BCC Minutes 06/06/2001 S (LDC Amendments)June 6, 2001
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, June 6, 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 5:15 p.m.
in SPECIAL SESSION in Building "F' of the Government Complex,
East Naples, Florida, with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
VICE-CHAIRMAN:
James D. Carter, Ph.D.
Pamela S. Mac'Kie
James Coletta
Donna Fiala
Tom Henning
ALSO PRESENT:
Tom Olliff, County Manager
David C. Weigel, County Attorney
Page
COLLIER COUNTY
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
AGENDA
June 6, 2001
NOTICE: ALL PERSONS WISHING TO SPEAK ON ANY AGENDA ITEM MUST
REGISTER PRIOR TO SPEAKING. SPEAKERS MUST REGISTER WITH THE COUNTY
MANAGER PRIOR TO THE PRESENTATION OF THE AGENDA ITEM TO BE
ADDRESSED.
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BEFORE ENGAGING IN ANY LOBBYING ACTIVITIES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
TO, ADDRESSING THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS), REGISTER WITH
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DEPARTMENT.
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AGENDA MUST BE SUBMITTED IN WRITING WITH EXPLANATION TO THE COUNTY
MANAGER AT LEAST 13 DAYS PRIOR TO THE DATE OF THE MEETING AND WILL BE
HEARD UNDER "PUBLIC PETITIONS".
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.
ALL REGISTERED PUBLIC SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO FIVE (5) MINUTES
UNLESS PERMISSION FOR ADDITIONAL TIME IS GRANTED BY THE CHAIRMAN.
IF YOU ARE A PERSON WITH A DISABILITY WHO NEEDS ANY ACCOMMODATION IN
ORDER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROCEEDING, YOU ARE ENTITLED, AT NO COST
TO YOU, TO THE PROVISION OF CERTAIN ASSISTANCE. PLEASE CONTACT THE
COLLIER COUNTY FACILITIES MANAGEMENT DEPARTMENT LOCATED AT 3301
EAST TAMIAMI TRAIL, NAPLES, FLORIDA, 34112, (941) 774-8380; ASSISTED
LISTENING DEVICES FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED ARE AVAILABLE IN THE
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' OFFICE.
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June 6, 2001
1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
m
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NUMBER 91-102, AS AMENDED, THE
COLLIER COUNTY LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE, WHICH INCLUDES THE
COMPREHENSIVE ZONING REGULATIONS FOR THE UNINCORPORATED AREA
OF COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA, BY PROVIDING FOR: SECTION ONE, RECITALS:
SECTION TWO, FINDINGS OF FACT: SECTION THREE, ADOPTION OF
AMENDMENTS TO THE LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE, MORE SPECIFICALLY
AMENDING THE FOLLOWING: ARTICLE 1, GENERAL PROVISIONS, DIVISION 1.8.
NONCONFORMITIES; DIVISION 1.19. AMENDMENTS TO'THIS CODE; ARTICLE 2,
ZONING, DIVISION 2.2. ZONING DISTRICTS, PERMITTED USES, CONDITIONAL
USES, DIMENSIONAL STANDARDS, DIVISION 2.3. OFF-STREET PARKING AND
LOADING; DIVISION 2.4 LANDSCAPING AND BUFFERING, DIVISION 2.5. SIGNS;
DIVISION 2.6. SUPPLEMENTAL DISTRICT REGULATIONS; DIVISION 2.7. ZONING
ADMINISTRATION AND PROCEEDURES; DIVISION 2.8. ARCHITECTURAL AND
SITE DESIGN STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES FOR COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
AND PROJECTS; ARTICLE 3, DIVISION 3.2. SUBDIVISIONS; DIVISION 3.3. SITE
DEVELOPMENT PLANS; DIVISION 3.5 EXCAVATION; DIVISION 3.9 VEGETATION
REMOVAL, PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION; DIVISION 3.13. COASTAL
CONSTRUCTION SETBACK LINE VARIANCE; DIVISION 3.14. VEHICLE ON THE
BEACH REGULATIONS; ARTICLE 5, DIVISION 5.1 BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS; DIVISION 5.2 PLANNING COMMISSION; DI~/ISlON 5.3 BOARD
OF ZONING APPEALS; AND TO ADD DIVISION 5.5 HEARING EXAMINER; ARTICLE
6, DIVISION 6.3. DEFINITIONS, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE
DEFINITIONS OF PARTICIPANT, PSI (POUNDS PER SQUARE INCH), RIGHT-OF-
WAY, STRUCTURE, UNAUTHORIZED COMMUNICATION AND YARDS; SECTION
FOUR, CONFLICT AND SEVERABILITY; SECTION FIVE, INCLUSION IN THE
COLLIER COUNTY LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE; AND SECTION SlX, EFFECTIVE
DATES.
ADJOURN
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June 6, 2001
June 6, 2001
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE 91-102, THE LAND
DEVELOPMENT CODE, AS AMENDED - SECONDED PUBLIC
HEARING TO BE HELD JUNE 20, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Can I have your attention please?
Calling this meeting to order of the Board of County
Commissioners for the first of two meetings on the Land
Development Codes. It's currently 5:15 in the afternoon. I'm
going to ask you all to stand for the pledge of allegiance, and
then we will start the agenda.
(The pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We have a number of interesting items
under the Land Development Code this evening, and I've been
looking and chatting with our county administrator, Tom Olliff.
And with the pleasure of the board, I think, Tom, you can give us
an overview of the subject that has the most public speakers at
this point. We're going to try to work through this. As I left Tom
two minutes ago, it looked like the RT zoning area was the one
that had the most public speakers. Does that still hold, Mr. Olliff?
MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir. That still has the largest numbers of
public speakers, and then your vehicles on the beach item would
be next.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's a good idea, to take them
in order of --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's where we will go tonight, ladies
and gentlemen, so that those of you who are here for those
particular high-interest issues will have an opportunity to state
your views. For our listening audience, all of these have been
reviewed with the planning council; the DSA, which is a
development services group; and also with the environmental
advisory council. So there's been a lot of input and a lot of
changes as we've gone along.
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June 6, 2001
Tonight we do not make final decisions on these Land
Development Codes. We take input, and the commission looks at
one of these. And if everybody's in agreement, we just give it a
nod and go forward because that's really fairly simplistic. It says
by the next meeting if everyone was in agreement here and there
really wasn't anybody that had any concerns about it, then that
would be pretty much not a problem in the second meeting.
But the second meeting is where the final decisions are made.
So if you're here tonight for an issue, and whatever the outcome
is, remember that at the second meeting you have an opportunity
to be here and present again. And I believe that's June 20th; is
that right?
Mr. Oliff, am I correct on that?
MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. June 20th at 5:05 p.m. Let us
proceed.
MS. MURRAY: Good evening, Commissioners. I'm Susan
Murray, interim current planning manager. And I have a couple of
procedural things to go over with you so you'll better understand
how to follow along in the packet that you've been given, and
then we'll get into it. First of all, I handed out an amended
summary sheet to you, and the summary sheet is essentially a
spreadsheet-looking item like that. And that's the primary tool
that you'll work from tonight, and that summary sheet references
each amendment individually.
You'll note on that summary sheet that the page numbers
that were typed in were X'd out and there's a handwritten
number. Those are the numbers we'll work from. As well, when
you go through your packet, you'll notice that some pages have
double page numbers on there. There's a handwritten page
number and a stamped page number in the right-hand corner,
lower right hand. We will work from the lower-right-hand-corner
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June 6, 2001
number.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Susan, I -- and maybe this is a
more appropriate question for Mr. Oliff, but it's disappointing to
me that, for example, EAC was meeting on issues as recently as
this morning. I was able to work my schedule so that I could
watch that on TV. But why is it that we are here getting
handwritten information? How did that happen in the
scheduling? And maybe that's less important than, can you keep
that from happening again in the future?
MR. OLLIFF: Susan, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in
the EAC's particular case, it was because of quorum issues.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is that why?
MS. MURRAY: That's -- well, I don't think in the EAC it was a
quorum issue. They wanted it to be brought back before them for
some further clarification. There was a quorum issue for the
CCPC meeting, and that bumped the meeting back an additional
two weeks, which then stacked all the remaining meetings back.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And when that happens, what's
the reason why our hearing of it can't be postponed another two
weeks so that we get a more organized presentation?
MR. OLLIFF: It could be it just -- it would require
readvertising on staff's part.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just while we're on procedural
matters, for me it would be a lot better because I give a great
deal of weight, for example, to EAC or to, you know, different
ones, and it would be good to have that to be thinking about
instead of to have seen it this morning, here's their opinions, now
come here and make a decision. It would be better.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I think we try to work with that
the best that we can. But, remember, we are also coming up on
budgets, and we are crowding up to the last week in June. And
after the last week in June, we are in recess. So if there's a way
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June 6, 2001
to start the cycle sooner and adjustments, perhaps. But
currently because of requests from the various committees who
want to revisit or sometimes they fail to have quorums, it does
move pretty quickly to this point. But, remember, we have a
second meeting, and there's an in-between two weeks in which
to deal with a lot of these issues. That may have not been totally
understood or clarified. But, Susan, let's go forward and see how
well we can do tonight.
MS. MURRAY: With that, if you want to start with the RT
zoning district, I would ask that you turn to page 19. And I know
Mr. Weigel was going to give a brief introduction before I got into
that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Where is it on this? I don't have
19 pages in there.
MS. MURRAY: On that --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: You got to get in your book.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I understand that's where it is in
my book. I want to know where it is on my spreadsheet.
MS. MURRAY: On your spreadsheet it's on page 4 in the
middle, right there in the middle there. It says "floor area ratio."
MR. OLLIFF: 2.2.8.4.5. It's actually the second page of your
handout, second item on the list.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So floor area ratio is this one.
MS. MURRAY: That is correct.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And it was approved at DSAC and
did not go to EAC, and there's a longhand written thing here on
Planning Commission. Okay.
MR. WEIGEL: Good evening, Mr. Chairman and
Commissioners. David Weigel, county attorney. And thank you,
Susan. I'll try to be brief. But you have before you tonight not
only floor area ratio, but other related items that appear on page
4 of the index, including definitions: That of destination resort
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June 6, 2001
hotel; density; and another term for consideration, residential
hotel; and related FAR, floor area ratio. So we have contiguity
with all of these items that we just mentioned right here, these
four.
You'll note on page 5 -- excuse me, page 19 in the agenda
that it discusses reasons for a change that came to this district a
year ago. And, in fact, a floor area ratio was adopted. The board
knows this quite well; the public may not be as well versed,
although many of them are. A distinction came last year, a
revision to the potential for development in the RT district where
hotels could have a floor area ratio, and that ratio came to
replace a specific unit number within the district.
Before the board tonight and before the CCPC in its -- and the
EAC in their deliberations, is the fact that this board wanted the
opportunity to review the standard of floor area ratio in the RT
district. They wanted to have the opportunity to review and
consider returning this district to the regulation that existed prior
to June of 2000, that is where there could be up to a maximum of
26 hotel units on an acre of land. And, in fact, interestingly, as
Susan or John will tell you, the CCPC has actually come up with
a recommendation for a mixture of both those concepts.
Another question that you have before you tonight in regard to
floor area ratio and the consideration of either confirming the
standard that's in place, amending the standard that's in place,
or repealing it altogether, is the fact that there will be discussion
to you by members of the interested public or entrepreneur
representatives talking about creating a nonconformity within
the district.
Now, because of the fact that a standard was adopted, a
revision to a standard was adopted, last year, to retreat or
change from that standard may, in fact, provide for a
nonconformity on any construction that has occurred under the
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June 6, 2001
standard adopted last year. And, again, you'll learn, in a little
further discussion, that the Planning Commission heard
discussion on that, and their recommendation had -- to this board
was, in fact, to address nonconformity by stating that there is no
nonconformity for certain construction under the June 2000
standard, construction that occurred since June but prior to July
of 2001 this year.
Susan, am I leaving anything else out that you'd like to hear
at this point in time?
MS. MURRAY: No. I don't think so.
MR. WEIGEL: Okay. I don't want to bend too far. I can talk
a little bit about the destination resort hotel or, in fact, the
extended-stay hotel. But if this board wishes, I could either
address it briefly now or come back to that later.
MS. MURRAY: I'll address that. I think it's important to
note, and I like the statement you used at the Planning
Commission, that on their plate before them they have
essentially three -- three choices, and those -- a summary of
those choices was just given by Mr. Weigel, and I will go into
detail about that and then be happy to answer any of your
questions. It's a complicated issue. I have some calculations to
show us an example if you wish, but I'll let you ask me the
questions as you wish.
MR. WEIGEL: One last thing I'll mention to the board, and
that is, you do not have for your consideration tonight in this
Land Development Code cycle the potential review and revision
of the ten-story, hundred-foot regulation that exists in the RT
district and, in fact, exists in many districts, many zoning
districts, in the county. You may come from the hearing tonight
or the final hearing on June 20th and give some direction to staff
to look into that for the upcoming Land Development Code cycles
pertaining to this RT district or to all of the districts or to come
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June 6, 2001
back with a report to the board generally so that they can
consider height limitations in all of the districts.
The same goes for setbacks generally. This is not, in fact, a
discussion tonight specifically about the Beachcomber Resort
Hotel project. Yet, in fact, the recent daytime advertised board
hearing about the Beachcomber project -- I should say public
meeting, not advertised meeting -- did, in fact, contain significant
discussion of some of the elements that are before the board
tonight. You will have tonight some of the proponents and
opponents of that project here speaking to these specific
regulations.
As they potentially may be amended for the future, they do
not specifically -- the changes you make tonight do not
specifically apply to the decision that you made in the past,
although the decisions that you may make tonight and ultimately
finalize on June 20th may, in fact, affect construction of any kind
that's not permitted in the future.
And the action you took at your most recent daytime board
meeting had to do with the recision of a site development plan
approval and the revocation of a building permit.
So this project -- that land at issue may, in fact, have a new
site development plan and a -- a new building permit review,
application review, before the board at some point in the future.
And those kinds of reviews will be subject to the standard that's
in place at that time. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Mr. Weigel, before you leave, just a
quick question. I believe that we have pretty much agreed as a
board that we are going to have an -- in between the June and
December cycle somewhere, September, October, that we're
looking to for-- and I'm going to call it a short cycle because
we've got a number of moving items that we cannot afford to
wait six months. So for the audience you need to know that we
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June 6, 2001
are changing our process so that we will have more opportunity
on shorter cycles to deal with some of these issues so they don't
hang out there so long and afford windows of opportunity, as I
call them, for those who might try to do something which, in the
overall plan, we don't want to have happen. MR. WEIGEL: That's true.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Am I correct on that?
MR. WEIGEL: You're absolutely correct, and the
development services staff and the county attorney staff are
already working on the next cycle, let alone this one. Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: I'm working off of page 20 again, Section
2.2.8.4.5, which should read 2.2.8.4.8. I apologize for that typo.
Let me explain a little bit about what this attempts to do. This
attempts, basically, to correct the FARs in the RT zoning district
which were adopted last year as a result -- and the correction
comes as a result of further research done by staff for both
conventional types of hotels and destination resort-type of
hotels. The attempt here is to bring these types of facilities,
using the FAR intensity measurement technique, to more
comparative to the 26-unit-per-acre regulation.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. Pause me there for a
second, because I -- I'm going to have to go slow on this because
I want to really get it. From a professional planner's perspective,
what you're going to be giving us is an FAR -- a recommendation
for an FAR that would be as close to 26 units an acre as you can
get.
MS. MURRAY: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: All right.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's on hotels. But on
condominiums it would be 15, if I understand it.
MS. MURRAY: Nothing changes on condominiums.
Condominiums are measured with a density calculation and not
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June 6, 2001
an intensity calculation.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Could you tell us what the
Planning Commission's recommendations were?
MS. MURRAY: Sure. It's actually -- if you'll let me kind of go
through all three proposals, at the end I'll tell you what the
Planning Commission recommended because theirs is actually
related to the last one, if you don't mind.
So this is the first proposal, and you'll note that it reduces the
FAR from .6 to .5 in the case of regular hotels and motels, and
from .8 to .7 for destination resort hotels as defined in Article 6.3.
This proposal should be coupled with the proposed definitional
change to the destination resort hotel, which is on page 85 of
your packet, but let me explain all that does is more clearly
defines the conditions as a prerequisite to qualifications for a
destination resort hotel. And specifically and of particular
importance is the requirement that not less than 25 percent of
the gross floor area must be devoted to common usage and
support services. That's different from what's in the code now.
There is no minimum requirement for common usage. Okay.
That's the first proposal.
The second proposal is on page 20A. Essentially, this is a
reversion back to the previous method of regulating density in
unit size. You'll note that the language 'a maximum of 26 units
per acre for hotels and motels" is reinserted under a maximum
density provision, and you'll also note that there's a limitation, a
300-square-foot minimum with a 500-square-foot maximum for
hotels and motels -- that's for room size -- except that 20 percent
of the total units may be utilized for suites. That's the language
that was in the LDC prior to the June of 2000 cycle. It's the
original language.
In this case you would have, obviously, a known number of
units because the maximum would be 26, but it does limit
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June 6, 2001
flexibility in terms of building size and unit size. And I think what
staff is finding through its research is that the maximum and
minimum room size -- or the maximum room sizes don't address
the market needs for the residential-type of hotels that you
commonly see around the beach.
And I'll get to that, what a residential type of hotel is, in just
a second. Actually, I'll get to it now. It's one in -- a residential
hotel is one in -- which is intended for family occupancy normally
exceeding a week stay and offers full living accommodations,
including kitchens and two or more bedrooms. So the negative
part of this is we're not addressing a market condition that exists
out there.
The third proposal, which is on page 20B, is essentially
we're back to utilizing the FAR. Your packet should read under
Section 2.2.8.4.8, the maximum floor area ratio for hotels,
motels, and time-share facilities shall not exceed a factor of .50 -
- that's the correction I just described earlier -- except for
destination resort hotels and residential hotels as defined where
a floor area ratio of .70 for destination resort hotels -- and then
this is the new thing we're adding here -- and a 1.15 FAR for your
residential hotels.
Coupled with that we have a definition further down on that
page of a residential hotel. And if you read it, it says it's
intended for family occupancy. There's a minimum stay
requirement. There's also a maximum stay requirement. And the
definition goes into detail on the types of facilities that a
destination -- a residential hotel is supposed to have, that being
such things as on-site reservation services, daily housekeeping
services, a lobby area, common service areas, an occupational
license for a hotel. I won't read through all of them.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think another important part there is
it does have conference or meeting rooms, which again, was
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June 6, 2001
something that was an issue on another building.
MS. MURRAY: This says conference room/meeting rooms is
required in this case, yes. So that's the third proposal.
Now let me get to your question, Commissioner Henning, and
that was, what was the recommendation by the CCPC? The
recommendation by the CCPC was to approve this revision that I
just read into the record for you, the third one, with a revision to
add the residential hotel at an FAR of 1.65 and a vesting
provision. And that vesting provision reads as follows: That any
project which received approval at a public hearing prior to July
1st of 2000 shall not be deemed nonconforming as a result of an
inconsistency with an FAR limitation.
And then it goes on further to say that for existing hotels
from FAR -- I'm sorry. I'm repeating here. And to require that in
no event may any hotel exceed 26 units per acre. So what you've
got kind of is a hybrid here that the CCPC recommended. You've
got your FAR calculation, but then you've also got your limitation
on the 26 units per acre.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: In what case -- can you give us
examples where we don't want to deem them inconsistent and
yet limiting them to 26 units per acre?
MS. MURRAY: If I'm understanding your question correctly,
that limitation was actually brought forward by a member of the
public.
It's not a staff recommendation. As I understand, there was
-- specifically the La Playa Beach Hotel, I believe, would be
deemed nonconforming if the language as proposed by staff was
adopted. And so any changes to that hotel would then require
the owner of that hotel to go through various processes in order
to even make minor changes because it would be a
nonconforming structure.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And if they would want to
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June 6, 2001
remodel in the -- in future dates, then it being nonconforming,
they couldn't remodel.
MS. MURRAY: Again, depending on what they're doing. But,
yeah there's a very strong possibility that they'd have to go
through many extra steps in order to remodel, to remedy the
nonconforming use status of that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I also had a question. It said here
on page 20A, 16 units per acre for multifamily uses when located
within an activity center or if the RT was in existence. But I
wondered, what if it isn't located within an activity center?
MS. MURRAY: Then the density rating system applies in that
case, and that's not proposed to change. I just want to make
that real clear. That's existing language that's in the code today.
We're just talking about floor area ratio for hotels. Multifamily
uses, condominiums, are all subject to the current maximum of
16 units per acre when in an activity center and then subject to
density rating when outside.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Other questions by members of the
board?
Then I think we're ready to go to public speakers. Have we
covered all the things under this before we do that, Susan? I
don't want to --
MS. MURRAY: Yeah. I have sample calculations if you want.
Maybe when the public speakers come up, if you have questions
about how an FAR change would impact, for example, a room
size or the square footage of a building, I can throw these up on
the visualizer and show you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: If I'm understanding again, Susan, that
it doesn't change what I'm going to call the physical structure,
the four walls. It does determine what you can put inside the
four walls, and that is what the FAR ratio is about for the internal
development; am I correct?
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June 6, 2001
MS. MURRAY: The FAR is a regulation that determines the
volume of the structure. And you have to remember that you
have -- setback requirements and parking requirements and all of
those other requirements shape the volume and shape of the
structure. The height limit, for example, is one --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: But once you have met that criteria,
then the floor area ratio says, this is what you can put inside it.
MS. MURRAY: Essentially. And then, of course, depending
on the hotel type. As I mentioned, we have the different types.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Let's go to speakers.
MR. OLLIFF: Okay. Mr. Chairman, I'm going to go ahead and
call two at a time. And if the first speaker could go ahead and
come to the podium and the second speaker could just stand
here and be in the on-deck circle, if you will. Joe Connolly is the
first speaker followed by Cai Immel, the second speaker.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I remind speakers as you come
up, we do have the same criteria for all public input meetings.
You have five minutes.
MR. CONNOLLY: For the record, Joe Connolly. I live at
106:3:3 Gulfshore Drive, and I am speaking on behalf of the
Vanderbilt Beach and Bay Association and the Save the
Vanderbilt Beach Association. And good evening again.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Good evening.
MR. CONNOLLY: We've been through two sessions of the
Planning Commission meetings, and I'm not sure they understand
any more this cycle than they did at the last cycle. It didn't
appear to me that they did at the end of the discussions. They
were presented a menu of hotel hotel, residential hotel,
destination hotel, boutique hotel was mentioned, and it got very
confusing. And there were different ways of -- an FAR of this for
this one and an FAR of this for this one, and they even said that :3
to 500 square feet was not adequate in the Naples market. But
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June 6, 2001
we checked with the Ritz-Carlton, and their average room size is
400 square feet, and I believe that that hotel stands on its own.
