody here to make that happen. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Commissioner Henning. And with the board's -- we can talk about it at the next board meeting. I want to encourage and work with county manager's office and with our public information office to develop a aggressive media outreach program where we can take -- and already today now we have a press release prepared to go out to communicate everything that we've done here today -- but really get aggressive with this so that we do an excellent job in informing the media, to use Channel 54 to upgrade and develop, let's say, a laymen's terms kind of short bursts of this stuff where people really get a better look piece by piece of this as a total overview so that we can communicate with the public so they have greater understanding of what we're trying to accomplish through these processes and better utilize the tools that we have. The last thing I have is some very good news, and that is Immokalee Customs House, the money was found, was approved through fast track. And so although we lost it from TOPs, fast track did provide it, and it's going forward. We do have a couple of issues to take to the legislature to work with that. One is some way to deal with things like Burger King cartons that come in on a jet from Brazil that the pilot used. They can -- they can't be disposed of in this country. Lee County was incinerating, and then the EPA got on top of them and said the incinerator was polluting the air. So now they've had to hire a company to take the stuff away. And -- and, of course, John Drury is looking at that. So we'll have that challenge. Page 102 April 12, 2001 The other thing is in regards to the stuff with citrus, Med flies and the diseases and that. We've got to find some way to protect that whole area. And John Drury is looking at that. And I will be going to the legislature and working through Joe Spratt to see if we can't find that and get that in place so we can go forward with our customs house. I think that's good news. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That is good news. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, just one last announcement. Five days from now you're going to be back here again for another workshop. It is the natural resources workshop. But I need to point out that that's going to be a very important workshop because we can't talk about natural resources without talking about rural fringe and rural issues, so I think that is going to be the workshop. And then John and his staff, I think, have been notifying all of those people who are involved in those processes. And so just be prepared on -- on Tuesday to -- to get into a full discussion about both of those -- those issues. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How much time have we blocked out for that workshop ? MR. OLLIFF: Better than three hours. COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Not long enough. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I hope -- yeah. Not long enough. I mean, I just would suggest that everybody clear their calendar and be more serious about how complicated these issues are and how long -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: It may -- it may go longer than that. I think you're right. We've got it scheduled from 9 to 12, but you may be looking at 2 or 3 if it takes to do that -- . COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Or nine. CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- a block time for lunch. MR. MULHERE: And-- COMMISSIONER HENNING: Bring your sleeping bag. Page103 April 12, 2001 MR. MULHERE: In fact, I just wanted to also remind you that you do have a special meeting scheduled in June. So to the extent that you're unable -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. MR. MULHERE: -. we -- we will be bringing specifically -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. MR. MULHERE: -- the staff's recommendations relating to the fringe in conceptual fashion. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In June. MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Mulhere, and you going to attend the workshop on Tuesday? MR. MULHERE: I'll be here. CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Thank all. Thank the members of the board, the people that participated this morning. Have a good day. We're done. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 12 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S} OF SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL JAMES . CARTER, PH.D., CHAIRMAN Page 104 April 12, 2001 ATTEST:. DWIGHZ ~E,iBROCK, CLERK ~ "~ .0_. ',.i~ ~:,~-~h'~;n,nag~ ~pproved by the Board on ~- ~-~ / , as presented ~ or as corrected . TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT REPORTING, INC., BY BARBARA A. DONOVAN, CMR, CRR Page 105