So if we are allowing 500 square feet more than their average
room size, you would consider it to be more than adequate.
So what we recommend is that we throw out all this hotel.
We don't need a residential hotel. We have on Gulfshore Drive
right now hotels, motels, time-shares, and condos. You can rent
from one day to one week to two weeks to one month to three
months, anything from one bedroom to two bedrooms to three
bedrooms. We have restaurants and cocktail bars all around so
that we're supplying the market right now, and we don't need a
new definition to just complicate things. It's already there for
the people, and it's there available on the time frame basis that
they need it. So we say let's stick with what we have. Go back
to the pre-June of 2000 code, and keep it at that until the
Vanderbilt corridor study is complete, which now I believe has
Gulfshore Drive incorporated in it.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: You're right.
MR. CONNOLLY: I don't know the time frame for that but --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: The next 12 months.
MR. CONNOLLY: Huh?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Within the next 12 months.
MR. CONNOLLY: Okay. So can't we live with that until we
get the information that's going to provide us on the traffic at
least, because no one knows what the La Playa beach club is
going to do traffic-wise, Signature Properties' beach club, and
you've got The Dunes, and you've got the Cocohatchee thing.
And all of this has to be factored in because, you know, it's a
two-lane street in a coastal high hazard area, and you're playing
with fire. So I say that we ought to wait, and use the best
intelligence you can to make the decision at that time. And until
you get that information, stay where you were.
Page 15
June 6, 2001
I believe that just about covers what I wanted to say, and so I
will not use my allotted time. I hope I made my message. And
thank you very much again.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, Joe. Next speaker, please.
MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is Cai Immel followed by Diane --
I think it's Holds (sic).
MR. IMMEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners.
I'm Cai Immel. I live at 9400 Gulfshore Drive in Vanderbilt Beach.
I'm full -- we've been there ten years, and we are full-time
residents. I think it's symbolic that we meet today, which is D-
Day anniversary, and decision day for the commissioners on what
on the surface seems to be a simple issue. The issue as
determined by the resolution passed by the Planning Commission
last week could have significant influence on a new growth
pattern the county may be taking if you, as the elected
representatives of the people, sanction that resolution as
presented.
Staff had made recommendations, one which restored the
previous hotel intensity of 26 units per acre, for condominium
density of 16 units per acre, codes which had been in effect for
many years. That ruling was desired by the residents of
Vanderbilt Beach and, quite likely, by residents of any other
areas of the county. But a flaw in the resolution provided for
hotel room sizes to be in excess of 2,000 square feet. This
resulted from an expanded land use ratio increase from 1.15 to
1.65. The result of allowing these hotel suites to be at that size
opens the door for a conversion to condominiums at 26 units per
acre.
Consider that the Collier County area for the last decade was
the second fastest growing community in the country, and that
growth rate was achieved with density codes of 26 hotel units
per acre and 16 condominium units per acre. Can you imagine
Page 16
June 6, 2001
what would have happened here if the Land Development Code
established last June had been in place the previous ten years?
That thought is almost frightening.
Since 1990 at least nine condominium buildings were erected
on Gulfshore Drive alone, not counting The Manatee Resort Hotel
and The Regatta, both which have densities well beyond the 16
condo units per acre. Had Vanderbilt's nine condominium
buildings been built under the new code, the number of potential
residents might have been doubled.
On the table is the impact of a 1.65 land use ratio. With a
ratio at 1.65, newly constructed luxury hotels could have a suite
size larger than typical condominiums on Vanderbilt Beach. Most
condos are 2,000 square feet or less, and very few have three
bedrooms.
We believe your objective should be to control hotel
construction at a size to preclude the practicality of converting it
to a condominium which would violate our condo land density
code. If hotels are allowed essentially to have most or all of the
suites as large as 2,000 square feet or larger, you can be assured
they will some day be converted to condominiums at a density as
high as 26 condos per acre. This is not tolerable.
It was suggested that code enforcement will not allow that to
happen, but what provision will alert the Bureau of
Condominiums in Tallahassee to check the density code in
Collier County when the declaration of condominium is filed? If
there is no such guarantee provision, then you can be certain
that there will be many new condos of 26 units per acre being
built in the county, all from future conversions of luxury hotels.
On Gulfshore Drive alone, there are currently seven or eight
potential 1-acre sites that at the right price could be purchased,
and these small condos or private residences will be torn down
and converted to hotels with some ending as high-density
Page 17
June 6, 2001
condos. That surely is not what the residents of Collier County
wish to see.
During a unanimous vote two weeks ago rescinding a building
permit for a high-density hotel, suggests you concur that
controlled growth for our county is in your agenda. Please
approve a revised Land Development Code which will protect this
wonderful county from high-density projects. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, sir. If I'm hearing you
correctly, that if there was a provision where that if you built a
residential hotel, that you could not convert it to a condominium -
- not -- then you would be comfortable with the fact that it exists
as it does as long as it functions on that basis. But you would
never have any conversion rights, and if you did, you'd have to go
back to whatever the condominium allotment was allotted in a
given area. Thank you, sir.
MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is Diane, I believe it's, Halas
followed by Frank Halas.
MS. HALAS: Hi. My name is Diane Halas. I live at 405
Flamingo. We heard a lot of discussions over the last few weeks
about property rights, profitability requirements of developers,
and state of the art for hotels. Particularly at the Planning
Commission meeting, some of the speakers were essentially told
that they didn't understand the hotel industry and that was why
we were not in favor of room size limitations and the more liberal
floor area ratios.
So I did some research. I talked to some high-profile industry
consultants in the hotel industry. I looked on the Internet, like
you probably all do, and I found some interesting things that I
wanted to share. One was that destination resort hotels and
other tourist accommodations are essentially being built to blend
into the landscape. Generally, in beach areas, they're being
designed for no more than four stories and to leave huge vistas
Page 18
June 6, 2001
of ocean available between buildings. They often only occupy 58
percent of the space available and sometimes only the same
portion is given to rooms.
In pristine areas boulevards are being put in between the
oceans and the hotels so that the view and access to the
beaches aren't blocked. Although it's a little late for boulevards
in our area, it's not too late to protect the views or limit the
infringement of buildings into the greenspace, and there's still
time to prevent the remaining areas with beach access from
turning into concrete canyons.
Several other resort cities have severely limited building on
their beaches and other fragile land areas. Delray, for example,
doesn't allow any building on the beach. Newport Beach has
adopted density standards that make ours look like invitation to
traffic jams. Our Iow-density zoning requirements essentially
match up with their high-density standards. Their FARs for
tourist accommodations are .75, by the way.
I spoke with Dennis Simmons of Hanscomb, which is an
international hotel consultant firm with a new office in Orlando,
and to some of his colleagues, and they recently have consulted
in the development of several upscale projects. What they told
me was that the new Ritz-Carlton in Orlando has 1500 rooms, and
all but ten of these are standard rooms of 573 square feet. The
larger rooms are only in their ten luxury suites, which they plan
to operate only at 50 percent capacity.
The new Marriott in Orlando has a thousand rooms, and the
average room size is 496 square feet. There's a destination
resort being completed in Puerto Rico that uses only -- 58
percent of its floor space is guest rooms. Its average room is
440 square feet, and its average suite size is 868 square feet. In
Negril Beach in Jamaica, the resorts only can be four stories high
and have to have greenspace in between them.
Page 19
June 6, 2001
In the process of fact gathering, I was fortunate to locate
some expert opinions also: John Miller of design and planning for
Peninsula Hotels; Hank Brennan for Brennan, Beer, Gorman &
Mony; and Brian McDonough of Hanscomb. And all of them
agreed that hotel rooms are getting more efficient, and the trend
toward the larger room is essentially gone. Even the Hilton has
standard-sized all their rooms.
The experts say that a large room is not economically viable
even in destination resorts, and the new rule of thumb for the
industry generally is that guest rooms must directly use 65 to 75
percent of the total area of the hotel. And in resorts in
particular, external landscaped areas are to be used for the
amenities that used to occur inside the hotel, which makes the
outside perimeter very important in those hotels.
In a recent publication, Brian McDonough offered some
standards for three-star and four-star hotels, and essentially
what he said was that you need to factor into the floor space the
net floor space of the room itself and some predictable amount
for circulation, public function, back-of-the-house support, and
administration. And his bottom line and what he's recommended
to his clients, which are some of the shooters in the industry, is
that 403 to 545 square feet of square space be used to
accommodate each planned room. Now, that's gross. That's
dividing that into the whole space of the hotel, and that doesn't
include parking, of course.
What this says to me, that the standard that a lot of people
are requesting of up to 800 square feet of space for just the room
is more than adequate, even for the pricier establishments; that
a four-story facility is state of the art for tourist destinations; that
concrete canyons are out and greenspace and ocean views are
in with well-heeled tourists; and the economic viability of new
ventures depends on efficient use of space, not in maximizing
Page 20
June 6, 2001
floor space.
I, therefore, would join with others that ask that the LDC
changes focus proactively on what the community wants to see
built instead of prescriptively; that we're asking for strict height
limits; guidelines to ensure adequate space between buildings; a
limit on developments higher than four stories when they're on
lots of an acre or less; affirm outer side limits in tourist
accommodations of all types; designated beach access for the
public at the property line of new structures; and a limitation on
the east side of Gulfshore on the Vanderbilt Lagoon waterways
to residential construction. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. And the next speaker,
please.
MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is Frank Halas followed by Sally
Masters.
MR. HALAS: Good evening. I'm Frank Halas. I live at 405
Flamingo Avenue. I think my wife summed up everything pretty
thorough on the deal. Here's my feelings. I'm one of the fairly
new residents here in the Vanderbilt Beach area, and one of the
things that brought me to this area was the fact of the pristine
beauty of the area. And since we moved in, we've seen some
vast changes in that area. And of concern in regards to traffic
and things that are going to be forthcoming -- such as when The
Dunes project comes on board, we're going to have additional 8,
900 more residents in that area.
And now we're talking about building hotels on Gulf Shore
Boulevard (sic). The first thing that comes to my mind when I
hear about hotels being built on Gulf Shore Boulevard, ten
stories, a hundred feet, whatever, is some of my earlier days, I
spent some time traveling over in Fort Lauderdale. And as you
drive along AIA and you look up, all you see is a canyon of
buildings, and you feel like you're a little ant. And I hate like
Page 21
June 6, 2001
heck to see this happen to such a pristine area as the Vanderbilt
area or, in fact, anything along our shoreline here in the Naples
area.
The builder is saying that he needs to build this building in
this nonconforming piece of land to fit this building. Well, it
seems that at one time this was a conforming piece of land
whereby there was a one-resident home, and there was a mom-
and-pop, Iow-profile, one-story condominium. It seems to me that
now that it's a nonconforming piece, that we want to build some
kind of a monstrosity that's there.
And, as you can see, there's a lot of people that are upset
about it; not only building a hotel, but there's been talk about
putting in some kind of a Sea-Doo type of ramp to offend the
neighbors even more so with noise and everything else and
pollution. I look at land buying, where a builder comes in and
buys land, is like buying stock. Sometimes in your portfolio the
piece of stock that you buy is very beneficial; and other times it
turns out to be a dog, so sometimes you have to get rid of it.
I believe that in the future that -- to protect Gulf Shore
Boulevard that a committee of residents and county people
should get together whereby we draw height restrictions so that
in any future developments -- no matter what happens with the
Beachcomber at the present time, but any future developments
are limited to 75 feet, and that land has got to be an acre and a
half so that you can have additional greenspace so that as
people travel down Gulfshore or travel around the community,
they can see that we have taken pride in trying to establish
codes and establish an area that everybody would like to come
and visit, and we'd have less impact.
Presently, I want to thank the commissioners and everyone in
Collier County for the wonderful job they did in putting together
the park over there. It's being used every day, and that's a real
Page 22
June 6, 2001
benefit, and it's an added piece of greenspace that really adds to
that community. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. And thank Signature
Properties. They're the ones who -- they're the contractors who
built all that and saved us a lot of money.
MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is Sally Masters followed by
Chuck Brooks (sic).
MS. MASTERS: I'm Sally Masters, a resident at Vanderbilt
Beach and on the board of the beach and bay association, and
I'm trying to follow this confusing issue. It seems to me, number
one, Dr. Carter said we somehow can guarantee that these hotel
-- these condo-size hotels rooms cannot be changed into condos,
that there's a possibility of putting something like that in, so I
don't want to talk about that anymore. Supposedly these big
hotels rooms will not become condos.
Now, what I do not understand yet is what kind of hotel would
be the 1.65. Now, we're talking about -- I have in my mind this
Beachcomber property. Would it be under the 1.65, or would it
be under the 1.157 Am I allowed to ask questions? I don't know.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, ma'am.
MS. MASTERS: Could somebody tell me that?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Miss Murray. We will not take away
from your time.
MS. MURRAY: I believe -- I'm not that familiar with
Beachcomber, but I believe it would fall under -- gosh, I don't
know.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: It would have been a residential hotel.
MS. MASTERS: This is a lot of-- because I know you have a
short-term problem here because we got to get rid of the thing
that gave us the 68 rooms. I know we have to get rid of that,
which you did thankfully.
MS. MURRAY: It's a destination resort hotel, which would be
Page 23
June 6, 2001
.8 currently, proposed to be reduced to .7.
MS. MASTERS: Well, that doesn't help us. That gives us a
real --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, in this calculation, if I
understand it correctly, if you look at the size of the property,
that would translate, I believe, to 24 units on a residential tourist
hotel.
MS. MASTERS: For how many square feet then?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Per room?
MS. MURRAY: It really -- that's the factor. It really depends
on if you have a room size limitation or not. If you don't have a
room size limitation, then it could vary either above or below 26,
slightly either way.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: So--
MS. MURRAY: And I don't think I made that clear when I
presented it to you because --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Doesn't the floor area ratio, then,
determine what you cannot exceed, or does it not say that?
MS. MURRAY: No. A floor area ratio calculation would not
determine that it could not exceed 26. If you didn't want it to
exceed 26 units per acre, you need to put that caveat in there.
However, you can control it somewhat by limiting the maximum
size of the rooms.
It's proposed. I mean, there is some language in here that's
proposed to go back to the old language prior to June of 2000
which has a maximum of 500. You could use that if you wanted,
or you could vary from that. It's up to you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: So if I understand this correctly -- I
don't want to take all your time, ma'am.
MS. MASTERS: I don't get it. I hope you clarify --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I'm not sure I do. What I -- what
I'm -- I think what I'm hearing is that you could add -- no matter --
Page 24
June 6, 2001
if you put in the new floor area ratio, that almost tells me that it
has to be a larger room. However, if I put 26 units on there, that
says you have two criteria: .7 and/or it cannot exceed 26 units
per acre.
MS. MURRAY: That's correct, if you put both in there.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: So there's language -- wordsmithing
here that it's possible. I don't know. I'm one commissioner, and
I don't know the legalities or anything yet, but I'm making these
notes as I go.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And that means that each room,
then, can only be 500 square feet at the -- at the maximum?
MS. MURRAY: In the absence of a units-per-acre regulation,
the number of units is a function of the design of the rooms, so it
could be more or less than 26. What we've attempted to do is
look throughout countywide to see what's developed out there
and then compare it -- the existing hotels and their FAR and their
number of units, and this is where we're getting your .5 and .7
change.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I like Commissioner Carter's
recommendation, so let's put that language in there.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I made a note of it, and then I'll come
back and find out what folks think.
MS. MASTERS: Okay. Well, the point I'm making here is we
had a problem with the present numbers, whatever they were,
which allowed the Beachcomber to be a perverse use, which we
thankfully squelched at the last commissioners -- Board of
County Commissioners meeting. What we want to watch out for
short term here is that we don't get the same thing again,
because a lot of times we're not clear on what these numbers
are, these .6, the 1.5, the 1.15. So there's a lot of numbers
running around, so we have to be sure that --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I don't want to get confused
Page 25
June 6, 2001
either, but if I go to 2.2.8.4.5, it says maximum density permitted,
a maximum of 26 units per acre for hotels and motels and 16
units per acre for multifamily uses when located within an
activity center or if the RT zoning was in existence at the time of
the adoption of this code. Does that not give me the same
hammer?
MS. MURRAY: That's a reversion back to the old language
that eliminates the --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: If it's changed back to that -- if it's
changed back to that, then we're getting where you want to be.
MS. MASTERS: Okay. That's all I'm asking, is that you find
some way to stay on top of this because we're trying hard, too, to
get -- to do the short-term thing, which is pertaining to this
Beachcomber project. So, please, Staff, keep in mind that this
Beachcomber project is the imminent problem here, the short-
term problem.
Now, all these other speakers have been very eloquent about
what we need in the long term, which is not, evidently, possible
for this next few months.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah. In this cycle you're right,
ma'am.
MS. MASTERS: So that's -- those are my points. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is Chuck Brooks followed by Bob
Mulhere.
MS. MURRAY: Mr. Chairman, if I might while they're walking
up, I don't want to -- I don't want to sound like an advocate of the
500-square-foot maximum because I think what our research is
finding is that's really not what's out in the Naples market. And
so I just wanted to make that point, that we were asked to bring
back the old language from the code, and that's why you have it
in front of you for consideration.
Page 26
June 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you.
MR. BROOKE: My name is Chuck Brooke. I've lived on
Vanderbilt Beach for approximately three years. I'm also on the
board of directors of my condo association, and I am the
treasurer of the Save Vanderbilt Beach Association. I'm also, by
virtue of being a resident of Vanderbilt Beach, an endangered
species. Right now I think that you could safely say that
Vanderbilt Beach is predominantly residential.
If you allow the LDC to stand as it is now or worse, in my opinion,
accept the Planning Commission recommendation, you will turn
Vanderbilt Beach into a hotel zone.
I attended the last meeting of the Planning Commission and
was struck at how casually the LDC recommendation was put
together. There was little consideration that I could see given to
the impact of the change. The comment from one of the
commissioners was that he didn't like the 500-square-foot
limitation on hotels proposed by the county staff, and that he
much preferred the FAR approach. That's fine. That's opinion;
that's not logic. Then he added that just so that developers
didn't get everything that they wanted, he would cap the units for
hotels at 26, and that's what I think we're looking at right now.
On traffic, the planning commissioners evidently heeded what,
to me, was the incredible advice of one of the persons speaking
for the developers. He stated that people staying at hotels would
clog up roads less than residents because residents had to take
their kids to school and to soccer practice. Let me tell you,
there aren't many residents on Vanderbilt that take their kids to
school or soccer practice anymore. Furthermore, do you really
think that people staying at a residential hotel are going to pass
up the great dining opportunities in Naples? No. They're going
to head for Fifth Avenue every other evening. So that really
didn't make sense to me as a profound analysis of what the
Page 27
June 6, 2001
impact on traffic was going to be.
I firmly believe that you as commissioners need to give some
very serious thought to the long-term impact of leaving the LDC
as it is or of accepting the proposed amendment. In either case
it doesn't appear to me that you get much help from staff or from
the planning commissioner (sic) as to what that impact is going
to be. And although I'm far from a professional, just let me give it
a try. In the LDC prior to June of 2000 it seems to me that the
economic choice between building a 26-unit hotel on an acre of
land with a maximum of 500 square feet per unit versus building
a 16-unit condo was pretty much equal.
By the way, 26 units with a cap of 500, that translates to
13,000 square feet which, divided by 43,560, which is an acre,
that's an FAR of .3, .289 to be specific. So any time you see an
FAR going higher than that, you're going to get more square feet
in a hotel than you had before June of 2000. That, at least for
me, is a simple way of looking at it.
The hotel would be a long-term investment and would require
knowing how to run it. The condo might be a riskier investment,
but if you were a developer, you would get your money out much
faster. With the existing LDC and with the proposed amendment,
it seems to me that you fundamentally alter the economics of the
choice between building a condo and, I want to use the example
of, a residential hotel. And let me try to explain why.
On an acre of land, you would not be able to build 24 units at
3,000 square feet per unit. And heeding what county staff said,
you've got to define how much each unit is going to be. So,
again, not to drag you through the arithmetic, that's 43,560 times
1.65 divided by 300 -- by 3,000 gives you 24 units. Somebody can
check on my arithmetic; that would be fine. Now you have 24
units competing against 16 units. In a residential hotel you could
sell each unit and structure the organization in such a way that
Page 28
June 6, 2001
owners could use it almost as often as if they had a condo and
rent it just as often through the residential hotel arrangement.
Now, who in their right mind wouldn't want to develop and sell
24 units rather than just 167 More is better. But more is better
only for developers and not for the residents. Whatever spaces
are available or were made available will tend to go for 24-unit,
ten-story hotels and not for 16-unit condos. And in no time at all
you will have converted a predominantly residential area into a
hotel zone.
As for impact on traffic, I'll give you my simple example: 24
units versus 16 units tends to hold 50 percent more people, and
that's 50 percent more people on the traffic. Okay. My time is
up.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, sir.
MR. BROOKE: Just let me say, don't pass this last
amendment. Go back to June of 2000. Think about it very
carefully, get lots of input, and then make a very reasonable
decision. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, sir.
MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is Bob Mulhere followed by
Armand Pirro.
MR. MULHERE: Good evening. For the record, Bob Mulhere
speaking on my own behalf. I'm a resident of Collier County
living at 1946 Sheffield Avenue on Marco Island. I have a very
brief comment, really. The one caveat I wanted to share with
you is that we need to be a little bit careful when we add
something like a new definition to the LDC because it transcends
really what is predominantly the issue here, the issue being, as
we've heard, the impact of hotels in an area -- a primarily
residential area such as Vanderbilt Beach Estates.
And -- but when you change or add a definition, there are other
districts that will be impacted or can be impacted by that.
Page 29
June 6, 2001
Hotels are also permitted in commercial districts, and they're
also permitted in commercial components of PUDs. And the
residential hotel definition has one restriction that strikes me as
perhaps being appropriate in some locations but maybe not in all,
and that restriction is the restriction on the length of stay to no
more than eight weeks by any person or family within a
particular unit in the residential hotel and no more than 12 weeks
within any unit within the hotel.
A couple of things I see. One, I think it's going to be awfully
difficult to enforce, but I understand the rationale behind it. And
the rationale within the RT district is that to not have that
restriction might allow a structure that is ostensibly a hotel to
function as a residential condominium at a higher density than
would otherwise be permitted, and that's really what the issue is
here.
However, if you look at a different scenario, if you take, for
example, a commercial portion of a PUD and if there is, in fact, a
market for this type of product -- and I believe there is -- and you
have someone who wishes to build this type of residential hotel
within a commercial component of a PUD, then why would we
care how long someone wishes to stay? So I think that that's
one issue that maybe we need to look at a little bit closer.
I would be happy to -- in fact, I would even go so far as to say
you could have another restriction on there within a commercial
PUD where the residential density of the PUD is reduced by an
amount equivalent to the number of units in the hotel if they wish
to have that restriction excluded, and then you would have even
no additional impact in terms of transportation and other things.
So I don't have the specifics. It just struck me as an issue that I
thought we should consider. And I would be happy, if -- if you're
so inclined, to talk further with the staff about that prior to the
next meeting.
Page 30
June 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE:
question?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Sure.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE:
May I, Mr. Chairman, ask a
Bob brings up an issue that has
been on my mind, and that is maybe what we need is something
called a RTV, which is residential tourist Vanderbilt, because I
am worried about the far -- the fallout, the unintended
consequences of this. There are issues here that will trans --
that clearly what's appropriate for Vanderbilt Beach is not
countywide appropriate. It's not necessary to put those same
kind of limitations all over the whole county, and I'm just
wondering if RTV isn't the way to go. I don't know if staff has
considered some of that or if it's even possible. I know this is
the only RT district we have. This is the only land that's
currently zoned RT; true?
MR. DUNNUCK: No, that's not correct. There are a few
pockets throughout the county, some in Golden Gate and some in
East Naples as well. For the record, John Dunnuck, interim
community development/environmental services administrator. I
think you bring up a very good point. And actually you're stealing
a little bit of my thunder when I get into the hearing examiner
presentation because I think this is something that -- that I've
heard from the board that we really need to start looking at these
policy issues in a bigger picture as opposed to looking at them in
a vacuum. And I think Mr. Mulhere brings up some very valid
points, and I think we'd be willing to look at that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Can we do that in this cycle in terms
of dealing with that in the language, or are we beyond this cycle?
MR. DUNNUCK: I'd have to defer to the attorney's office a
little bit on that issue because I think a lot of it's dependent upon
the advertising and how broadly we've handled that advertising.
MS. STUDENT: For the record, Marjorie Student, assistant
Page 31
June 6, 2001
county attorney. We have two issues, maybe even three, with
that. The first would be the advertising and that the creation of
such a zoning district was not advertised. The second would be
the legal requirement that these matters go through the Planning
Commission. And such a district had not been reviewed by the
Planning Commission, which acts as our local planning agency.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But, Marjorie, only technically, I
mean, because God knows they talked about every issue, and
they talked about it with regard to Vanderbilt Beach. I'm just
saying we add a letter, one letter. They talked about it to death.
I just -- anyway.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can we talk about the
advertising? Because we have another hearing on the LDC, and
the Planning Commission is going to meet prior to there -- that.
MS. STUDENT: Okay. But let me explain a couple things.
The advertisements, I believe, even for the other meeting
because we also do a 15-day ad, it was -- they've been
accomplished. The 15-day ad -- we do two; a five-day --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We could do another one.
MS. STUDENT: -- and a 15-day ad. The planning Commission
has to have -- when you create another zoning district which cre -
- you know, arguably you may be creating uses and so forth for
that district, and we have a local requirement that we have two
night Planning Commission meetings. And you'd be breaking out
-- I don't know if there's a comp plan consistency issue here too,
and I don't see anybody from comprehensive planning staff. And
I'm not trying to be a naysayer, but I need to protect you as my
client.
What I think maybe you offered and what some of the public
has alluded to -- and this is your decision -- for the short term, to
go back to what it was. And I think it would be entirely
appropriate to conduct a study and maybe bring it back in our
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June 6, 2001
next cycle to deal with quite a number of issues, quite frankly:
Height, density, and a number of these issues. And we have
protection when we do a study, because if there should -- if a
lawsuit should ensue, we have the protection of that recent
study and a recommendation by our planning staff.
And I see Mr. Weigel at the podium, so he may wish to chime
in as well.
MR. WEIGEL: I'm just chiming because you've already hit on
it, and I think that, you know, from the discussion comes the
genesis of what can be very good. I really think that rather than
put any potential risk of an RTV in this cycle, which isn't
advertised, you could explain to us that if we -- if the board
should adopt something that is RT-wide at this point in time, we
can break it out in the September cycle just a few months away.
And, you know, we don't know of any projects that are out in
Golden Gate, long-term resort-hotel-type of projects and things
like that. So I think it's clearly addressable in a very short term,
but I would suggest that we not try to break that out now and
give someone the opportunity to put this at risk.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: David or Marjorie -- may I ask
another question, Mr. Chairman? Are we -- is the county at risk of
some kind of a lawsuit if we don't provide for this concept of
resort hotels? I mean, if we just say we're just going to have
hotels in this county, you know, we're not going to provide for --
is resort hotels -- I get so confused. It's the one with two
bedrooms and a kitchen that looks like a condo. I think that the
risk of having that -- that as a land use in Collier County,
considering the conversion to condo, is so significant, I wish we
could not offer that.
MR. WEIGEL: The reason -- you know, the reason we have a
definition for hotels rather than just saying hotels and motels is
because if you don't provide some definition, then you can get
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June 6, 2001
the whole assortment of hotels, whether it's long-term stay or
short-term stay or some crazy versions in between. So we have
had a definition of what hotel is at this point. There is now on
the plate for the board in this cycle this extended-stay, high-end
boutique hotel, as it's been called. And you don't have to put
that in there. You don't have to include that in the allowable
definitions of hotels that are allowed. It isn't allowed unless you
put it there.
But if you were to just go and not have any kind of definition
of hotel and refer to them generically -- please remember, as I
mentioned back at the board meeting a couple weeks ago, in this
RT district, permitted as a matter of right, are hotels and motels.
And so you do need to keep some kind of definition of hotels.
And the question is, do you want to add to that definition of an
extended-stay hotel, which potentially has the same limitation as
other hotels, and that is 26 units as one part of the factor and
conceivably a symbiotic FAR ratio thrown in also.
And when we talk about these hotels and the envelopes of
buildings that can be on a particular parcel -- remember the ten
stories, hundred feet high -- the fact is is you may have on one
side a limitation of 26 units max, but at the same time if they go
to exorbitant room size because we've given the FAR that allows
them to have exorbitant rooms, you're going to have less units in
the envelope that you can build in.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: So that becomes a marketing decision.
What I want to do is protect Vanderbilt for, like, a 60- to 90-day
period until we get some of these other issues resolved so that
the worst case scenario is back to where we were before the
June change of last year. I think that is as clear of a goal as I can
articulate from the community.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But, Commissioner, if we go back
there, aren't we still at risk of a ten-story building? We are.
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June 6, 2001
MR. WEIGEL: Yes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I don't want to be there.
That's probably more important to me than the number of units. I
don't want a ten-story building there.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Granted, but I think it's a hundred feet
at this point, and I have an understanding from earlier
discussions tonight we cannot address that in this cycle. MR. WEIGEL: No, you can't.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, on that particular --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We can give direction, but we can't --
we can't deal with it in the next -- this meeting and the next one.
We can give direction to change it in the next cycle, and I'm --
you know, I'm on board with that for 110 percent. What I want to
figure out is how can I do the best that we can in this cycle to
ensure this community in, what I'm going to call, a worst-case
scenario and all the protection's in place so somebody has no
wiggle room?
MR. WEIGEL: Right. And, Commissioner Carter, a good point
which we haven't really discussed tonight is along that road,
Gulfshore Drive, there are 14- and 15-story buildings there too.
So a ten-story concept's been around for many years, long time.
And so, again, as we approach it in this district or through board
direction approach it and give it a look-see in all the districts,
we'll be looking at it from both a commercial standpoint and a
residential standpoint.
But it's not like a ten-story building is something new to this
district. There are a lot of -- several of them there; some are
larger than ten story, and some -- some buildings are six and five
and seven stories, the condominiums and things like that. But
hotels and motels are in this district as a matter of right.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And so we -- we know we already
have probably one lawsuit, at least, threatened in the area. Are --
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June 6, 2001
I guess what -- I'm just trying to look at Commissioner Carter's
goal. You know, the simplest way to get there would be to have
a moratorium on hotels in this 1-mile stretch while we -- for six
months. What's the legal implication of that?
MR. WEIGEL: Go ahead, Marjorie, if you want to start.
MS. STUDENT: Okay. And I'll ask David --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, six months, I mean, you
know --
MS. STUDENT: I'll ask -- I'm sorry. I'll ask Mr. Weigel also to
chime in on any comments he might make. Again, with the
moratorium you need to have -- you know, be doing something
like a study, and it has --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We are.
MS. STUDENT: -- to be funded, a real study; not just, you
know, like, an idea. Also, we would not be able to do a
moratorium in this cycle because it has to be part of the land
code, and it has to have been advertised. And, David, if you have
any --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Is a moratorium a cycle issue? I
don't think so.
MS. STUDENT: You could bring it back. A moratorium is --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's just an ordinance.
MS. STUDENT: It's an ordinance, and it's part of the land
code. I've done some research on that, and the research
suggests that it is part of the land code. And, if you recall, we
did our final order moratoria as part of the land code. However,
one of the amendments you have before you tonight is to bring --
you know, we can bring ordinances or LDC amendments back to
you at more frequent intervals than twice a year now, so you
know, that is a possibility out there. But the courts come down
very strongly. This has happened in the past with local
governments just kind of off the cuff doing a moratorium, and
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June 6, 2001
they're thrown out because they must be advertised.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And what kind -- if we were to
decide tonight that we wanted to start a study for hotels on
Vanderbilt Beach, then we could advertise that in the next
month?
MS. STUDENT: Well, I believe that you would have to direct
staff -- I don't know if you'd want a consultant or if you would rely
on our planning staff which, as you know, we've lost a lot of key
people at the time. But there should be direction for a study, and
there should be a beginning date for it, and it should be funded
before you could do the moratorium. And the moratorium can --
you know, certainly six months or whatever's a reasonable time
frame.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And under those conditions at --
what kind of financial risk in a lawsuit is the county -- can we
reasonably defend a lawsuit for a temporary taking under those
conditions?
MS. STUDENT: Well, under Burt Harris -- moratoria are
exempt from a Burt Harris claim. And I think as long as you
have, you know, a -- valid public health, safety, welfare reasons
for so doing -- and I know traffic is one of them and so forth -- I
think that it would, you know, survive any lawsuit. And just --
maybe this isn't in my purview, but some issues have been
brought up regarding traffic. Issues have been brought up
regarding height and density and maybe not only for hotels, and
it may be an opportunity to look at the whole area and to take
into account some of the suggestions made by the public; for
example, differing density -- excuse me -- heights for the gulf side
as opposed -- and uses as opposed to the lagoon side and so
forth, and all those things could be considered. I couldn't say
how long it would take to do the study, especially given the
situation with having lost a lot of key staff.
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June 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We'd probably have to hire a
consultant, and it would probably cost three or four hundred
thousand dollars like it did in the triangle and -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well--
MS. STUDENT: But the point I want to make about the
study, when you have that and there is a lawsuit -- because
whatever's done must be related to the -- you know, have a
rational basis, the public health, safety, and welfare. Otherwise,
it's arbitrary and capricious, and the courts will throw it out.
Armed with the study, you have a defensible position in court.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE'- It just seems like in this case,
Commissioners -- I don't know. I mean, I didn't -- I didn't come
prepared to discuss this, so I haven't researched it before I got
here. But, you know, we are playing so much defense here.
We're trying so hard to -- to preserve what's there while we get
appropriate regulations in place. Maybe this is the time when it's
appropriate.
MS. STUDENT: And if I may, there's another point that I
would like to make about that. This area came through our
zoning reevaluation program by policy with the comp plan. And
as Mr. Mulhere alluded to, you know, it's kind of you just see the
tip of the iceberg. But there are a lot of things involved here, and
that may be something that we'd need to look at too, particularly
because this district was old. It was brought through the zoning
reevaluation process and pretty much survived as it was. And
because that area was considered to be improved under ZRO,
that's why it passed through it. And so we may have some comp
plan issues, and I'm just -- regret that there's nobody here from
comp planning here to discuss those.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And, obviously, this isn't
something we would do tonight because it's -- we'll have the next
hearing before we make any kind of decisions. But it's just kind
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June 6, 2001
of -- it's just something that might be worth some research.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm going to take two more comments
from commissioners. Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Carter, I just
want to say a couple things, and the concern that I have is if we
have a bunch of nonconforming in that area -- and, you know, we
said about not just hotels, but condominiums -- that means that if
these people want to update their unit, they might not to (sic)
because it's not going to be -- it's a nonconforming use;
therefore, the atmosphere is not going to change in it where you
want to bring up a neighborhood, and it will stay the same for
now and forever. That is my concern.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: You're right. You have nonconforming
issues. I'm not going to play attorney, but I think it can be
worded that anything that's under way now is certainly not going
to be interfered with, number one. And while you do this study,
whatever terms you want to put on it, it would freeze any future
activity in that area for X period of time while Y study goes on,
that needs to be scoped and determined so that we could
address all those issues as it pertains to a singular community.
Am I correct, Counselor?
MR. WEIGEL: You are correct as usual. You can give us the
direction --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm going for my law degree next year.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Good training here.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And the other concern I have is
there is -- that RT zoning is commercial, and it has been for a
number of years, so is this a downzoning? A taking?
MS. STUDENT: Well, it would depend upon what the results
of the study revealed. Just to do what is also called an interim
development control, which is, I guess, a less intrusive or
whatever word for moratorium --
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June 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I like that term, "interim development
control."
MS. STUDENT: -- wouldn't do that. But then once you had
the study and if some of those uses were eliminated, it could be
looked at. That's not to say you couldn't do it as long as you had
a public health, safety, welfare reason to justify it. That's not to
say that you might not get some Burt Harris claims out of it, but
having a study like that goes a long way to help defend it.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: One more. Comment Commissioner
Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Actually to Pam, being that she had
started this question about a RTV. And then we spoke of density
in that particular area, and somebody said there's a lot of 10
story and even 15 story. But just because there is, doesn't mean
we have to stay there; right? I mean, we could -- in this
particular area, we could actually go down to, like, four stories?
I mean, we're all kind of tired of not even being able to see the
gulf because you can't see through all the tall buildings, so that
would be a prime time. Is that what you were going for?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yes, we could do that. And then
as, God forbid, the ten-story structures are blown away by a
hurricane, then they would be rebuilt at four stories instead of
ten. And that's -- that's the nonconforming issue that others are
bringing up.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That is -- that certainly would not
make a lot of people happy in the room tonight. I don't -- I don't
want to go there. I think that that is -- that whole issue of
nonconforming and what is allowed because of an existing
structure would have to be addressed through all of this.
MR. WEIGEL: I'll just state again, we're four months away
from the next cycle, not too long in any event. This board
certainly can tell us to initiate the study with some direction as
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June 6, 2001
to what they want the study to come back to them.
The only -- the only matter I mention in regard to the history
that there are some tall buildings there is when we do a study,
we'll come back and say, "Hey, there's been a lot of development
here, commercial, residential, particularly the residential, where
you've got a lot of tall buildings." So the concerns we have about
building height and density, there's already a lot of building
height and density there, and that becomes part of our study that
we report back to you. We're not working with a clean slate,
which makes it a little more difficult. But we can do that study,
and we look forward to your direction.
But the worst thing is -- to say is, "But we're only four months
out from another cycle, in any event." And you have on your
plate tonight and on the 20th several remedial actions and
variations which also reduce the developable standards in that
area, even in the meantime, which is pretty good, I think.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I know Mr. Olliff is going to remind me
I have a lot of other speakers on the issue. Mr. Mulhere, have I
stolen all your time?
MR. MULHERE: Well, I started by saying --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: You came in here, and you raised
enough hell. It's time for you to go home.
MR. MULHERE: I started out by saying my comments would
be brief, and they were.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And they were.
MR. MULHERE: I just wanted to just quickly state that the --
the definitions -- the new definitions, I think, do add greater
clarity, and they do make a lot of sense in some cases; and in
other cases they may not provide the kind of protection that you
would prefer. So, again, I'd be happy to get with staff and share
my concerns with them. And thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
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June 6, 2001
MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is Armand Pirro followed by
Michael Volpe.
MR. PIRRO: Good evening, County Commissioners. To me,
after all -- all the discussion and confusion regarding the
Beachcomber land or use of land, it is my sincere hope that the
commission will continue to favor the people and the
environment of Vanderbilt Beach and return to the June 2000
codes. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, sir.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's brief.
MR. OLLIFF: Michael Volpe will be followed by Carol Wright.
MR. VOLPE: Good afternoon -- good evening, Mr. Chairman,
members of the board. My name is Michael Volpe. I'm an
attorney. And I'm here this afternoon -- I keep saying this
afternoon; it's evening. I apologize -- representing the Save the
Vanderbilt Beach Association. Very quickly I just want to take us
back to prior to June of 2000. We had a fairly uncomplicated
Land Development Code that provided for 16 units an acre for
multifamily, 26 units an acre for hotels/motels. Interestingly
enough, time-shares were considered to be multifamily units, 16
units an acre.
In June of 2000, a decision was made to go to a floor area
ratio. What was the reason for the -- the change? Your staff has
indicated that hotels are more like a commercial structure, and
therefore, because they are more commercial, that's why we
should go to a floor area ratio. Mr. Anderson, I believe, at the
CCPC pointed out that the concerns are that you cannot use a
unit per acre for anything other than residential dwelling units.
It's a violation, according to Mr. Anderson, of our Comprehensive
Plan.
Now, it occurred to me, why did we make the distinction
between multifamily dwelling units and hotels? Why did we allow
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June 6, 2001
16 units in one instance and 26 in another? Well, I'm told that
the reason for that is the way in which these units function.
They function differently. Hotels function differently than
multifamily dwelling units. I went to the Comprehensive Plan,
and I said, "Well, since you can only use a density rating system
for residential dwelling units" -- that's what we're told; you can't
use units. I looked, and I looked in vain. And maybe the staff
can help me, but I couldn't find a definition of a residential
dwelling unit anywhere in our Land Development Code. There
are definitions of dwelling units, but not residential dwelling
units.
A dwelling unit under our Land Development Code as defined
-- dwelling, multifamily - "a group of three or more dwelling units
within a single conventional building" and so on and so forth.
And then it goes on and says "Any multifamily dwelling in which
dwelling units are available for rental for periods of less than one
week shall be considered a tourist home, a motel, motor hotel, or
hotel, as the case may be, and shall only be permitted in districts
where specifically designated."
The point I'm trying to make is that it's a function as to how
these units are functioning which determines the density. When
you look at the concept which is being introduced, which is an
extended-stay hotel, as your staff has said it's intended for a
longer stay. It's -- it is for family occupancy for periods of time in
excess of one week, limitations on time of eight weeks.
The issues become so very complicated because of the
introduction of floor area ratios as it relates to hotels. I would
ask that the staff check with the City of Naples to see whether
the City of Naples has, in fact, adopted a floor area ratio formula
for hotels. I don't believe that they have. I believe the City of
Naples is still using the per-unit formula for calculating hotel
units.
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June 6, 2001
I submit to you that there was no legitimate reason as it
relates particularly to the residential long stay -- extended-stay
hotels to use a floor area ratio at all considering the functions of
these -- these structures. And so I would submit to you that at
this particular point given the complications -- complications and
the -- the advice that we've gotten from Mr. Mulhere, that at the
very least what the board should do is go back to where you
were before, just simply 16 units for multifamily, 26 units for
hotels, Option No. 1.
Option No. 2 would be, as I think is being discussed at least,
put some type of a temporary suspension of the issuance of
building permits for any type of hotels for a period of six months,
if that's the period, because you are currently involved in a
corridor study which you've incorporated Gulfshore Drive, and it
is funded, so you've got the basis for doing that.
The people who have advocated the extended-stay hotel are
not talking about 500- or 800-square-foot units. They're talking
about a minimum of 1600-square-foot units, and the calculations
that were introduced before the CCPC would allow units
depending upon -- depending upon -- the building mass remains
the same, but you can -- using the floor area ratios that the staff -
- the CCPC has adopted would allow units of 4,000 square feet,
up to 4,000 square feet. I think staff will confirm that. And so
my -- if you look at what the function is, at least on an interim
basis --just the discussion here, it has become unnecessarily
complicated. These residential hotels are really how they
function. They function more as dwelling units than they do as
the traditional hotel.
And I'll leave with just one question, because I frankly don't
understand the recommendations or the -- what the staff has
reported. Will there be, under this proposal, three separate
definitions: One for the traditional hotel, one for the destination
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June 6, 2001
resort hotel, and one for a residence hotel? That's a question. I
really don't know.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Ms. Murray, would you --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: As far as I knew, residence and
resort were the same thing.
MS. MURRAY: There is a proposal for a new definition for
residential hotel. There is an existing definition for resort hotel,
tourist resort hotel, with some modifications to clarify the
requirements for that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the difference --
MS. MURRAY: So then there would be three different --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The difference between a
residential and a resort hotel is what?
MS. MURRAY: The residential hotel is intended for long --
you know, family occupancy. There is a requirement on the stay,
minimum and maximum. There's requirements for on-site
reservation services, daily housekeeping services, a lobby
registration area, etc.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's residential.
MS. MURRAY: That's residential, correct. And for your
resort tourist -- or destination resort hotel, I'm sorry, the
requirement there is primarily a -- there's a minimum 25 percent
common element as well as Iocational requirements. They have
to have direct access to the Gulf of Mexico. They have to have a
restaurant facility, a bar facility.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Those are The Registry and The
Ritz.
MS. MURRAY: Correct.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And residential is this new
concept of a hotel that looks like a condo but operates like a
hotel.
MS. MURRAY: Correct.
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June 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And then what's the third one?
MS. MURRAY: Then you would just have a regular hotel, like
your business-class hotel that you would find commonly along
interstates and things of that nature.
MR. VOLPE: So the concept that's being introduced by your
staff is the residence hotel, not The Embassy Suites, but a
residence hotel. And we were told at different times that this is a
concept that is being adopted all over the United States. I have
not done exhaustive research. The only place that I have found
any concept that is close to a residence hotel is in Las Vegas,
Nevada, and even then it doesn't approximate 1800 square feet
and up, which is what the residence hotel, under your proposed
Land Development Code, would allow for. What would be the
minimum square footage of a room within a residence hotel,
minimum square footage?
MS. MURRAY: 1638 square feet.
MR. VOLPE: So that would be the minimum size. And what
you've heard members of the public say, "In all these other
places, the most you've ever seen is 800." So we're talking
about doubling. As I said to you, with the calculations it could be
as much as 4,000.
MS. MURRAY: That would be at 26 units per acre. Let me
clarify that.
MR. VOLPE: Understood.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And at 16 it says it would be 3500.
Gee, that's double my house, 3500 square feet, you know. Yet it
says that they may not occupy the unit for any more than 12
weeks. So they're taking a place that's twice my house size, but
they're only going to stay in it for less than three months?
MR. VOLPE: In any calendar year. So if you plan that right
in any calendar year, you can do it, you know, during the holiday -
- you know, during the high season. You can do it, you know, so
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June 6, 2001
you can get more -- you can get more if you really want it. You
can get 24 weeks, the way I calculate it.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Mr. Volpe, are you saying that
this is just a rush to be able to get into a condominium later?
MR. VOLPE: No, I'm not saying -- what -- what we're looking
at is function. We're looking at how the unit is functioning and
why you would have a difference in the number of units per acre.
And the -- the reason why you went to floor area ratios is
because hotels function more as commercial structures. I
submit to you that when you take a -- a, quote, residence hotel at
1600 square feet or more, it is not functioning in the same way
as your traditional hotel.
And I'm telling you, from a legal perspective, I don't believe
that your Comprehensive Plan says that you can't use the density
system because it talks about residential dwelling units and
when you look at dwelling units and the definition. So I'm just
saying that, at the very least, if you go back to where you knew
what you got, you knew what the result was.
And what Mr. Mulhere and others have said is that there may
be some fallout here that you really don't anticipate, and it is a
new concept. If someone could say to you, "Here's the Land
Development Code from Palm Beach County, and here's how they
do that," I -- and maybe someone has that. I mean, I looked, and
we couldn't find anything, but it may just be an oversight on our
part.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Your points are well taken, Mr. Volpe.
MR. VOLPE: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Volpe, I have a question
also, if I may, and I need to get through this because thinking
about 1600 versus 400 square feet per unit, the 1600, what kind
of person is going to stay there versus the 400? And in my mind,
is you're going to get somebody maybe high caliber. I got to
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June 6, 2001
watch how I say this.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Get somebody that's got a big
pocketbook; put it that way.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: There you go. That's where I'm
going to go. You've got somebody with a larger credit card with
the 1600 than you do the 400 square foot. Now, is that a benefit
to the community by going 16007
MR. VOLPE: Well, two things. Number one, we've looked at
The Registry Resort hotel, the La Playa, we've looked at The Ritz-
Carlton. We know what the room sizes are there. I venture to say
that the new Ritz-Carlton, the golf resort, probably isn't going to
have units -- their presidential suite probably will not be 1600
square feet.
I submit to you that if you go up and down Gulf Shore
Boulevard, you will see any number of condominiums that are
rented on a seasonal basis that would attract the same type of
person who would be apt to use a residential hotel. The
difference is that the high-end condominiums along the beach
now are limiting the length of stay, so you can only lease there,
you know, so many times a year and maybe the length of stay.
This allows for a length of stay less than 30 days.
So there may be a market niche there that I'm not sophisticated
enough to realize.
But in direct response to your question, if your concern is an
economic one for our community, that somehow there are
affluent people who would not be able to find acceptable or
sufficient accommodations for their family for an extended
period of time in Collier County, I don't really think that's a
concern.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. The other question is, if
we -- if you go to that 1600 square foot versus the 400, would you
get more units out of the 400 or less units, versus the 16007
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June 6, 2001
MR. VOLPE: I think the -- if -- I'm not sure I understand the
question, but the idea is to have -- going back to where you were
before, you knew it was 26 units an acre for a hotel. That's it.
That's -- that's the maximum, and you had the room sizes. And at
least on an interim basis -- because what I'm suggesting is -- I
mean, we've sat through this going back to December of last
year. And, frankly, I mean, I'm confused.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I would say this to the
commissioners: As I understand it, whatever we did here, we
would not allow any conversion from residential hotels to
condominiums, and we would say that they can't exceed 26
units. That really probably gets back to the very simple term that
there was before.
MR. ¥OLPE: I don't think so, Commissioner Carter, because
it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But we'd never be able to police
MR. VOLPE: -- when you look at the definition of the
residential hotel that the staff has submitted, they talk about
meeting rooms. Every condominium on the beach has a meeting
room. It has a -- you know, a function room for parties and things
like that. That's not a special -- that's not 25 percent of the hotel
being used for, you know, conventions and the like. It isn't --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They have a fitness center. They
have, you know, a common kitchen. You know, as far as I'm
concerned, we just need to eliminate this concept of a
residential hotel in Collier County. We don't need to provide that
particular amenity or whatever you want to call it.
MR. VOLPE: But we already have the definition of a
destination resort hotel. Staff wants to tighten that up a little
bit. But if you do that, leave the concept of the residential hotel
to another day when you have more research. And in the
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June 6, 2001
meantime, if you went back to 16 units an acre, 26 units an acre,
everybody knows where you are. The alternative to that is -- if
you need to do this study, is to do some sort of a temporary
moratorium.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Next speaker, please.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, you've got four speakers left.
The first is Carol Wright, followed by Dick Lydon.
MS. WRIGHT: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is
Carol Wright, and I'm president of the Vanderbilt Beach and Bay
Association representing some 700 members. First of all, I want
to thank you again for rescinding the Beachcomber Hotel. We
may have won that war, but we still have this battle going on,
and we are asking for your support one more time. My 700
members and voters in our area are very upset over what has
happened in our area regarding this hotel issue. It makes us
want stringent laws. We want them tightened up, and we want
them adhered to.
The Planning Commission wants you to approve huge hotel
suites for our area, far larger than ordinary hotel rooms.
Somehow, someway the developer will turn those hotel units into
condos when you allow an FAR of 1.65. If he didn't think he
could get his 24 units -- condo units, he'd be up here lumping and
yelling. He'll find a loophole. You can't tell me code
enforcement will take care of it.
I can name you several places that are in violation, and
nothing has been done. One is The Manatee Resort across from
where I live, which has a density of a hotel but operates and has
been sold as condos. This was built by the same developer who
wants to build the Beachcomber. It's illegal, and we don't want
this anymore. Who is going to watch out for these violations?
We do not need 2- to 3,000-square-foot hotel rooms on Vanderbilt
Beach.
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June 6, 2001
Therefore, I'm asking you to please take the code back to
where it was before June of 2000. This means 26 unit -- hotel
rooms per acre, 3 to 500 square feet with 20 percent suites.
Anything larger invites trouble with developers. If larger units
are needed, they should be in the 16-unit condo law. You can
make the change. Don't be seen as a tool for the developers. Be
seen as a tool for us, the public. Be the commissioners who can
say no to developers and say yes to those who vote for you.
I also ask you to have the 100-foot maximum height be from
the foundation to the top of the roof. Since I can't speak later,
and if you don't -- and if you have to go with an FAR, the parking
garages must be included in the FAR. You have the right to do
something. You have promised to help us. You can make the
changes. This is what your voters want. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
MR. OLLIFF: Dick Lydon will be followed by Tim Hancock.
MR. LYDON: Good evening, folks. You'll have to forgive me
if I stutter a little. The eye doctor and I had a bout this
afternoon. I'm still blinking.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's all right, Your Honor. Go ahead.
MR. LYDON: I'm Dick Lydon, president of the Vanderbilt
Beach Property Owners' Association. We've flogged this dog
about as long as we ought to, it seems to me like, today. We still
are working under some legal and technical confusion. Our
concern in our property owners' association is that we don't
make this a canyon over there, that we get back to something
that looks realistic in the way of a community that we and our
association like to refer to it with Vanderbilt pride.
Let me clarify one thing. Several people have mentioned that
we're talking about Gulf Shore Boulevard. Gulf Shore Boulevard
starts south of The Registry. We're Gulfshore Drive. Let's not
confuse those for the record.
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June 6, 2001
The other thing, this Beachcomber thing, there may be a very
simple answer. Let the county buy the property and put beach
parking on it. The man only paid $5 million. We authorized $3.8
million for a parking garage that nobody wanted. We put -- you
built another 80 or 75 parking lots (sic) up on the north side
which we're delighted with and we're delighted with the park.
But there's one other -- you know, that's -- we put about 700,000
in that park and parking lot thing. That's getting pretty close to
the 5 million. And if this man wants to cut and run, there's an
opportunity for everybody. Secondary, there's another property
right on the beach that just came on-line. We might take a look
at that one and see if we can put a little beach parking over
there.
We are concerned about what's happening. I'm delighted to
learn that Gulfshore Drive is now being included in the Vanderbilt
study, and let's put some money into that study, folks. You
know, we can't sit around and not have any money to get some of
this stuff done. I'm delighted with that, and I want to thank you
for your concern. I think the answer is that we've got a lot of
problems. Let's not put that bit in our teeth and run with them
until we know what the hell we're doing. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you, Dick.
MR. OLLIFF: Tim Hancock will be followed by your last
speaker, Bruce Anderson.
MR. HANCOCK: Good evening, Mr. Chairman
Commissioners. My name is Tim Hancock. We're not dealing
with any new issues tonight. You have seen residential hotels
before. In the last LDC cycle, you were asked not to act on it;
you didn't. It's back here today for your consideration. This is
nothing new.
A lot of the discussion this evening, as I hear all the different
items being brought up -- some of which are applicable; many of
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June 6, 2001
which are not -- your position is something like trying to hit a
moving target with a feather in a wind storm. You're in a tough
position. There's a lot of information, and trying to process it all
can be very, very difficult.
What I'd like to do is maybe boil it down to a couple very
simple facts. Number one is that a hundred feet's permitted,
period. The buildings in the area don't creep up to a hundred
feet; they meet it. The areas north of the property everyone
seems to be concerned about are 13-story buildings. So I think
this needs to be put into perspective. The floor area ratio
concept is simply so that the mass of the building is controlled.
If you control the mass and size of the building, you control the
relationships from one building to the next. To say that because
it is a hotel, it should not be afforded the same right of heighth
and mass that a condominium is afforded bears no logic.
The floor area ratio that's being proposed for residential
hotels is being proposed because there are additional
requirements that go along with that. Those requirements
include things that The Ritz-Carlton does not have in their
average rooms, like a kitchen.
When you start putting kitchen facilities in, the size grows. The
idea that before June of this year nothing exceeded 500 square
feet in hotel rooms is just ridiculous. How did the Hawthorn
Suites get there with 1100 square foot rooms minimum? There
are example after example after example of hotels that have not
met that criteria.
And without casting aspersions, quite frankly, it is a market
factor. Embassy Suites builds rooms at 900 square feet minimum
size. A 500-foot -- square foot cap will preclude all-suite hotels
from being built. I don't think that's a road we want to travel.
The bottom line is in the RT district the land is very, very
expensive. If someone is going to put forth that kind of money to
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June 6, 2001
develop it and they are limited on the size of their hotel rooms at
500 feet, they're going to recoup their investment through the
associated uses with a hotel, many of which are far greater
traffic generators.
So let me back up once again to the floor area ratio concept.
By limiting the floor area ratio so that the mass of the building is
no more and no less than that that a residential condominium --
which by the way, the ones your staff surveyed averaged 1.55,
was the floor area ratio in the condominiums. By having a 1.65
floor area ratio for a residential hotel, you end up with the same
building mass because of the common area requirements that
your code now has.
The discussion you've heard about -- and you've actually heard
folks today tell you condominiums are being used as hotel rooms.
They're being rented out on a weekly basis. Those
condominiums do not have the same fire protection standards
required by the state that a hotel requires. They do not have the
same amenities and requirements that your code will now
impose on a residential hotel.
You're being told this is a step backward. It is not a step
backward. It's a step that preserves a massing element that is
identical to that of the residential component currently permitted
in the RT zoning district, and it has standards with it that require
that these properties operate as a hotel. These are requirements
you previously did not have in your code.
And as you move from a standard hotel room to the residential
tourist, which I have not fully reviewed, you get an increased
level of standards. As you move to the residential hotel, you get
an increased level of standards. Nothing is for free. To qualify
as a residential hotel, you have to meet a set of standards that
are rather restrictive, and those standards all come off of your
floor area ratio.
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June 6, 2001
The division you have heard of taking the total square footage
under a 1.65 floor area ratio which is approximately 61,000
square feet on an acre of land and dividing it by 26 is simply not
true. You have to allow for common areas. At a minimum in an
office building your common area is 15 percent. The
requirements in your code as proposed here this evening would
require common areas that well exceed that
15 percent. You can't have 400,000 square foot units under a
floor area ratio of 1.65 with a height restriction of 100 feet.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have a question for you. What's
the planning rationale? Is Singer (phonetic) going to accept this
concept of residential hotels? What's the planning rationale for
the density of a residential hotel to be greater than a
condominium?
MR. HANCOCK: The rationale comes to external impact
from the property. Residential hotels, while they operate a little
bit more like condominiums -- and I'll give you an example. When
my family and I vacation, one of the places we like to go is Palm
Island, which is about an hour and a half north of here. Those
are residential hotels. It is a hotel. You go, you rent your room.
It's a 2200-square-foot room, upstairs and downstairs. Okay.
When we get there, we walk to the restaurant. We enjoy the
beach. We don't get in our car and take the kids to school in the
morning.
You may not have kids at soccer practice; I do. There are
people living in Vanderbilt Beach that have children. It's not a
children -- no-children zone. Okay. But the reality is, there's no
preclusion in those condominiums that you have to be retired to
live there. Families live there. And the bottom line is that if you
look at every Institute of Transportation Engineering study for
hotels, the trip generation per room is less than that of a
residential unit. That has always been the reasoning for the
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June 6, 2001
difference in density.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Even if it's this residential hotel,
that -- that traffic analysis still applies?
MR. HANCOCK: Yes, ma'am. And the difference is, a single-
family home anticipates year-round occupation. Year-round
occupants tend to average out more into the family range, so you
get a higher number of trips on a daily basis. The bottom line is
that people that vacation, on a daily basis, do not get out on the
roads as much as people who live there, and that's one basis for
the external impacts. All other impacts being the same -- size,
mass -- the only effect, then, is traffic.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the other question, then,
might be if that's relevant in this neighborhood, which gets me
back to needing a Vanderbilt --
MR. HANCOCK: I wouldn't get on the road at early bird
special time. The demographics change. Just because you are
retired or have a family doesn't mean you stay locked in your
home every day. The reason we live down here is to enjoy the
outside, not the inside. People leave their homes.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Hancock, you gave an
example of Hawthorn Suites having a minimum of 1100 square
feet.
MR. HANCOCK: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: What's the makeup of that
11007 Is there a kitchen in there?
MR. HANCOCK: They call it a minikitchen or a kitchenette.
It does not have cooking facilities. It is a bedroom, a small sink
facility area, and a sitting area. And that's typical of Embassy
Suites also. They don't have a kitchen facility or a dining area.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And we have a Hawthorn Suites
in this area that we can look at to get that visual thing that I
need?
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June 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah. It's at 3657 Pine Ridge Road.
That's on your screen.
MR. OLLIFF: Commissioner Henning, I can give you,
probably, a better example than that. The Marriott Residence Inn
on north 41 across from the DeVoe Cadillac dealership has units
that are generally two bedroom, two bath, full kitchen, dining,
and living room and I think are exactly the unit that you're talking
about. So if you want to see one firsthand, I think that's a good
example to go look at.
MR. HANCOCK: As you cap those units, the number of units
will increase. Without a cap on the units and the size is allowed
to go up, you may see fewer units than with a size cap on them.
That's a reality of floor area ratios.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Questions of this speaker?
MR. HANCOCK: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Seeing none, does that conclude our--
oh, we have one more.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Anderson.
MR. ANDERSON: Good evening, Mr. Chairman,
Commissioners. My name is Bruce Anderson. I'm here on behalf
of La Playa, LLC. And I'm here to simply request that if you do
make changes to the floor area ratio requirements when you
make the Land Development Codes amendments, that you
include the language that was recommended for your approval by
the Planning Commission so that you don't make any of the
existing hotels nonconforming by any of your actions. Thank
you,
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Ms. Murray, do you have
any comments, based on this discussion, for us?
MS. MURRAY: No further comments at this time.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What action is -- is necessary for
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June 6, 2001
this evening?
MS. MURRAY: None, really.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We could give you direction to
draft some changes if we wanted to, but it's not like we have to
take a vote tonight.
MS. MURRAY: No, you don't have to take a vote.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: No vote.
MR. OLLIFF: But anything that you want to see that you
want to have an opportunity to vote on at the second hearing,
you need to tell us that this evening.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I like the language that the
CCPC has interjected into this issue.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's in regards to existing -- existing
properties?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. So we don't make
nonconforming uses.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. Am I getting three nods on
that?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have no problem with that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I mean, I'm with that certainly, and I
don't want to interrupt what's there.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Would a majority of the board be
interested in the moratorium research?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: You mean the interim development
control?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That one.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Interim development -- yeah. I would
like to explore that myself.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think that would be very
interesting, yes, as a matter of fact.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I also agree. Is anybody
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June 6, 2001
interested in the long-term-stay facilities? I think that's
something that -- individually that maybe we can look at, by Mr.
Olliff's example.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm willing to consider having
residential tourist -- whatever they're being called -- resorts,
residential -- those suites.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Long-term stays.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But not right here and not right
now. You know, that's -- that's why I'm kind of interested in this -
- what is the word besides moratorium?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Interim development control.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That.
COMMISSIONER HENNING:
county to pay for a stay to --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE:
Gee, and I was looking for the
I think we should go on a
research tour. You're right. Anything else we want the staff to
look at?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I hear one that's -- where are we
on that issue? I don't know if I got a quorum on the last one.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Could you explain what -- tell me
what you want us to do with that, Tom.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, I -- it is something -- a new
concept here, and I know they have it in the Orlando area. Again,
I'm a visual person, and Mr. Olliff has given us an example of a
choice that could be in RT area.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You want to keep the option
open.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I can't argue with that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And that's what I'm hearing, that we
don't want to make a decision tonight. Keep the option open.
Not remove it at this point, but do some investigation visually for
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June 6, 2001
ourselves.
COMMISSIONER FIALA'. During the interim development
control study, huh?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: No. Don't confuse that. That's longer
term. Now, my question on that is if we're going to do that, is
that something that's brought back at a regular board meeting,
Tom? Do we deal with that, or how do we -- how are we going to
deal with trying to accomplish that and what effect is it going to
have on the cycle?
MS. STUDENT: I think that you may want to have the
discussion about the study and what it would encompass at a
regular board meeting. However, to do an IDC ordinance,
because it does prohibit uses, we've got to have two night
Planning Commission and two night board meetings. We did that
for the final order IDC.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, it's -- I think what I'm
asking for at this point is some research on what the parameters
would be and for our next meeting, or hopefully before it, to have
some information on if you consider this, these are matters that
you should investigate and this is the procedure and -- you know,
we don't need to decide tonight.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: No. Let's find out how you scope this
out. As we said earlier, let's really find out what that is, and we
do have some opportunities. We have an LDC meeting. We've
got regular scheduled two board meetings, and I think we also -- I
don't want to put in another workshop -- I mean not another
singular workshop, but you may have something in a workshop
that could be discussed in a short agenda item that says,
Commissioners, here's where it is. So you at least have some
opportunities to do this.
MS. STUDENT: Point of clarification, I can come back -- I've
done research on IDCs, but as for the meat of what the study
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June 6, 2001
might do, that's not the legal function. That would be staff. And
I -- so I think we have to work in tandem on that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But we'd need to hear from you
what the parameters of such a study would reasonably need to
include. Because, you know, right now we have this traffic
study. Is that enough, or would we have to expand it? That
would be basically from a legal perspective. MS. STUDENT: Fine. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And, again, I just -- it's because
of the feeling that we're being backed into a corner here that
we're having to play defense on Vanderbilt Beach, and if we can
have a halt while we study it, then maybe that's better than
being backed into a corner because we're likely to have some
unintended consequences countywide, as Mr. Mulhere was
pointing out.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Coletta.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Yeah. Just two little points:
One would be possibly we can arrange for the county manager's
office to make arrangements for us at our own convenience to be
able to go to one of the hotels that have these residency suites
and be able to view them ourselves. The other thing is, should
we at this point be eliminating certain possibilities so we can
narrow the scope of what we want to do?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What would you suggest? I
mean, that--
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's what I'm looking at. Or is
it -- do we just normally -- this is my first experience with this. Do
we just normally give staff direction on what we want them to do
rather than what we don't want them to do?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. We --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We can do either/or.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We normally tell them strike
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June 6, 2001
through this; we don't want to see it. If you get three nods
saying we don't want to see this at the next meeting, then we
don't have to talk about it again. So if there's something that we
can eliminate and not talk about again, then the public will know.
And, I mean, I'm certainly open to hearing what we might be able
to take off this list, because as much as I enjoy seeing all these
wonderful people from Vanderbilt, good Lord, we've talked about
this enough. If there's a few things we could take off the list, I'm
interested.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Did you ever think, Pam, what
are they going to do when this issue is finally brought to a
resolution?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. Go back to the beach.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: There's not going to be much
left to do.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: First of all, if you want to go visit one
of those things, you just drive up there and say, 'I'd like to see a
unit." There's nothing to it. Secondly, because you're in that
investigative mode, I think it's going to be a little difficult for you
to say, 'I'm going to strike something out" in regards to those
definitions because it may change your impression on it. I don't
know. So I guess, back to what you said earlier, Commissioner,
is you leave your options open. What could I eliminate now? I
would like to do that, but I am not sure -- what I'm hearing from
the board is some inquisitive things -- that we can do that
tonight. It's still on the table, I guess, for the most part.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Is -- maybe I could ask Tom. Is the
Marriott Suites -- or yeah. Is that 1.657
MR. OLLIFF: The ratio I don't know because I don't know the
size of the property or even the number of units. I just know
about the floor plan of a particular unit simply from relatives
having stayed there.
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June 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I guess that we'll find that out
during our investigative search.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Maybe there's some -- a couple of
things that -- there was a concern about conversion, and I would
certainly want to see that in the next language, where it would
not -- no matter what we do, to see a residential hotel be allowed
to convert into condos which may exceed what a condo
allotment would allow here. I'm not -- I don't -- I want that gate
closed.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And if we can't do that
adequately so that we can police it effectively, then, it seems to
me, a residential hotel should have the same density as a
residential condo. I mean, I don't know how we can police that.
And, I mean, I filed condo docs for a living in my former life, and
nobody ever asked me at the Secretary of States's office, "Was
this formerly a hotel?" They don't ask that question.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: But if somebody -- I guess how would
we know. Do they go through any process in the county where
somebody says, "We're changing it"? Mr. Weigel.
MR. WEIGEL: I think it could be established very easily with
a computer checklist with some regularity, periodic review.
There's a checklist that could be done. You check with the state
as well as the local property records to see if it's been changed.
I can pretty well assure you that any private ownership interest
of condominiums wouldn't go bear and, at the advice of their
counsel, wouldn't go bear and wouldn't have that recorded in the
public records. And so it seems to me that within a district -- in
this case it's only this district where this particular concept is
being proposed. If it were to be adopted, it would be very easy to
track.
And another thing we don't want to lose sight of is 16 units
per acre for residential. Condominium is residential. If the hotel
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June 6, 2001
converts to residential, it's not only in violation of the Land
Development Code, it's in violation of our Growth Management
Plan and the density that we've been talking about there. So
there's no question of our ability to get on top and hammer that
kind of thing down and make it go away if it ever were to occur.
And we can conceivably have -- well, we already have the code
enforcement aspects of not only prohibition, but fining that would
occur in that regard. It can be absolutely prohibited.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Respectfully, though, we have
history to look at, and I would hate to -- we also have a PUD
monitoring ordinance that says once a year the PUDs have to
report if they've complied with all the conditions of the PUD. And
surprise, they haven't. And surprise, we're not doing anything
about it. And this would fall into that category. And even if they
didn't legally convert to a condominium, they're likely to use it as
a condominium.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I can tell you how we can
monitor it, and very simple, is those units should be drawing a
tourist tax, and if we're not getting tourist dollars out of it, then --
MR. WEIGEL: That's another one.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: There's a flag.
MR. WEIGEL: We already have the allegation of
condominiums that are being used like hotels or hotel,
condominium. So it's a question of county application, direction,
resource, that is through the county manager, county attorney,
code enforcement, and the board putting a resource to even take
care of a condition of which there are allegations that already
exist. So if we should put another standard of hotel in there
where there's, call it, the possibility of someone doing the bait
and switch to a different use than what's allowed under our
Growth Management Plan and Land development Code, it's really
a question of resource and application to take care of it, I think.
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June 6, 2001
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, to try and summarize it -- and,
Susan, you catch me if I'm wrong here and, John, you do the
same. But what I heard from the board was yes to the Collier
County Planning Commission language that avoids creating the
nonconforming uses. The county manager's office will make
some arrangements for you to view some hotels. And, frankly, I
don't know that I've ever been asked as your county manager to
set up hotel viewing, but we will take care of that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, you can do that, Mr. Oliff, but I --
we're all big boys and girls. All you have to do is get on the
phone or walk in -- I have never been turned down -- and say that
'1 would like to tour one of your suites."
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We could have repercussions if
two commissioners showed up at the same time.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, go to different suites.
MR. OLLIFF: I'm not going there. The third item, research
and bring back interim development control, both the process for
that and just the impacts of that, what needs to be done for that.
And, finally, conversion restrictions was the last thing that I
heard from the board.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What was the last one?
MR. OLLIFF: Conversion --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Conversion restrictions.
MR. OLLIFF: Which are in place, to a certain extent, but I
think that there are some additional restrictions that you've
talked about this evening that we can bring back for your
consideration as well.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And lastly, no matter what we end up
with, am I also hearing from the board that on a 1-acre it would
never have any more than 16 condominium units or 26 whatever-
we-end-up-defining units so that the people of Vanderbilt can be
assured, no matter how the final language ends up, that you're
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June 6, 2001
going to have an either/or, but you're not going to exceed those
numbers in this cycle?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I think that's the biggest
element.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And that -- if that gives everybody
some peace of mind, then you know that no matter what the final
wording is or how we define some of these, those are the basic
criteria.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: So does that kind of help pull it
together?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I think that's it.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you for your patience,
audience. Thank you, Susan. We've been at this -- Magic Fingers,
you are worn out. We got to give her a break. Take ten. (A break was held.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. We're back in session. We're
going to move this -- move this forward, and the next one is about
the ATVs. Susan Murray, again, is up to discuss this. You-all be
quiet and sit down. If you've got any cell phones on, be sure to
turn those off. Thank you.
All right. Commissioners, we are back in session. Ms. Murray.
MS. MURRAY: John Dunnuck has some information to give
you first, and then we'll consider vehicles on the beach, if you
want to, after that.
MR. DUNNUCK: I just want to touch base with you before
we kick this off, and maybe we could take all three of these code
items, you know, kind of in tandem, you know, in an effort to
save time. I think we have 11 speakers on the docket tonight.
What I first kind of wanted to say, though, was -- you know,
outline the process. This process -- you know, this baby's been
ugly -- and I can honestly say that -- for the last six months. You
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June 6, 2001
know, we've been -- CHAIRMAN CARTER: Folks in the back, please, please. If
you want to have a conversation, step in the hall. Thank you.
MR. DUNNUCK: We've been working for the past year with
the hotels and the environmental community to discuss the issue
of vehicles on the beach and whether we think it's a viable use
within sea turtle nesting season. And, you know, through much
negotiation and many, many meetings and e-mails and everything
else, I think we've come to the conclusion that, yes, vehicles on
the beach, from a staff perspective, was okay, you know, and
that we were actually bringing forward an amendment that
allowed that with some restrictions.
Eleventh-and-a-half hour, a couple weeks ago, it was brought
to our attention that there's an element within our
comprehensive plan that pretty much, in my opinion, restricts us
from moving forward with this amendment till we can go ahead
and take a took at the Comprehensive Plan and, should the board
direct, amend the Comprehensive Plan to allow vehicles on the
beach.
On the monitor I have -- I have the language that's enclosed in
the Comprehensive Plan. I just want to read it to you because I
think there's going to be some discussion on whether or not it
actually -- you know, there's an outside interpretation from
representatives of the hotels that they, in fact, believe that this
is an allowable use under the Comprehensive Plan and what's
being proposed tonight. It reads, "Vehicle traffic or traffic on the
beach in primary dunes shall be prohibited except for emergency
and approved maintenance purposes. The county shall enforce
this requirement with the existing vehicle on the beach
ordinance."
And just to give you an idea of how I interpreted that, because
there's going to be discussion on, what does vehicle traffic
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June 6, 2001
mean? And allowing an ATV down to the beach and turning
around on a daily basis may not -- may not constitute vehicle
traffic. But I kind of looked at the second part of it and what the
allowable uses were. And it says, you know, for maintenance
purposes and emergency purposes only.
And, frankly, you know, I thought it was a stretch on staff's
part to say putting chairs down on the beach or putting towels
down on the beach and bringing it back and forth constitutes a
maintenance issue. Now, they're going to argue to the contrary
tonight, and feel free, because I think our county attorney's
office is in support of staff's position on this. But I just kind of
wanted to outline the issue up front.
Having said that, I'm going to turn it over to Susan, who -- I
think it may be important also to discuss some of the elements
within that vehicle on the beach code just to let you know where
we were headed on the issue as far as allowing it, but
understanding we don't think we can move forward with it until
we can amend the Comprehensive Plan. With that, I'll turn it over
to Susan.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I just have one question for you,
John. Are we going to still extend the permit for the use and --
until we have an amendment of the code?
MR. DUNNUCK: By "use" I'm assuming you're talking about
outside sea turtle nesting season, because right now, in your
past -- in your past cycle or, I believe, the cycle before, you
actually made a Land Development Code decision to allow
vehicles on the beach outside of sea turtle nesting season. Now,
certainly, you know, I kind of liken it to the rule of holes by Mike
McNees, and when you find yourself in a hole, you quit digging.
While we may not want to go back and revoke that and take the
risk of having something occur with that issue outside of the sea
turtle nesting season, we certainly may not want to consider
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June 6, 2001
adding to that by allowing vehicles on the beach during sea turtle
nesting season.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay. And I appreciate your
comments, but what I understand is these hotels have been
using this operation for a number of years, and I think with some
common sense, we need some balance there.
MR. DUNNUCK: I don't think we disagree. You know, I think
what we're saying is we need to go back and take a look at the
Comprehensive Plan first, before. And just to clarify one thing,
you know, they've been using vehicles on the beach, you know,
historically-- and I believe, you know, Mr. Albeit may have
brought it up at a previous cycle and opened up this issue that, in
fact, you know, they wanted to take a look at it and make sure
that they were following the Land Development Code. Because I
think, you know, understandably, what they were using it for may
be a practical use, but we, in fact, I think, need to go back and
make an amendment to the Comprehensive Plan.
MS. MURRAY: What I did for the Planning Commission was I
essentially just summarized those proposed changes in the code
where staff differed with the -- I'd say for the most part, the
commercial hoteliers. If that's what you would like me to do, I'd
go ahead and do that, or would you rather go through all of the
proposed changes?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We have how many speakers?
MR. OLLIFF: You have 11 speakers, Mr. Chairman, and I
would suggest a summary is probably a good way to go.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I would say that would be as quick and
as expeditious, looking at the new information we have here.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. I'm starting from page 92 and --
actually, starting on page 93. In the middle of page 93, Section
3.14.3.4.7, the hoteliers requested an amendment to amend the
requirement to ensure that only motorized vehicles shall be
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June 6, 2001
operated below the mean high water line, the purpose of which
was to allow the use of handcarts and dollies on the beach after
a daily sea turtle monitoring. Staff's response to that request
was we made no changes to the -- relative to the request;
however, we did add language providing for a staging area for
large special events, and that was one of their requests as well.
I'm now on page 96, Section 3.14.6.1. The request was to
revise the section to confine beach raking and mechanical
clearing during sea turtle nesting season to the area of the beach
below the mean high water unless a state certified sea turtle
monitoring program was conducted by appropriate personnel and
has -- which have performed a daily inspection of the beach.
Once that inspection was complete, the raking may occur above
the mean high water line. Staff's response to that request was
no change to the current language or the language you have
before you.
The third request was Section 3.14.7, which was the penalties
section. I'm working off the bottom of page 96 now. The request
was to remove any language that would result in the revocation
of the annual beach events permit and to clarify that the
violations are calculated on an annual basis and each year the
permit holders start with a clean slate. Staff's change was to
add the words "up to a $500 fine per violation" and no further
changes.
That essentially summarizes the vehicle on the beach.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you, Susan. I think we
ought to go to registered speakers and listen to this and take it
from there. So let's do it.
MR. OLLIFF: The first speaker is Matthew Grabinski
followed by Ed Staros.
MR. GRABINSKI: Good evening, Commissioners. I have a
handout for you, that I think will be helpful, summarizing our
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June 6, 2001
requested revisions to all the amendments that will come before
you, as well as some pictures for each of you to review, of the
hotel's beach carts as well as the ATV that's causing so much
controversy.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: At the risk of shortening this
discussion, I watched the Environmental Advisory Council today
and their discussions on this matter and found myself agreeing
with -- with most of their results. This seems to me -- and you
guys know I'm as green as anybody gets up here -- that it's an
environmental battle without a cause. You know, we're not
fighting to save anything. There's not a risk. There's not a
damage. There's nothing that's been harmed.
It seems to me that we need to increase the fines for
noncompliance but that otherwise this is not a very controversial
-- I mean, it's been controversial, but I was hoping that when it
came to the Board of County Commissioners, it would become a
common sense issue, and we would look at how it's been
operating, what's broken out there; we would get an
interpretation of our comp plan and maybe a direction to amend
it; and eliminate this business about suspending people's
licenses, but maybe give them a $10,000 fine. But, you know, am
I the only one thinking that this has been much ado about
nothing?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't -- I don't understand. Are you
talking about the ATVs on the beach? You mean allowing them
now versus not before?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I'm saying continue to allow
them the way that we have allowed them. Some of these -- some
of these changes to -- for more specificity -- well, basically, if
Susan could outline for you what the EAC did today, that's what I
think is a good compromise. Except what did they do about
penalties?
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June 6, 2001
MR. GRABINSKI: The EAC denied any of our changes that
would have allowed this limited use of the ATV.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Then I misunderstood what they
did.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: If that's okay, I'd like to
comment on this, if I may. And I think you were heading in the
right direction on quite a bit of it. And the EDC (sic), while I
appreciate all their efforts and everything, I would expect them
to be extremely conservative in their judgment to be passed on
to us.
One of the things I would suggest is that we look at the fine
structure. We drop the idea about closing this out where if
there's two or three mistakes made in a row, that automatically
they lose it. You cannot plan a business with business events
that are planned way in the future -- it's like all of a sudden
finding out your daughter's wedding's canceled because the
church is not going to be able to be open that day because three
times in a row they left confetti out front. You know, it borders
on the ridiculous.
What I would recommend, though, is that they -- a couple of
things. One, that there's a -- there's a limit to the fine we can do,
from what I understand, by state statute, that we come up with
something where we get into the higher reaches. If we have a
problem that's ongoing and repetitive, that we have something
that would be in excess of the fine -- we get, hopefully, the
petitioner to agree to it -- where they would contribute, to the
sea turtle program at The Conservancy, X number of dollars.
Also, I would recommend that The Ritz-Carlton play up to this,
that they're very much involved in it and that they make this a
little bit of an ecotourism factor and they make their guests very
much aware of what they're doing and play up the positive
aspects of this whole thing. It will be a positive factor for
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June 6, 2001
everybody, the residents coming to -- the guests coming to the
hotel to be able to benefit from the educational process. They'll
feel one in tune with nature. They'll be very much in tune with
the turtle situation. The Ritz-Carlton employees will pick up on
this over time, and I see it as a win-win situation for everyone.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I think that maybe we could
short-circuit this discussion, then, by -- well, maybe not -- but just
by taking a poll of the board because I want you to have your
changes to the ordinance. I don't want you to have all of the --
that we revoke your license, but I'd like you to reasonably be
able to use these ATVs to haul canoes around on the beach after
inspection of the beach by the turtle people, and let's just get to
some common sense here.
MR. GRABINSKI: That's what we've been asking for all
along. In addition to being allowed to use the ATV, again, we are
asking for the language to be clarified so that the dollies and
pushcarts can be used on the beach. We want all references to
the suspension or revocation of the annual beach events permit
removed. If it is not, it will substantially impact my client's
business. And Mr. Staros will address that.
And we are also asking to be able to rake above the mean
high water line. In the packet that I handed out, there's a permit
in there. We were allowed to rake above the mean high water
line. We were allowed to clean our beach, as well as The
Registry, after the daily sea turtle monitoring program had been
performed. This was allowed last year. All of these
amendments, all of the changes that I am requesting, aside from
the use of the ATV, reflect an activity that we were allowed to do
last year.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And has there been any
evidence, staff, of damage to turtle nests by virtue of last year's
activities?
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June 6, 2001
MR. DUNNUCK.' Well, if I could clarify a couple things, Matt
said -- and maybe I could help out. Last year they weren't
allowed to, you know -- and, Michelle, it may be even better for
you to speak about it from a code enforcement standpoint. But
from any sea turtle nests being damaged, no, there weren't any
damaged. But I think one of the issues -- and if you wanted to
hear the presentation tonight, you could. But in the essence of
saving time, you know, what we've opined is -- you know, what
our natural resource department will tell you is that leaving
chairs on the beach may create false crawls.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Of course, and that's a bad thing.
And we want to prohibit the chairs on the beach, and these are
the guys who are taking the chairs off the beach. It's somebody
who wanders over and, you know, pulls -- leaves their chair or
pulls one of their chairs out or something like that, that is the
real problem. The big hotels aren't the problem with the leaving
chairs on the beach, and we're talking about taking their license
away. That just seems so warped.
MR. DUNNUCK: With respect to those issues, you know,
we've been discussing -- and I think that was a theme of many of
the advisory committees that -- you know, that we need to take a
look at. And I think what staff would propose as a
counterproposal is let's limit it to just fines in this cycle, and
maybe we go back and take a look at it after, you know, a year or
so and see how they're doing. And then if they're not abiding by
the current rulings, you know, then we take a serious look at
what we need to do to beef that up.
I would also propose, you know -- and we've been talking with
the hotels over the last couple months about getting our natural
resources department, our code enforcement people out there to
meet with them, you know, and let's establish the expectations
and the rules of the game on how we perceive them. And I think
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June 6, 2001
they've been, you know, very amenable to those
recommendations, and they're willing to work with us. And I
think, you know, that may be the compromise step and what we
bring back to you on the 20th.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And just -- that sounds to me like
exactly where we ought to be going, because they should be able
to use the vehicles. They should be able to do what they did last
year, and -- but I liked what Commissioner Coletta was adding
about maybe as a condition of the permit, you have to have this
training from our staff, and you have to do some kind of public
awareness for your guests, and you have to --
MR. GRABINSKI: We've already welcomed that. And John
Dunnuck and Michelle Arnold called -- invited us to a meeting a
couple months ago and discussed that possibility, so that's
already been -- the -- you know, the die has already been cast
with respect to that. That's something that we welcome, and we
intend to do. As far as educating the guests, The Ritz-Carlton
already devotes, I would say, a quarter of its interim newsletter
to information regarding sea turtle nesting season.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I might further suggest you
might even consider a display dedicated to the sea turtle which
you can work it out with The Conservancy and have brochures
that would be there that would be of interest to your guests.
This might be something -- I don't think it would look tacky if it
was done in the right way. It's just a thought. I mean, we're
going to be continuing this for another meeting.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: For the record --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But I'd like to see something a
little more aggressive than just possibly a newsletter that goes
out once a quarter, something that's right there they can pick up
and --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: This is in their room.
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June 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: This is in their rooms, Commissioner.
When you check in, it's part of your check-in package. It tells
you the --
MR. GRABINSKI: I'm sure that The Ritz-Carlton -- The Ritz-
Carlton has been recognized and awarded numerous times as an
organization that operates in an environmentally responsible
manner. I'm sure that it would be happy to entertain any
additional suggestions that you have with respect to
environmental awareness.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Maybe if the board is already sort
of going in that direction, we could hear from speakers that
disagree with that, because I'd like to know what's wrong with
the idea.
MR. GRABINSKI: That's fine, and I'm going to sit down right
now. But I just want to point out a few things, because I know
that members of the environmental community are going to bring
up a state law issue that I feel has already been addressed, and
you have letters from the DEP. There's been talk that the DEP is
looking at the issue again. I guess two times wasn't enough. I
think that they're probably going to give us a no comment on
that.
And there have also been some assertions or suggestions that
members of county staff or this county commission could incur
civil or criminal liability and possibly even be imprisoned for
passing a law that, if violated, would result in a taking. And I can
tell from the look on your faces that you agree with me that it's
absurd. It's laughable. If that issue comes up and any of you are
concerned, I would be happy to come back up here and explain
to you how that is impossible. Thank you for your attention.
MR. DUNNUCK: And just for the record, some clarification
on that. That came from an outside source; that didn't come
from staff.
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June 6, 2001
MS. ARNOLD: For the record, Michelle Arnold. If I could just
say a few words with respect to the educational part of it, your
natural resources department, on an annual basis as a part of the
sea turtle nesting season, does an excellent ]ob of educating the
public, whether they're in a hotel or condominium or residences
along the beach. So they're already doing that, and they could,
I'm sure, extend that to The Ritz-Carlton and The Registry and
any other hotel along the beach.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Whoever gets this permit.
MS. ARNOLD: Right. One -- one point of clarification that I
wanted to note that -- was with respect to what was permitted.
During sea turtle nesting season, vehicles on the beach were not
permitted.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And they shouldn't be.
MS. ARNOLD: But that's what's being asked of you today.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: After the crawl, though -- I mean,
after the inspection.
MS. ARNOLD: No. They were never permitted, period.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: In the past.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What does he keep referring to last
year for? Is last year something different than the year before?
MS. ARNOLD: What they did versus what was permitted was
two different things, okay, and I just want to make that
clarification. Nobody ever signed a permit saying that you can
utilize your vehicle after monitoring, after anything during sea
turtle nesting season, with the exception of below mean high
water line.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The only question I would have
about that -- and I've already asked this outside of this forum -- is
whether or not the PSI of the ATV is such that it, you know,
impacts the sand to a point that it inhibits nesting.
MS. ARNOLD: I can't answer PSI questions.
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June 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't know what PSI is.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Pounds per square inch on balloon
tires.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: This is all the guy stuff.
MR. DUNNUCK: If I could clarify that real quickly, that's
another amendment that you have before you this evening. I
think it's to the latter part of the package, but there is some
regulation on the pressure per square inch as it relates to ATVs.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: The point being that we could
relate -- we could regulate the PSI of the ATVs that are allowed
on the beach if we decided to allow any of them on at all.
MR. DUNNUCK: Correct. And then it goes back to the -- it
goes back to the basic issue tonight, too, though, of -- and I don't
want to lose focus on -- the Comprehensive Plan. You know, do
you feel that it's consistent with the Comprehensive Plan, or do
you think that we should amend the Comprehensive Plan first
before we work towards allowing this code.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But Michelle said that it wasn't
allowed; right? Is that the Comprehensive Plan?
MR. DUNNUCK: The Comprehensive Plan --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Excuse me. Last year, she said, what
they did wasn't allowed, but I have the feeling we looked the
other way once the inspectors went out there, signed it, and they
went ahead and did what they did even though -- remember, the
hotel industry is the one that brought it to our attention. It was
The Ritz-Carlton who said, "1 am not comfortable the way this is,
even though in the past have been allowed to practice it." So
give them credit for coming to us and saying, "Let's get
clarification because we don't want to do anything that is
illegal." And they caught a lot of stuff for that.
MR. GRABINSKI: And if I could just clarify, because when I
submitted my changes, I said, "We are asking -- with the
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June 6, 2001
exception of using the ATV, every other change we' are asking for
reflects what we were allowed to do last year." Now, I -- I am
frustrated by county staff now saying, '~Ne never let them rake
above the beach," because they gave us a permit to rake. I know
-- I can assure you that county staff -- I met with Barbara
Burgeson when we (sic) issued the permit, when everyone was
talking about it. That is why the sea turtle monitoring program
was implemented last summer, so that we could rake the beach
afterwards. Collier County knew that we were cleaning the
beach.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Everybody's got so much energy
in this because you guys have been fighting it for so long, but
let's don't go over -- I mean, I don't think there's anything to be
served --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: No.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- by going over last year.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I don't think so either.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let's just talk about what -- what
is -- I'd like to hear from people who oppose your proposed
changes, to hear environmentally what's the science behind that
opposition.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We need to roll through them, and let's
do it, and let's take them, Mr. Oliff.
MR. OLLIFF: Ed Staros is your next speaker. Doug Finlay
would be your next speaker.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Would it be possible to ask if --
instead of to have the speakers come, Mr. Chairman, in the order
they're registered, could we ask who --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Who is here to speak for the
environmental community?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. I want to hear from the
environmental community.
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June 6, 2001
MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm here to speak for the law.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That'll do.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Well--okay. That'll work. You
can do that too.
MR. FINLAY: I'm Doug Finlay. I sent you quite a bit of
information on this. I hope you've read it. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We have.
MR. FINLAY: Mr. Grabinski has said something here that is a
remark that I would assume is attributed to me, to the EAC about
criminal liability. If-- I'm guilty as charged. Where did I get that
information? I got it from Sandy MacPherson of the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife in Jacksonville, Florida. I can assure you tomorrow
morning I'll be calling Sandy MacPherson to see if she can stand
by her words. I don't recall at any time I mentioned
imprisonment. And if-- if Mr. Grabinski is accusing me of saying
"imprisonment," frankly, I'd like for him to prove it. And if he
can't, I'd like for him to apologize.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: What I would like you to do is make
your presentation, sir, and then if you have any written
documentation from the U.S. Florida (sic} Wildlife -- MR. FINLAY: No.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- or U.S. Florida (sic} Wildlife, you
need to get it to us. What some one person in any agency ever
tells anybody by the phone, I will not accept as the gospel
because I could talk to ten people in the same agency and get
ten different answers. Just try the IRS.
MR. FINLAY: Right. But understand I'm just a private
citizen. I've never been involved in anything like this before.
First time.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you for getting involved.
MR. FINLAY: This is the first time.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I appreciate that.
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June 6, 2001
MR. FINLAY: And all I was doing was seeking information
just to become knowledgeable, calling the DEP, calling the DCA.
You know, I've talked to everybody that I could possibly talk to.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And we appreciate that.
MR. FINLAY: That comp plan up there and those words are
what seems to be the crucial issue here. Yes, the resorts were
using ATVs on the beach. As far as I know, they weren't using
them during sea turtle nesting season. I didn't get involved in
this because the resorts were using ATVs. I only got involved in
this because all of a sudden the county had drawn a line, and
they had decided to move the line back at the request of the
resorts. That's when I got involved on this.
Delivering beach chairs, sound systems, and towels certainly
can't qualify as maintenance or cleanup of our beaches. And
with six or more agencies already operating ATVs on our beach --
and these are county agencies plus, I believe, The Conservancy,
but they're doing it legally. The additional use of three resorts of
ATVs, or more, certainly would constitute traffic. So I think, you
know, if you read the simple words up there, you can see there's
a serious problem with the LDC amendment.
Mr. Grabinski made a comment to the Naples Daily News
some time ago. His words proved not only accurate but, I feel,
somewhat prophetic. He referred to a recent draft of the LDC
amendment as just a bad law. And after countless months of
preparation and rewrites, the LDC amendment, in my opinion, has
turned out to be just that; a bad law. To use a crude term, I
would say it's an illegal law, at least if it were to be passed the
way Mr. Grabinski and the resorts want it passed.
Why the CCPC did not accept the county staff
recommendation, I don't know. I think the EAC did. I do know
that it was all in black and white, Policy 10.4.10 in the comp
plan. And the EAC saw that, and the EAC went even further,
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recognizing that strong penalties are needed to protect the
county's and sea turtles' interests.
Could business be harmed at these resorts? No. Are people
going to stop renting kayaks and water tricycles at The Registry?
No. Will beach events be canceled at The Ritz because there are
no ATVs to haul down the sound system? I don't think so. I don't
think they probably were last year during sea turtle nesting
season,
But what will happen, or what at least should happen, is that
these resorts will be expected to live within the law, like other
citizens of our county. I have a kayak, weighs 41 pounds, more
than their kayak weighs. If I want to go down to the gulf, I have
to haul it down. Our condo has a golf cart. Also at our condo
there are seven kayaks, and I happen to live in a 55-and-older
building, so we have a lot of seniors that have kayaks. What they
have to do is haul their kayaks down to the waterline. They can't
use a golf cart, as far as I know. Maybe you would like for them
to use our golf cart to haul it down. Maybe if The Ritz can use its
ATVs, maybe we should be allowed to use our golf cart during
sea turtle nesting season. Maybe all the condos on Gulf Shore
Boulevard should be allowed to do the same thing.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Maybe if they did it after the
inspection in the morning and if the PSI of the golf cart doesn't
compact the sand, maybe that's not a bad idea instead of having
our residents --
MR. FINLAY: It might not be except for what's up there.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And we've got to deal with that.
MR. FINLAY: You know, it's what's up there. And when I
lived up north, I used to drag a catamaran all the way down and
back, you know. And my catamaran was bigger than their
catamaran is. This happens all over in the state of Florida where
people have to drag equipment around on the beach. It's not just
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June 6, 2001
The Ritz and The Registry. They have a large, young, and strong
staff to do these things, and their business is healthy and strong,
and it will stay healthy and strong regardless of their ATVs on the
beach. So -- and The Ritz -- this isn't the Chrysler Corporation of
1979 coming to you and appealing for assistance as to what's
going to happen to their business.
But in closing, as a board of elected officials, I feel it's
imperative that you recognize the conflict that the county staff
has pointed out to you. You need to look at the comp plan, and
you need to vote and stand by our county's Growth Management
Plan.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, sir. All I'm asking you to
do is anything you get from an agency, please have it sent in
writing. I say that not only to you, but to everybody that ever
listens to any of these things. That's the only way that I can
accept it as a commissioner. I cannot go on what somebody
says to somebody on the telephone.
Next speaker, please.
MR. OLLIFF: I'll try to do this the way that you wanted, I
think. Nicole Ryan. And Nicole would be followed by Jessica,
and I believe it's, Koelsch -- Kelsh (phonetic).
MS. RYAN: Good evening. For the record, Nicole Ryan here
on behalf of The Conservancy of Southwest Florida. And as all of
you, I'm sure, know, The Conservancy has been working for the
past several months with county staff, with The Ritz-Carlton to
come up with some kind of language that protects the sea turtles
and also allows businesses to have their businesses on the
beach in an appropriate manner. We came up with some
language. I know that we differed with the hotels on some of the
points of it.
But a bigger issue has now come up, and that is our Growth
Management Plan. In our Growth Management Plan, it clearly
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June 6, 2001
states that vehicle traffic on the beach is not allowed unless it's
for emergency or maintenance purposes. I think we all agree
ATVs are vehicles -- they're all-terrain vehicles -- and taking
towels and chairs and tables and that type of equipment is not
maintenance of the beach. Maintenance is beach maintenance
of the beach itself.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nicole, can I ask you a question?
I'm sorry.
MS. RYAN: Sure.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And I'm sure the chairman will
give you time for the -- because you know how much I value your
opinion and The Conservancy's position. Is there a sea turtle
nesting risk with -- just forget -- we're just talking about science
here for a minute; we're not talking about law. Is there a sea
turtle nesting risk with the proposal in front of us?
MS. RYAN: Well, if the monitors would not go by and check
before an ATV went down on the beach, then --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That would be terrible.
MS. RYAN: -- with the 10 PSI, perhaps the nest wouldn't be
crushed, but the crawl marks could be erased so that you
wouldn't know where the nest was, and then --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But if they didn't go until after
the inspection, then would you be thinking that this science -- on
science we'd be okay?
MS. RYAN: Originally we had stated that with those things
in place, we would be okay with some ATVs on the beach, and
that's why I'm saying it's a bigger issue now.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I understand.
MS. RYAN: It's an issue of our comp plan. And, you know,
it's tough because nobody really knew about this comp plan
amendment. We just found out about it several weeks ago. So
all of the work that was done, unfortunately, gets kind of pushed
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June 6, 2001
to the side, because we have this award-winning comp plan -- it
was a model when it was created, but a lot of things have
happened to it. We're under a moratorium because we tried to
put in so many amendments that would have weakened natural
resource protection. And our concern is that if this clear
language is interpreted as something weaker than it clearly is or
if it's amended to weaken natural resource protection, then we
no longer have an award-winning comp plan. And we don't want
that plan weakened, and so that's our concern with that.
And as far as what we would like to see in the language for
the other things besides the vehicles on the beach, we believe
that for the -- the annual beach events permits, if there is a 30-
foot buffer, radius, around the nest during the event, we think
that that's the best thing. It's the state standard, and you asked
for the science behind that. It's the state standard, and their
biologists determined that. It's not a law, but it is the standard.
And we also believe that curfew should be at sunset or one hour
after the sunset for the special exceptions. Again, the state
standard.
And what we really think will kind of put some teeth in this is
to have fines, tough fines, monetary and also suspension of
permits. Monetary fines, in the proposed language in front of you,
I believe that it's 500, 1,000, 5,000 fine. The EAC today decided
to up those fines for the major or serious infractions to be 1,000,
5,000, 10,000. The Conservancy would like to see it a little
tougher than that, but certainly the EAC is moving in the right
direction. We also believe that you need to keep the suspensions
in there. It does put some more teeth into the penalties.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What is the limits under the
state statutes for the fine?
MR. DUNNUCK: I believe under -- you know, I'll try to answer
on behalf of the attorneys. I'll put my attorney hat on. I believe
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June 6, 2001
right now the limit is $5,000. But, Patrick, if you want to
elaborate.
MR. WHITE: Patrick White, assistant county attorney. In
order to go above $5,000 for a code enforcement board type of
fine or penalty, we'd have to have specific findings and perhaps
some amendment in the code with regards to that, in order to get
up to 15,000, I think, is the max.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Question. Would it be illegal, in
lieu of a fine over the maximum amount -- suppose it was a
number of occurrences, and I don't know if three occurrences,
you know, if they're minor little infractions, would warrant going
above that. But if we did go above that, could we have some sort
of contractual agreement with The Ritz-Carlton and The Registry
that they would pay the money over that amount towards The
Conservancy for their turtle program? Would that be within the
law?
MR. WHITE: I would imagine some type of a stipulated or
contractual agreement that they may choose to enter into for
penalties could be allowed. I have not seen one, but that doesn't
mean that you couldn't try it.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I think it should be fair for
everybody that -- across the board, not just --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Not just these two.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Not just the hotels.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Because you're right, Commissioner.
You start applying these things -- and the gentleman said, "I'm
from the condominium, and we drag these things across the
beach." Well, my question is, well, what happens when you drag
it across the turtle's nest? I mean, does that give us scrambled
turtle eggs or what? I mean, I don't know. And if somebody from
a condominium leaves chairs out there on the beach and that
interferes, are we going to have penalties there? Do we have a
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June 6, 2001
mechanism to police that? I don't know. But I do not want to --
I'm like you, Commissioner Henning, I do not want to single out
any one group and say, "You are the ones that we're going to
hold accountable." We got to hold everybody accountable here.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I have another question for the
lawyers, if I could, lawyer question. Marjorie, I don't care. Could
we -- I am interested in a fine structure that's the maximum
allowed. I mean, it might have to be 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, might
have to be maxed at five, whatever it is. But then could we also
add a provision that said after a hearing we could suspend their
license, we could suspend the permit?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: You got it the one -- your
increment already. Wouldn't that suffice to be able to --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, but, you know, we might
need to have the right to have some sort of emergency hearing or
a code enforcement -- it's just -- the problem that I have with
suspending the permit is there's no hearing, there's no
discussion, and all of a sudden tomorrow they can't operate the
way they always have. If there were a flagrant violation, I think
they should lose the ability -- they should have to have, you
know, standard bearers carrying things out there.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: But on the other hand, from the hotel
industry, when -- and if you're a meeting planner, you're not
booking this year. You're booking two years, three years,
sometimes up to five years out. And they count on that, and
associations count on that, and they schedule it. And Io and
behold, if you come along and say, "We can't have you here
because we did this," that meeting planner and that association
is in major trouble because the prime locations they want to go
to may already be booked.
So you're really beginning to penalize people in a major
industry who are saying, "1 didn't do anything. Why did I suddenly
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June 6, 2001
lose the right to have a beach event at this resort?" So I agree
with the fines. I think there needs to be punitive retribution here,
but I think removing somebody's right to have a beach event --
and, you know, I mean, you'd have to be out there, I think,
bulldozing turtles' nests or something. Then that's maybe
another case. But I don't think anybody in the business is going
to be that stupid to go out there and intentionally destroy turtle
nests on the beach.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: What is the state regulations? If
someone did damage some turtle nests on the beach, wouldn't
the state come in at that point in time, or the federal government
also, with their particular enforcement?
MR. WHITE: There's a state statute 370.12. That's the state
parallel to the federal Endangered Species Act, and in those
there are sections that indicate that if you harm the nest or the
sea turtles or the hatchlings, that can be considered a take. And
as mentioned, there are penalties, and those can be large fines.
And the statute does provide that you have some criminal
component to them, but as Mr. Grabinski's argued, that
something that would apply to this board in terms of criminal
liabilities are practically nil.
So to go back to the issue, I think, that Commissioner Mac'Kie
had with respect to the suspensions being in the proposed text,
these violations would be heard typically either by a county court
judge or the Code Enforcement Board. And each -- both the
dollar amount of the fines and the suspensions, in particular the
suspensions, are up to X number of days. So it's an enforcement
mechanism, if you will, that is available to that entity that is
hearing the case.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I guess there's mechanisms there,
Commissioner. If you really do a serious thing, you could end up
in a courtroom.
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June 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I was just trying to get the
rationale where everything comes together.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We all want to do this right, and I don't
want anybody to get off and, you know, just write a $500 check
and say, well, you know, "Big deal." But I want this to be an
equitable way to work with this, yet not penalize a major source
of tourist tax revenue in this county.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: We're on a turtle crawl pace
here.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Other environmentalists.
MR. OLLIFF: Jessica Koelsch will be followed by Brad
Cornell.
MS. KOELSCH:
environmentalists.
of.
That sounds so bad, other
I'm Jessica Koelsch.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's a title you can be proud
MS. KOELSCH: Oh, I am. But just something about the way
you said it. I'm Jessica Koelsch, and I'm with the Center for
Marine Conservation, and believe me, I'm going to try to be brief
because I need to drive back to St. Petersburg tonight when we
finish. I sent a letter to the commissioners on Monday, and
hopefully you received it.
I just want to touch on a couple of points, maybe address some
of the items that have come up here tonight.
Again, we've also been involved in meetings with Collier
County staff, hotels, concessionaires, the environmental
organizations trying to come up with amendments that would
allow limited use of ATVs on the beaches during sea turtle
nesting season. We, too, have been trying to use common sense
and reason in working with the hotels and concessionaires to try
to allow them to do their business while still implementing the
necessary measures to safeguard protected and -- and protect
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June 6, 2001
the threatened and endangered sea turtles.
I have some documentation that might address some of your
questions before about the whole liability and whatnot. I have
two things. I have some excerpts from the Endangered Species
Act, and I've just circled a couple of definitions that talk about
the term "person" and then the term "take" and what the
prohibited acts are. I don't know if that's -- it's not spelled out
very clearly, but it might give you some guidance.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: You might want to introduce it for the
record, ma'am.
MS. KOELSCH: This is a copy. I'm introducing this for the
record, Exhibit 1. And then Exhibit 2 is a letter from the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service. It was actually sent to Volusia County when
they were discussing their own vehicle on the beach issues. And
in it, again, they spell out, "As a governmental entity which
issues permits allowing vehicles to drive on beaches used by
nesting sea turtles, Volusia County is responsible for ensuring
that activities authorized," blah, blah, will not be harmful to the
sea turtles or other listed species. Prohibitions against take
apply to persons, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They don't talk
about the penalties, however. And I'm going to submit this as
Exhibit 2, or it is B? I'm not sure, but you know what I mean.
I also, in one of the earlier versions of the LCD (sic)
amendments, which -- here it is. This was the May 1st version. It
actually spelled out what those penalties would be. Federal
penalties for violations of the U.S. Endangered Species Act can
be as high as $250,000 fine and up to one year in prison. So it
just -- the information is out there. It's just kind of spread out,
but I hope that that will clarify it some.
But I agree with Matt. The chance that a test -- if a turtle nest
is damaged, that you-all are going to get hauled off to jail, it's
pretty unlikely. But still, I think it is -- the take-home message is
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June 6, 2001
that you-all are going to be responsible for what happens to sea
turtle nests on the beach if you allow ATVs out there.
I wanted to address some of the risks to sea turtles. I guess
that's one of the questions that I keep hearing again and again.
As Nicole pointed out, the state has set standards for protecting
sea turtle nests on the beach with respect to, I guess, vehicles
or activities on the beach, even. And they set the standards of
having everything removed from the beach one hour after sunset
and having a 30-foot diameter around the nest during special
events.
And they're state standards, as she pointed out. It's not a
law. They're standards, and the state does allow exceptions to
these -- to these rules. However, what the hotels are
recommending, it's not an exception; it's going to make blanket
rules have -- shortening the diameter of the barrier around the
nest and lengthening the time. So, again, if there's, you know,
perhaps, special occasions and they want to try to extend it,
again, that was intended -- those were intended to be standards
to be adjusted on a case-by-case basis, not by a blanket rule.
Other activities such as beach raking above the mean high
tide water line, I actually just learned today that the county staff
do have some data that show that repeated raking over a nest
will decrease the hatching success. And you say, well, our turtle
monitors are out there marking all the nests, so hopefully there
won't be any -- you know, all the nests will be marked, and the
rakes will avoid it.
But what happens if there's a storm in the middle of the night
and there's a nest that's not marked because the tracks are
washed away by the rain? Then you're going to have a rake
driving over this nest every single day for the 60-day incubation
period and, therefore, decreasing the hatching success. Also,
operator error can happen. Oops. Oh, boy.
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June 6, 2001
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I just need to have you wrap up,
ma'am. That's all. That wasn't intended to scare you.
MS. KOELSCH: Anyhow, I've heard of -- in other counties
staff accidentally -- county staff accidentally running over nests
destroying the marking, just normal operating their ATVs on the
beach. Accidents happen. We're just trying to limit the amount
of traffic which is going on above the mean high water line so
that way the risk to the nests, marked and unmarked nests, will
be minimized.
As far as the penalties, I -- we feel -- Center for Marine
Conservation feels that the suspension should stay in place. I
think maybe one potential compromise might be adding language
that says up to X number of fine and suspension, as they have for
the 500 for the first violation, having that up to language inserted
everywhere, so that way if there was some ma]or event, you
know, you could have a little buffer to work with the hotels a
little bit more. But based on a history of noncompliance and a
history of violations, I think that the suspension language needs
to be included to provide some teeth to the enforcement
regulations.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Can we stay to the five-minute
rule, please?
MS. KOELSCH: I'm sorry. I just wanted to address some of
your -- some of your questions.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you very much. Any questions
by commissioners?
Seeing none, thank you very much, and you have a safe drive
back.
If you can't make it tonight, the Ritz-Carlton will probably put you
up,
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: On the beach.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Literally.
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June 6, 2001
MR. OLLIFF: Following Brad Cornell will be Ronnie Poplock.
MR. CORNELL: Hello, Commissioners. I'm Brad Cornell with
Collier County Audubon Society. And -- excuse me. It's been a
long night so far. I will be very succinct. I think the first issue is
that we concur that this is something that we probably should
not be talking about right now because it is a comp plan
violation. I think that the proper channels, as staff has said,
would be to change the comp plan first, if this is what you want
to do with regard to vehicles on the beach. And so all this time
is probably not well spent, other than talking about the merits of
the issue.
Getting to the merits of the issue, I think, as has been said,
the problem is not one of we don't want businesses to be able to
do what they need to do to operate on the beach. But what we
have seen is violations, repeated violations, in the past, and we
have to assume that there will be inevitable violations in the
future. And, one, this is a problem with educating staff, not our
staff, Collier County staff, but the hotel staff. And I don't think
that's been done very well, apparently, since there have been
violations.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What kind of violations are you
aware of?
MR. CORNELL: I understand in sitting down -- Collier County
Audubon, I have sat down with the parties that have been
discussing this -- these issues and also participating through e-
mail discussions in response to the numerous versions of this
LDC language that the -- a couple of the hotels have -- have gone
out before the monitoring has occurred. And they have been
cited and -- by code enforcement, and I believe you could hear
more about that from your code enforcement staff.
Presumably, there would be more violations than code
enforcement staff would have cited them for, and that is my
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June 6, 2001
point. Code enforcement staff is not adequate to monitor the
miles and miles of Collier County's beaches to enforce the timing
of the operations after the monitoring. I think that that's a big
problem. We need to solve that problem before we can talk
about sea turtle nesting season impacts. We are very happy to
sit down and talk about ways to facilitate beach users during off
season, off turtle nesting season. But during the turtle season,
we feel it's not -- that code enforcement is just not going to be
able to enforce.
No matter what the penalties are, we're going to have
violations; we're going to have problems. And since we're
dealing with threatened and endangered species -- we are
blessed with their presence; hundreds and hundreds of them
come to our beaches -- I think we should -- we should err on the
side of the turtles. And things will -- business will go on just fine,
Thank
I think, without amending the -- making these changes.
you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Next speaker, please.
MR. OLLIFF: Ronnie Poplock.
MS. POPLOCK: Ronnie Poplock, Citizens for the Protection
of Animals. With all due respect, for a sea turtle this is definitely
not much ado about nothing. This is definitely much ado about
something and -- because most of them don't make it,
Commissioner Mac'Kie, so that's why it's important that we
protect them. And I'm looking at it as like a cost-benefit. As an
accountant I'm looking at it as a cost-benefit equation here, and
the cost is really not that much. The cost is inconvenience,
basically, and very small inconvenience, but the benefit is great.
The benefit is protecting a protected species.
Isn't that basically one of -- you know, one of our major issues
here is to protect our protected species?
So that's why -- and, now, Brad from -- Cornell from the
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June 6, 2001
Audubon Society stated that it's going to be very difficult to
monitor. I haven't seen -- the petitioner's state how -- haven't
convinced me how they're going to effectively monitor this. And
also, there have been violations. I've heard about the violations
as well. And so, as Brad said, why not err on the side of
protecting the protected species? So our group recommends
that under no circumstances that ATVs be allowed on the beach
during nesting season. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, that's all of the speakers on that
side of the house, if you will. I think that there are some other
registered speakers who still would like an opportunity to be able
to--
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes, sir. How many people do we have
left, if I can take a hand count? We have one, two, three, four.
MR. STAROS: Good evening. I'll be very brief. It's a long
evening. Excuse me. My name is Ed Staros. I'm the managing
director of the Ritz-Carlton Naples hotel. I just want to make a
comment about being environmentally responsible. It was 1992,
November of 1992, when President Bush congratulated The Ritz-
Carlton Hotel Company by giving us the Malcolm Baldrige Award.
Those of you who know about the Malcolm Baldrige Award know
that there is a major criteria within the award that requires the
corporation that wins the reward (sic) to be environmentally
responsible. It's the number one award given by the United
States of America to any corporation for being a model
corporation.
In 1999, in October of 1999, President Clinton gave us the
Malcolm Baldrige Award again. We're the only service company
ever in the history of the award to receive it twice, and he
personally thanked us for being a model corporation and being
environmentally responsible. And it wasn't just June of last year
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June 6, 2001
when Jeb Bush invited me to Orlando to give me the Sterling
Award, and he thanked me for being a model hotel within the
State of Florida which was -- is environmentally responsible.
I've made every commitment in the 20 months that I have
been here to be environmentally responsible. I will put displays
in the hotel. I put the -- I put a -- a serious article in our daily
newsletter about the turtles, etc. You're dealing with an
extremely environmentally responsible company, and I just want
to leave you with that thought. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Next speaker, please.
MR. OLLIFF: Rich Yovanovich.
MR. YOVANOVICH: Good evening, Commissioners. For the
record, Rich Yovanovich representing The Registry Resort. I
want to address a couple of issues real quickly. First of all, the
issue of having a permit to do what we're seeking to have the
Land Development Code amended to permit, was, in fact, issued
to The Registry Resort under the same criteria that's being
proposed. And I'll leave this. I wasn't planning on leaving this,
but I will leave this. But the importance of that is it was issued
for ATVs on the beach during the turtle nesting season. So you
can know for a fact that you have evidence to support that this
has been done, and it has been done successfully without harm
to the turtles.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can we see that?
MR. YOVANOVICH: And I would think that what we're here
to do is to make sure that we're not harming the turtles. And I
think you've heard from the environmental individuals that the
science does not support -- let me rephrase that -- that the
science supports what we're proposing. We're not going to harm
the turtles. What's trying to be done here is they don't -- there
are some individuals who do not want to get to the merits of the
proposal, and the merits of the proposal, I think we would all
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agree, support the adoption of the changes to the comp -- I'm
sorry -- to the LDC that are being proposed.
Nicole said she didn't want -- she wanted to make sure that
the natural resources were not weakened, and I think
Commissioner Mac'Kie brought that out, that what we're
proposing will not weaken the protection to the natural
resources. So I would -- I would submit to you that what is
proposed is -- is environmentally friendly and environmentally
responsible, and the resort -- The Registry Resort is also a good
steward of the environment.
Regarding suspending people's privileges, I think that's
awfully harsh. I think you need a trial period to see if the fines
work. I mean, it -- everything has worked well to this point.
There really hasn't been any harm to the environment, so I don't
know why going to a suspension is in any way necessary.
Regarding the Comprehensive Plan, I think you have to put in
context what the Comprehensive Plan was trying to protect, and
it's my belief-- and ultimately it's up to the commission to
interpret its Comprehensive Plan -- that it was intended to
prohibit vehicular traffic. And the word "traffic" is what's
important, because if you didn't want any vehicles on the beach,
you would have said that. What did you mean by adding the word
"traffic"? And I think what you were trying to do was protect
against a Daytona Beach. You didn't want cars driving up and
down your beach or indiscriminate use of the beaches by motor --
motorized vehicles.
What we're proposing is a very limited use of the beach with
very careful standards, and I -- I believe it's consistent with the
Comprehensive Plan as it is written. If you really wanted to go to
a ludicrous interpretation, the word "traffic" is there by itself. If
you look in Webster's, traffic even means pedestrian traffic.
Certainly you didn't mean to say that nobody's entitled to use the
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beach.
So I think we need to get beyond a strict constructionist
interpretation and go with what was really intended to happen.
The intent was to protect the beach. What we're proposing today
is protecting the beach and the sea turtle -- the sea turtles. So I
think it is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. If there's any
ambiguity that you feel you need to clarify, you certainly can
clarify the ambiguity. You can find this to be consistent, and
then through the next cycle, clarify any ambiguity you may think
is out there.
And that's not unprecedented. That occurred most recently
with a PUD that involved RVs. There was a question about what
exactly did the comp plan mean regarding the use of RVs. You
found it to be consistent and that was the intent of the
Comprehensive Plan, but you also went through and clarified the
language in the Comprehensive Plan. You can do that today, and
I think we all agree that what's proposed is environmentally
sensitive, scientifically supported. It's form over substance, the
argument.
Let's go ahead and approve the provisions. And if you feel like
you need to clarify some of the intent, go through that with the --
during your next -- or the current cycle. It'll be taken care of in
December. We'll have the regulations that make sense in place,
and that's what we would propose you do, that you adopt the
regulations with the revisions suggested by Mr. Grabinski.
And if you need to -- if you feel you need to amend the
Comprehensive Plan, the county attorney can go ahead and draft
those amendments to clarify the Comprehensive Plan. But I
would submit that let's not lose well-drafted regulations because
of a technicality, if there is even one -- if there's a technicality,
which I don't think exists.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Next speaker, please.
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June 6, 2001
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to go ahead and just
call the balance of the speakers. If they want to waive, let them
just notify us that they're going to waive. The next speaker will
be Dick Lydon followed by Ron Albeit. MR. ALBEIT: I'll waive.
MR. OLLIFF: Following Mr. Albeit will be Ilene Barnett.
MR. LYDON: For the record, I'm Dick Lydon, speaking as a
fellow that spent most of his life in the meeting planning
business. And as a meeting planner, if I were sitting in this room
tonight and thinking about running a convention between May
and October of next year on the beach at Vanderbilt, I would
have some real serious thoughts about it.
Let's look at what the economic impact of this whole thing is.
Here's Mr. Staros with a hotel on the beach, another one that's
just being finished over at Tiburon. If I bring a group to
Vanderbilt or to Naples, I want a beach party. I don't care
whether it's in July or November. We have to protect our cash
cow, ladies and gentlemen.
And you heard me when we were talking about the I cent on
tourist tax, talking about the cash cow and the $9 million a year
that that cash cow produces to keep our beaches, our passes,
and all those other good things which are going on. The major
thrust of the money that we spend as a result of that cash cow in
advertising and promotion of tourism in this town is devoted
towards the tourism in between May and October, exactly the
time when you're saying, "Hey, you can't run a beach party
because you can't get the stuff on the beach to run the beach
party with."
Let's use a little common sense in this whole thing and not
quit feeding that cash cow that you-all can figure out more ways
to spend than I can figure out how to get. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thankyou.
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June 6, 2001
MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is Ilene Barnett followed by Herb
Savage.
MS. BARNETT: Good evening, Commissioners. Thank you
very much for your understanding of this issue. My name is Ilene
Barnett. I'm the environmental sciences director at Vanasse &
Daylor, and I've been retained by The Registry Resort for the last
year and a half or so to get through these issues. And you've
called it completely right. I appreciate Commissioner Henning's
comment about being a visual person in one of the last
presentations. I am too. This is my Exhibit 1: People, 12 PSI
everywhere; ATVs, 10 PSI, limited to a 3-foot-wide corridor. I
don't know if you want this.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. I think you ought to
submit it.
MS. BARNETT: When you charged us last cycle to get
together with county staff and the environmental community to
work out protective measures so that the hotels could use ATVs
on the beach during sea turtle season, I thought we were in for
an easy time because I knew that we were going to have
protective measures that would not compromise the endangered
species at all, but allow the hotels to work and operate in a more
efficient manner, actually having less compaction impact with
the limited ATV use versus having people running around up and
down, and getting the furniture off the beach in a more timely
manner. I really thought, mistakenly, that it was a no-brainer.
I have just a few points. I hope I can make the five minutes.
But the comp plan amendment, as you know, came up at the 11.5
hour. It's very disappointing, but these things happen. Looking
beyond the policy to the objective, Objective 10.4, which is what
the following policies were meant to support, the Objective 10.4
says, (as read): "Developed coastal barriers and developed
shorelines" -- which this refers to -- "shall be continued to be
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June 6, 2001
restored and then maintained when appropriate by establishing
mechanisms or projects which limit the effects of development
and which help in the restoration of the natural functions of
coastal barriers and affected beaches and dunes."
This proposed language will not impact the natural functions
of the coastal barriers and dunes. As a matter of fact, it will
actually help get the operational situation there better for sea
turtles and more efficient for business. So the policy that deals
with the vehicular traffic or traffic was written to support the
natural functions of the coastal beaches. So I'm not a lawyer
and I don't play one on TV, but it looks like the objective that is
the cause of all this is still intact if you allow this ordinance to go
through or LDC amendment to go through.
You heard some comments about code enforcement. The
turtle monitors are out there every morning, and they're able to
monitor and pass the information along to code enforcement.
That was one of the main issues in our workshops that we had
conducted over the last several months.
As far as an undetected nest, I'm not sure what the difference
is, if you have an undetected nest, if an ATV running down the
beach in a limited corridor would have versus people running
around playing volleyball, playing Frisbee, putting their blankets
down. I understand that beach raking above the mean high
water line before the turtle monitor comes along could erase the
tracks but that's not what we're talking about for the majority of
this issue.
You've heard reference to Florida Statute 161, a law that DEP
implements. That law is to protect coastal barriers from erosion,
and they have a law in there that talks about vehicular traffic
that was clearly meant to protect the beach from erosion due to
automobile traffic. And we had already got an opinion from the
DEP attorneys. That subject just keeps coming up, and we're not
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June 6, 2001
sure why that keeps coming up, but it doesn't seem to support
the intent of Florida Statute 161 at all.
The same with the Endangered Species Act. That topic keeps
coming up. A take is when an endangered or threatened species
is killed, disturbed, molested, their habitat is disturbed. This
proposed language is not going to harm the sea turtles. A
violation of it may harm the sea turtles, but I don't see how that
would be a violation by the county of the Endangered Species
Act. If you have an environmentally sensitive law -- I knew I
wasn't going to make it -- environmentally sensitive law and
somebody violates it, I don't -- it doesn't make sense that the
federal government would come after you. That's it. Thank you
very much.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you very much.
MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Herb Savage followed by
the last registered speaker, Jerry Thirion, who has waived.
MR. SAVAGE: Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Morning?
MR. SAVAGE: Yes. I feel like I've been here all night. I
want to compliment you all for your patience to listen to all of
this, and thank you to this magnificent staff you have because
they're going to be able to present to you the proper way to
handle this, and I know you will accept it.
Thirty years ago this coming December we opened a hotel on
Marco Island called the Marco Beach Hotel, now called the
Marriott. I say we; Deltona Corporation did. And I trust that you
will not find one instance where somebody voluntarily damaged
any turtle nests along that beach. And I also asked today
somebody in the meeting that I was in all day practically, how
many miles do we have of coastline in the State of Florida? Does
anyone know here? About 14 to 1500 miles we talked about.
1400 to 1500 miles, and there are turtle nests all along those
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June 6, 2001
coasts.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And they need --
MR. SAVAGE: Ma'am?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: They need that room.
MR. SAVAGE: That need that room. And I asked the
question today in front of the hotel, "How many feet do you own
on the beach?" They said, "800 feet." "Well, how many turtle
nests did you find on that beach last year?" And I think the word
was, "Three." And there was one instance -- one this year. In
800 feet, one turtle nest this year.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So far.
MR. SAVAGE: So far, absolutely. Last year totaled three.
And you wonder all the money that you've spent and time
considering this -- and it's very important. I'm as much as an
environmentalist as any of them. How much money we're
spending in talking about something that could be handled very
simply. And I think, Colonel, you mentioned it earlier -- pardon
me, Commissioner -- that --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: We've been called worse.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I got to tell you, he's got a new name.
MR. SAVAGE: It's important that we have the vehicles
taking care of the maintaining of the beach and maintaining of
the towels and the chairs. I was at the Marriott recently at
Quinn's, and they had a turtle. They were displaying it to the
people at sundown, which they do, and that's very nice, and they
bring different things down there. And this turtle was walking
towards this chair, and do you know what happened to it? It
bumped into a chair. And do you know what it did? It turned and
walked about 3 or 4 feet beyond and went on its route.
My point to you, we're making such a big issue of all this. It's
important to take care of it, but let's be fair to the cash cow, as it
was called earlier, of this area. It's a magnificent resort area.
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June 6, 2001
And let's don't forget there's also a species around here that
have two legs, and I'm saying we're getting so perfect in our
world, we're having nothing but a finger to push buttons, you see.
Somebody said to me there's going to be a cartoon pretty soon
with a finger with two legs. You just need two legs to get around
and a button (sic} to push things that get to be done. We have to
do it. And I just ask you to consider that when you make your
judgment on this, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate very much your
time.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Herb, thank you. I find that -- I've
heard a lot of trained acts. The trained sea turtle act is one that
I will remember. And, also, from now on, Commissioner Henning,
you will be known as the Colonel.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Congratulations on your
promotion.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And he didn't say it was a sea
turtle, and we just have to hope and pray it was not.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I have a question for--
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Yeah. I do too.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- history of how this got in the
Growth Management Plan, if it was during the conception, or was
it brought before -- it was an ordinance before Growth
Management Plan? No. We had a Comprehensive Plan long
before that.
MR. OLLIFF: Yep, you did.
MR. LORENZ: For the record, Bill Lorenz, natural resources
director. What I recall is the ord -- we had an ordinance prior to
the Growth Management Plan when the Growth Management
Plan was adopted in '89. I believe that the '89 plan referred to
the vehicle on the beach ordinance that was in effect prior to the
'89 plan.
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June 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Okay.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And that --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: The reason I bring that up -- and
I remember back '73, '74, there was a lot of kids going on the
beach with their Jeeps, and that's why the -- it was enacted for
that reason.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He was one of them. He did that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Chased by the turtle.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: If it was a carryforward from
that, I must have to tend to agree with what Rich has said. It is,
you know, about vehicle traffic and not ATVs.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And if I could tag on to that.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Sure.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: My question is so simple it must
be wrong, because somebody would have thought of this already.
It says, "The county shall enforce this requirement with the
existing vehicle on the beach ordinance." It doesn't say that that
ordinance can never be amended. So shouldn't we be amending
the ordinance to clarify what we mean, what are the exceptions,
and then we don't have a comp plan problem? Isn't that --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: The meaning of it, yes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Isn't that -- it must be -- because
it's too obvious to be --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Counselors, address that.
MR. WHITE: Again, Patrick White, assistant county attorney.
Thank you, Commissioner Mac'Kie, for the opportunity. This is
an ordinance that has been around, to the best of my
determination, since, Commissioner Henning has indicated, in
the early '70s. What I believe the policy says in that second
sentence in the concluding phrase "existing ordinance" is as it
existed when it was adopted in 1989.
And part of the reason we believe it's necessary to amend
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June 6, 2001
the Comprehensive Plan in order to allow certain parts of the
proposed amendments to go forward is because that existing or
then-existing ordinance stated what vehicles are, and they
included pretty much if you put wheels on me, I'd be a vehicle.
But that's just our interpretation and --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But that's just -- I mean, and I
appreciate that that is one. But I can't buy that that settles the
issue, frankly, because the more I think about this, I -- we -- for
example, our comp plan refers to the ground well water -- ground
well monitoring ordinance, which we amend, and it becomes a
part of -- you know, it becomes the one that's referred to. Why
can't we do that with this one?
MR. WEIGEL.' What Patrick's talking about is the Growth
Management Plan objective that you're talking about here
specifically says this ordinance as opposed to general. But I
think the solution is before you, and you've created a very fine
record tonight, you and the speakers before you. We've talked
about what appears to be a potential ambiguity in the Growth
Management Code -- Growth Management Plan provision. Yes,
potential ambiguity. It's a little difficult for me to know exactly
what it means because we're a bit removed from the history of
that Growth Management Plan provision, and we're also
significantly removed at this point in time from the vehicle on the
beach ordinance. But we do know historically and we know our
county manager in his prior life and others -- and I've heard this,
too, from old-timers in Naples -- that they drove their vehicles on
the beach, some of them even skied using the vehicle running
along the surf.
So I think we've got significant ambiguity here in a sense that,
one, yes, you could direct us to amend our vehicle on the beach
ordinance. Happy to do that and bring it back. Also, I think, just
as Mr. Cuyler used to say, in an overabundance of caution. I
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June 6, 2001
don't think it's an overabundance, just cautiously. I think you
can tell us to come back with a clarification of the Growth
Management Plan provision that we're talking about here, not
because we don't think we know what it means now, but
because we want to make it clear to the world what we believe it
means now, and that you can go forward with any
recommendation you wish in regard to the provisions that are
before you this evening.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, we clarify things all the
time.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Right. Going on that basis, let's say
that -- can we get that clarified by the next LDC meeting? I
mean, can we get the -- do whatever we have to do? Can we
move that so that providing we can accomplish all of the above --
and you can check out with legal counsel in Tallahassee if you're
on the right track. Can we not, then, look at everything else
that's proposed? And if we assume that Policy 10.4, 10.10 is not
going to put us in trouble by what we do here, can we get an
agreement tonight from the commissioners that say, is there
anything you disagree with? Anything you want to change? And
let's say at the end of -- and by the next meeting, if you've done
all this work, then it's just a question of when you're going to
implement it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: May I summarize what my
recommendation would be? My recommendation would be that
the county commission direct staff to amend the ordinance, the
vehicle on the beach ordinance, to include a description -- a
definition of traffic that excludes the traffic permitted by section
-- whatever this ends up being -- and bring that back. I even think
maybe bring it back in this cycle, but you guys will tell me if I can
or can't do that.
MR. WEIGEL: We can't bring that back, you know, with the
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June 6, 2001
advertisement requirement. That would come back in a normal
daily board meeting, one of your day meetings.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So pending that change, you
know, we may -- we have already made the record here tonight
that we don't think it was intended to mean pedestrian traffic.
We don't think it was intended to mean, you know -- anyway, a lot
of other things.
MR. WEIGEL: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And then my recommendation
would be that we adopt the changes that were proposed with the
-- with the penalties being amended to say 1,000, 2500, 5,000,
and ask staff to investigate and draft a penalty for flagrant
violations that, after hearing, could result in a revocation of the
permit.
COMMISSIONER HENNING.' Through code enforcement they
could probably do that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I see Michelle shaking her head in the
affirmative.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Who pays for the code
enforcement inspections every day? Is that -- that is paid by the
hoteliers? We're paying for it out of our own funds?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: It's like every code enforcement
process. It's paid out of general revenue to -- to perform the
function, no matter what you're trying to enforce.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: We're giving them a service.
How about the permit fees? Do they cover it? I'm just curious --
I'm just tracing the money.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's a good idea. The fee for
the permit ought to be enough to factor in the potential cost of
code enforcement.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's what I was thinking. It
only makes sense.
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June 6, 2001
MS. ARNOLD: For the record, Michelle Arnold. With the
annual beach event permit, there is a fee that is associated with
that, and the majority of the uses that they're asking for the
vehicle on the beach is to accommodate those events. So, you
know, we are collecting some fees for --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Are they adequate to cover what
we're doing?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's another issue.
MR. OLLIFF: We can take a look at that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA.' I still want to ask one question. I
think that's a great compromise that you've put together, Pam,
and your green is showing. On the other hand, I wanted to ask,
what do the hotels do right now with -- with the Growth
Management Plan as it is, and what have they done since 19897
How did they get their things on and off the beach?
MS. ARNOLD: Currently--
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' Can I just beg that we
don't get into that?
MS. ARNOLD: Currently they're just removing it manually,
and with the modifications they would have a more expedient
way to remove it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: He just gave us a copy of a
permit, and they're going to argue, then, about who got the
permit, what it was for. It's just not relevant.
MR. YOVANOVICH: No. We're not arguing. We -- I'm just
telling you, we've been doing it with ATVs. That was the
question, how we've been doing it. We've been doing it with
ATVs.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's what I was --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Mr. Oliff.
MR. OLLIFF: And to clarify as part of all of that, I'm
assuming that that includes raking above the mean high water
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June 6, 2001
line would be a yes after the --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Inspection in the morning.
MR. OLLIFF: Raking below the mean high water line
obviously is yes. It's allowed today. Handcarts would be yes
after the monitoring as well. And then you're making a finding --
you're making an interpretation of what this policy within the
code says, but we will also bring back ordinance amendments to
you that will reflect your findings. But that's also the opportunity
for you to look at the fee schedule associated with vehicle on the
beach permits, and that's during a regular board meeting.
MR. WEIGEL: In fact, Tom, Marjorie reminds me that the
ATV ordinance is part of the code as opposed to a separate one,
so it may need to come back in the evening meetings which,
again, you do in your next September cycle. But I'm talking --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Because meanwhile --
MR. WEIGEL: -- in terms of just -- I'm talking just in terms of
housekeeping at that point, to bring it back. And I'd like to even
have the prerogative to do a little tweaking clarification of the
Growth Management Plan provision also so it's clear to all and
we won't have anyone from any sector coming back and
challenging what we have discussed tonight, both historically as
well as practically.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Members of the board, can
we have three nods that says we'll go forward on that basis?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Nod.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'd just like to see The Ritz's
room, 500 square feet, compared with the other one. Just
kidding.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Chairman --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: What a rascal you are, Colonel. All
right.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Chairman, there's two pizzas
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June 6, 2001
in the county commission office that are available to anybody as
long as they last, if you wanted to call a break.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: How you doing, Magic Fingers?
MR. OLLIFF: And we'll take that as unanimous direction
since I saw no nods the other way.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: Susan Murray for the record. We still have
two sea turtle issues to go through.
MR. OLLIFF: I don't think so.
MS. MURRAY: Are we --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We have taken care of the sea turtles.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. We are to the next --
MS. MURRAY: Hearing examiner now.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Hearing examiner? Then we got to
take ten before we get into that. And let's make it quick, folks.
(A break was held.)
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We're live. Welcome back. The next
subject will be hearing officer. Members of the board, we have
all been briefed, and what I would suggest, we have, what, seven
MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- seven people who would like to
address the issue. I think we need to hear that. And then John
Dunnuck is going to come back and do his presentation summary
and, in that, address some of the issues that may be brought up
by the public. So I think that would probably cover all the bases
and make everybody feel reasonably comfortable. So let's go to
public comment on hearing officer.
MR. OLLIFF: The first registered speaker is Janet Vasey
followed by William Kerrigan.
MS. VASEY: Good night. Janet Vasey for the record. I'm
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June 6, 2001
sorry to be speaking to you right after dinner. I know how tired
people get.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That pizza's wonderful. With the
indigestion I'm feeling from that, I'll probably be awake for a long
time. Thank you.
MS. VASEY: Well, good for me, then. I'm here tonight
representing the Collier County Republican Executive
Committee, and at our executive committee meeting on Monday
night, we adopted a resolution that calls for disapproval of the
hearing examiner and establishment of a citizen advocate. Most
people agree that the current development review process is
broken, but there are many ways to fix a broken problem (sic),
and the hearing examiner way is really not the answer.
First of all, it reduces the ability of the general public to
influence development decisions and nearly eliminates public
access to you during BCC meetings on major development
issues. Currently the general public can address you in county
commission meetings on any land use or zoning change. They
may or may not decide to appear before the Planning
Commission, but they can always bring their concerns to you at a
BCC meeting. Under the hearing examiner program, the general
public must present their case before the hearing examiner, or
they cannot address the BCC.
If the hearing examiner recommends against them, the public
could only challenge findings of fact or conclusions of law or
present relevant new evidence before the BCC. Either way the
general public will not be appearing before you at very many BCC
meetings that discuss development issues. Imagine the
consternation when people show up at a county commission
meeting advertised to decide the fate of a major new
development and -- only to discover that they cannot address
you, their elected officials. This situation occurs in Lee County
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June 6, 2001
under their hearing examiner program.
Second, the hearing examiner program forces discussion out
of the sunshine of public commission meetings. Since citizen
input will rarely occur at a county commission meeting, it will be
forced out of public meetings and into the realm of ex parte
communications conducted in private with you prior to BCC
meetings. Since you cannot use these communications with the
public in your decision-making -- you have to attest to that -- then
members of the general public really have no meaningful input to
you, their commissioners, at all.
This program takes the real decision-making authority out of
your hands, when we elected you to make these important
decisions. You will have the final approval on major rezones, but
once the hearing examiner makes a recommendation and states
that the project meets the Land Development Code and the
Growth Management Plan, what else is there for you to say?
How can you require a change even if it's in the public interest?
You are basically stuck with the recommendation of the
hearing examiner. He or she operates under a quasi-judicial
system and hears testimony and applies the law to see if the
project is consistent with the Growth Management Plan. Then
the hearing examiner makes findings of fact and conclusions of
law, and then you operate like an appellate court. Unless the
hearing examiner has made an error or there is new evidence,
you really have nothing to consider.
In the final analysis, it comes down to public access and who
really makes the decision. You should want to make these
important decisions on growth-related issues rather than allow a
hearing examiner to make them, because I would trust five
people to reach a fair decision before I would put my confidence
in one. And public participation should be encouraged rather
than controlled to near extinction.
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June 6, 2001
Instead of the hearing examiner program, we think the
process needs a citizen advocate program to provide a level
playing field for the general public during the development
review process. A citizen advocate program would provide the
general public with an advocate who knows the law and the
development review process, and it would provide you with an
alternative to the well-articulated position of
developers.
Specifically, the citizen advocate would receive notice of all
major developments, attend the developer's citizen meetings
required under the proposed citizen participation plan to
determine areas of public concern, work with neighborhood
organizations to help identify potential solutions that are
supported by the LDC and the Growth Management Plan,
negotiate with developers in advance of hearings, and then
appear before the Planning Commission and the BCC giving you a
clear alternative to developer requests.
The citizen advocate -- I've got just a little bit more. The
citizen advocate should be an attorney with an office and a staff,
and the program should be funded using development fees, not
property tax, since the program is required as a consequence of
growth and new development in Collier County.
At the meeting on Monday, our Republican committee
executive board members were quite impassioned in their
conviction that the general public has little chance against
developer attorneys. They felt strongly that the citizen advocate
program would actually provide you with legal, defensible
arguments to support public concerns and would help you find a
legal basis to support a decision that you feel is in the best
interest of the public without subjecting you and taxpayers to an
expensive lawsuit.
In conclusion, the Republican executive committee asks you
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June 6, 2001
to disapprove the hearing examiner program and approve the
Thank you. And I would welcome any
citizen advocate program.
questions.
CHAIRMAN CARTER:
please.
MR. OLLIFF:
by Nicole Ryan.
I think hearing none, the next speaker,
The next speaker is William Kerrigan followed
MR. KERRIGAN: I'm William Kerrigan. I live in Poinciana
Village. I'm also the treasurer of the property owners'
associations in North Collier County, and I believe you've all
gotten our letter, so I won't -- I believe you all read it too. So that
said, I'd like to just give my concerns.
I think if we were going to teach a class in Political Science
101 for Collier County, I think you could easily say that for the
most part people are reactive; they're not active. The Naples
City Council, their charter, operates that way. They have two
votes. The first vote's to generally tell the public this is what
we're going to do. Well, then you hear it. You can be at that
second meeting that counts, and you can voice your concerns.
With this hearing examiner, if you're not at the first meeting with
the hearing examiner and there's an appeal here, you have no
standing. That just shouldn't happen.
I know people feel that this works well in Lee County. Well, if
it works so well in Lee County, why recently do we have two new
cities, Fort Myers Beach and Bonita? One of the ma]or issues
that caused their formation was they didn't like the Lee County
zoning process. They wanted out from under it and got local
control. The hearing examiner didn't help anything there.
So I also think we're going a little too fast on this, as the
property owners have said. I mean, we asked the county
attorney not long ago for information, said we don't have any.
The legislature acted, and this thing was shot out of a cannon.
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We'd like to help educate the public about it. There's pros and
cons. I've heard one version of this from Commissioner Carter;
I've gotten another one from Commissioner Mac'Kie. One's more
intensive; one's less.
So, you know, I think, as Janice just said, a citizen's advocate
would be another alternative to this, to the process. So, you
know, I just hope we keep an open mind, and I hope we just don't
rush into this. I think we're going too fast.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, sir. I appreciate your
input. And yes, I've read your letter. I've read all the proposals,
and I have met with Janet Vasey also.
Next speaker, please.
MR. OLLIFF: The next speaker is Nicole Ryan. And is Herb
Savage still here?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Oh, darn.
MR. OLLIFF: We lost the colorful Mr. Savage. Nick Hale
would be your next speaker.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: He's gone too.
MR. OLLIFF: Go ahead, Nicole. Bob Mulhere will be your
next speaker.
MS. RYAN: Good evening. Again, for the record, Nicole
Ryan here on behalf of The Conservancy, and The Conservancy
does support the concept of a hearing examiner for Collier
County. We think that a hearing examiner would be good. It
would help to streamline the decision-making process for issues
such as variances, conditional uses, some rezonings, so that
could be very helpful. We also like the fact that there would be a
lack of ex parte communication with the hearing examiner, and
this way everything will be out in the open and on the record,
hopefully, and this is also a good thing.
We do have several concerns, the biggest one being the lack
of public participation or citizen input. This could be a big
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concern if someone doesn't know about the hearing examiner
hearing and a decision is made and then they see it in the paper
the next day, they are shut out of giving comments on that issue.
This could be remedied in a number of ways. Just a couple
examples would be allowing people to comment at county
commission when the hearing examiner hearing decision is being
discussed by you as a board, letting that person comment even if
they didn't comment at the hearing examiner hearing.
Another idea could be having two hearing examiner hearings
so that if it was a very controversial issue and someone, because
they didn't see the public notice or they weren't considered to be
an affected party because they didn't live close enough or
whatever, they could comment at the second hearing examiner
hearing. So that could help in that way.
Another minor concern is that in the language in front of you --
and I know that as you move forward, that language can be
modified and tweaked, but we do have somewhat of a concern
because county staff will be giving the hearing examiner their
staff recommendations, and we know that at the board level,
staff recommendations are very helpful. But a hearing examiner
is supposed to be completely fair and impartial, and we're just
concerned -- we don't want staff's recommendations to unduly
influence the hearing examiner, so that's something to keep in
mind as you move forward.
And we also think that as this process moves forward, more
research needs to be done. What other counties use a hearing
examiner program? We've heard a lot about Lee County. Where
else is it used around Florida, around the country? What works?
What doesn't? What's good? What's bad? It's better to take this
process slowly now than to create a program that's just going to
have headaches in the future.
But we do support the idea of a hearing examiner, and that's it.
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Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Thank you very much, Nicole.
Appreciate that. Next speaker is Mulhere.
MR. OLLIFF: Bob Mulhere followed by Nancy Payton.
MR. MULHERE: Thank you. I'm representing myself here.
Bob Mulhere, for the record. The hearing examiner program in no
way reduces the opportunity for public input. When you couple it
with the recommendations that the staff is bringing forward for
enhancing public involvement, that is even further driven home.
One of the things that I think will be very important -- I do
agree that it's extremely important to have notification and to
have people involved in the process. The same thing certainly
can happen right now. People can be unaware of a board
meeting. People can be unaware of a Planning Commission
meeting. What we have to do is reach out to a larger degree,
make sure that people are notified. And that's what those public
input enhancements are intended to do that the staff is bringing
forward.
When you sit in review of a quasi-judicial land use petition,
you are making your decision based on the laws that are in
existence. You can't make policy while you're sitting looking at
a site-specific rezone or a site-specific land use petition. And
you're put in that position very often where people would like for
you to make policy decisions, but legally you cannot do that.
If the applicant demonstrates through competent substantial
evidence that they meet the warrants for approval and there is
no competent substantial evidence put on the record to refute
that, then the burden shifts to you as the trier of fact to develop
some evidence or some competent substantial evidence or some
reason why legally you cannot approve that petition. And to have
an independent hearing examiner look at these types of
applications and bring forward to you a comprehensive
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recommendation based upon legal fact and conclusions of law
would be extremely helpful to you.
The biggest benefit would be that you would have the kind of
time and opportunity to engage your public advisory committees
and the public at large in the policy-making process which, as we
can see time and time again, is the root of the problems here. If
we spend more time looking at the policies, we're going to have
less site-specific activities that cause us consternation. And this
process will allow you the opportunity to focus more on the
policy-making process, and that really is one of your primary
functions. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Fiala has a question for
you, Mr. Mulhere.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, one of the things that I've --
one of the concerns that I have with this particular item is -- you
were saying that this hearing officer -- or hearing -- hearing
examiner -- thank you. It's late, isn't it? -- would then be able to
adhere to the law and he'd know all the laws. And, quite frankly,
you know, when I came on board -- I'm only six months old as it
is. I don't know all of the laws. But the little bit that I do know
tells me that there's a lot of revision that needs to take place on
the Land Development Code and on the Growth Management
Plan.
And right now that hearing examiner's hands would be tied
because he would have to adhere to the -- the current LDC and
GMP. And I think that maybe -- just as Nicole Ryan said, maybe
it's a little early -- and I think Janet Vasey similarly said that. It
may be a little
early. Maybe we ought to first put the cart -- I mean, the horse
before the cart and get our house in order, our LDC in order, our
GMP in order, and then hire a hearing examiner.
MR. MULHERE: I don't disagree with that. The only -- if you
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look at the flip side of that, then you will have -- you will have
those petitions coming through one way or the other under the
current scenario unless you adopt a moratorium.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: But now it's our interpretation. One
of the things that I liked so much about -- oh, I'm sorry if I -- can I
still talk? Like, for instance, Goodland. Goodland was our very
first night. I mean, we were -- we were 12 hours old when
Goodland came up, and that was a very important subject to me,
and it was strictly interpretation. Staff felt that --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Fiala, that is --
MS. STUDENT: That's in litigation and --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I see. Okay. I had one
interpretation and others had another interpretation. So I feel
that sometimes the laws as they stand are interpretation, and I --
I like the idea of all of us being able to interpret, rather than just
one person.
MR. MULHERE: And I understand what you're saying, and
the only additional comment that I can make is, you know, the
Land Development Code has been amended over time in many
different ways through the years. But it's been 12 years since
that was comprehensively reviewed and adopted, and there are a
lot of things -- frankly, I tend to agree with you that
comprehensively there needs to be a review of the Land
Development Code. I hate to raise that issue, but to me it is a
legitimate issue.
But to do that, it's going to take some time, I agree with you,
six months, a year, I don't know. And those -- and that process --
to engage the public and other stake holder groups in that
process would be very critical. And, again, that's the whole idea
behind this process, would be to allow you the opportunity and
the time to be able to look at those policy decisions in a much
more deliberate manner. And, of course, the way we've
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structured the hearing examiner, there really -- you still -- on the
major land use petitions at this point, would still have the final
decision-making authority.
And, by the way, it places a responsibility on everyone to be
prepared. The developer or the applicant, the public does have a
responsibility to be prepared because, frankly, the fact that the
room may be filled with 500 people who are opposed to a petition
has absolutely no bearing legally on whether that petition should
be approved or not. I hate to say it, but that is the law.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Okay. You got your five minutes.
Come on.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I have a question for him.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We could ask him questions here, and
we have one more public input, and you might note some of
these.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It's your question, Bob.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: May I?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Mac'Kie, you got in line
here.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I didn't have a question. I was
just --
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I do have a question. Bob, tell
me, you've had a lot of experience in county government for a
long time. What do you think about a citizen advocate or an
omnibusman (sic) to move this forward? That sounded like an
excellent idea.
MR. MULHERE: We talked about that while I worked for the
county, and I think that having a citizen advocate is a very good
idea. I would caution you, though, I don't think an attorney is the
appropriate person to be a citizen advocate because an attorney,
their testimony here is not competent substantial evidence.
They're an advocate. You may find their information to be very
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useful, but competent substantial evidence to refute the other
competent substantial evidence will be necessary, and the
citizens will still need to develop and have experts come forward
in quasi-judicial land use petitions. That is the way the law
reads.
So, I mean, you have a staff whose job it is to be impartial,
and this will provide them an opportunity -- a greater opportunity
to review these applications and make their findings to the
hearing examiner who will make an impartial decision. The
staff's job really is to be advocates for the community. Now, if
you want to think about another position or a position who
particularly focuses on meeting with neighborhood groups, I
think that's a great idea.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Let's go to the last speaker,
and then Mr. Dunnuck is going to address some of these issues.
And any questions the commissioners have along that area might
be incorporated in his presentation.
MR. OLLIFF: You actually have two speakers left, Mr.
Chairman. The first is Nancy Payton followed by Bruce Anderson.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. Ms. Payton.
MS. PAYTON: Nancy Payton representing the Florida
Wildlife Federation, and I'm here to support the hearing examiner
program and the accompanying public participation plan. They
got to go together. And together I think they'll get us what we
need, which is professional, knowledgeable, unbiased,
nonpolitical, and steady implementation of policy. What we're
looking for is an impartial fact finder, and we've been looking for
that person for seven years.
By having a hearing examiner, it'll allow you, the Planning
Commission, and the EAC to deal with those lingering comp
plan/LDC issues and those ones that are looming, such as we
have those nature policies that still need to be drafted and
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implemented after 12 years. And we have the community
character plan and some smart growth initiatives hopefully
coming forward.
And I remind you that, as I understand it, the Planning
Commission and the EAC both supported the concept of the
hearing examiner program. I think that's an important point
because that's a citizen committee that wants to give up that
quasi-judicial responsibility and concentrate on policy, which is
very important, and we haven't concentrated enough on it in this
county.
The public participation plan has to have the highest degree
of public involvement in its design, and once it is implemented,
we recommend an ombudsman to make sure that it's properly
undertaken, that there's one person or two or some division,
some group -- I forget what the proper term is under the county,
but there is this department that they can go to, that the public
can go to, and find out about the comp plan and find out about
the process.
But also, they're responsible for letting neighborhoods know
when things are going to change, and we think that this plan, as
it's developed and when it's implemented, will result in greater
public involvement. It will result in a more educated and
engaged public. We think it can work, and we're going to work
hard with staff to make sure that it does.
Also, we recommend and support a citizen committee to
establish criteria for the hearing examiner, and that includes
recommending, interviewing, evaluating candidates, making a
recommendation, and also making proposals for rules on how the
hearing examiner operates, such as those hearings are going to
be at night and they're going to be time certain and various other
processes.
In summary, we approve the hearing examiner program and
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urge you to adopt it, but you don't have to do it with an
implementation date. You can wait and have, as part two of your
recommendation, to instruct staff to move ahead with the public
participation plan and the criteria for selecting the hearing
examiner with great intense public involvement so everybody
buys in. They're involved. They know ahead of time what is
going to happen.
And when it's all said and done, we have all those plans and
procedures and criteria in place. Staff returns to you, hopefully,
with great public support, and then the hearing examiner
program is established with a date that the person takes the
seat. That's it.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I thank you very much.
MS. PAYTON: You're welcome.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I value your comments, as always.
You know, you used the term, and so correctly, it is a concept
that you approve in this cycle, and it's a blank sheet in terms of
how you develop the criteria. And it doesn't mean if we adopt
this as a board, that tomorrow morning you've got a hearing
officer. This is months and months away. But you have to start
somewhere with a conceptual framework, and thank you for
articulating that well.
MS. PAYTON: That's right.
doesn't work. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay.
Because what we've got now
Mr. Anderson.
MR. ANDERSON: Good evening again, Mr. Chairman,
Commissioners. Tonight for the first time and perhaps not the
last time, I rise to agree with the statements of the Florida
Wildlife Federation. (Applause.}
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: They said this day would never
come,
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June 6, 2001
MR. ANDERSON: You better say your prayers. The world
may be coming to an end. What do opponents of a hearing
examiner have to fear from an objective, fact-based
recommendation made to the commission by a person
experienced in environmental and land use law? A
recommendation by a person with such knowledge would be
invaluable assistance to you all in wrestling with the very
complex environmental and land use issues that you're going to
be facing in the future.
And, again, it's not an abdication of your power or your
responsibility of a commission as elected commissioners to
adopt a hearing officer concept because all they're making to
you are recommendations. It's not like you're handing over the
reins of power to them. You have to deal with so many, many
issues as a county commissioner, a hearing examiner would be
able to concentrate solely on environmental and land use issues
and give you the benefit of their knowledge and having, you
know, conducted a fact-based, lengthy hearing.
I would urge you to approve the ordinance that is before you
and ask staff to bring back to you the implementation strategy in
the fall at the same time as they bring back to you the public
participation ordinance provisions, and then at that time you can
all vote it up or down one final time. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: This may be a record evening in a lot
of respects, but thank you very much. Ms. Mac'Kie --
Commissioner Mac'Kie.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Just a couple things, that it
seems to me we need to have a hearing examiner. It needs to
walk before it runs. It needs to start with variances, maybe
eventually conditional uses, those administrative matters that
are handled by -- currently by the Planning Commission, like boat
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dock extensions. Then the hearing examiner needs to be hired
to draft the administrative process by which it will operate, and
that's when we'll work out the details on two hearings, one
hearing; do we take -- do we take testimony at the appeal to the
county commission or do we not? That is to be determined as
we flesh out the hearing examiner.
But the other, and probably the most important job of the
hearing examiner, would be to shepherd us through our LDC and
our Growth Management Plan for a clean sweep because before
we turn it over to them at whatever date it would be, it has to
have -- it has to reflect our vision. And we know that it doesn't
right now on some real important issues, like the checkbook
concept for concurrency, like interconnections and not -- you
know, not having gated communities without interconnections,
those kinds of items. We know there are many others.
So I hope this board is going to go forward with the hearing
examiner with a very small amount of power now, variances,
maybe conditional uses, something that the Planning
Commission currently spends time on. You guys, on Tuesday we
have a variance for some playground equipment, I think.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yes. I saw that in here, and I thought,
you know, I really want to do that one.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's something that I'm ready
today to give to a hearing examiner, and I think that is a more
effective use of the county commission's time. But now I'm
going too long. I wanted to try to make this short. Then I didn't
like the idea of a public advocate or whatever we were calling it.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think the term was "ombudsman."
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Well, I didn't like it because I was
thinking, "Darn it, that's what I ran for office to be." I ran for
office to be a citizen advocate. That's what I thought my ]ob
was. But something occurs to me, that when we are doing zoning
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matters, we're quasi-judicial. We don't get to be advocates. We
have to be interpreters of the law. We have to be judges. I
would, therefore, very much like for there to be someone who
can take that role in those quasi.judicial concept matters.
And, you know, I've done some research, and here -- this is not
a brand-new concept. I mean, here's the -- on the Internet here,
City of Colorado Springs and how they make citizen participation
more effective, how they do it. Here's another one I tried to
save. I mean, there's -- anyway, there's several. There's a lot of
stuff. There are a lot of communities that have -- maybe we could
call it something other than a citizen advocate because I still like
to think of myself as that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Well, I think you are, Commissioner, if
I may interrupt just a moment. I think that a commissioner works
in concert with that public participation process, whether you
call it an ombudsman or whatever it is, someone who is good at
conflict resolution even initially where something is proposed,
works with community groups, takes all its information,
participates in the hearings. And there's a number of ways to
structure it, but now we're trying to create what we think it
should look like.
I think tonight, if it's the nods of the board, we go forward
with the conceptual approach and then work through the whole
program involving everything that's been said by Ms. Payton and
Mr. Anderson, along with everybody's input, so we can get there.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And let me just say, I want to do
two -- I want to do both. I want to have the hearing officer and
the approach the way that we've all been talking about it. But I
also think that it is worth examining having a community
counselor, you know, whatever you want to call it.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Whatever you want to call it.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE-' Ombudsman, but now let's focus
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on -- and I hate it when Lytle raises a good issue, but he did in his
editorial about independence of that -- of that office. That person
can't work for Tom because then they just become staff like
everybody else. So I think there's two alternatives that I can
consider so far. One is that they work for David because David
works for us. If they work -- if this is a person who works under
the county attorney, then he's not a part of staff. He works
directly for David and then for us.
Or there might even be the possibility of privatizing the
function, somehow granting funds to a miniagency that, you
know, we only hand them over the money and audit the cash to
be sure it's spent appropriately, but this civic group takes over
that function. I mean, there's -- there are other options so that
we could solve that
problem. But I think what -- was it Nancy who said it first, that
we need both? Yeah. That's what we need.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Okay. Let me -- I'm going to go to the
commissioners. Then, Mr. Olliff, you have some comments.
MR. OLLIFF: Given Mr. Anderson's comments earlier, I think
they must be handing out parkas in Haiti down there with those
two agreeing on the same day. And I'm just -- I had to jump up to
the podium and participate in a day where those two are
agreeing.
I wanted to tell you that from my personal experience, having
sat here for 17 years, I am telling you this is an important issue
for us, and I will tell you that it was important enough that the
previous board directed us to amend the Comprehensive Plan to
allow for this to happen and allow a legislative change to go
forward so that our state legislature actually provided the
opportunity for us to have a hearing officer. It was that
important. And the old board recognized that after having sat
through the public hearings for a number of years.
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I want to make sure that the board understands that the
hearing officer concept as it's proposed to you today does not
have all of the details that put the restrictions on that hearing
officer that I -- I believe you think it does. You have the
opportunity, as it moves forward, to be able to limit the
responsibilities of that hearing officer and to dictate exactly the
type of process that we would have for a hearing officer. And my
recommendation to you would be, just as Commissioner Mac'Kie
stated, that you begin with very limited responsibilities for the
hearing officers, variances and boat-dock-type extensions only.
Secondly, I would suggest to you that we do have some sort
of a two-hearing process for the hearing officer when we get to
that point because I think the public comments that oftentimes
the public's not aware of what's happening until that first hearing
are a very good and valid comment. And if we had a two-step
hearing process with the hearing examiner, then you've got an
opportunity for the public to hear it the first time, know and
understand what the process is, and then come back and speak
at a hearing officer hearing the second time.
And, lastly, I absolutely agree that we should not implement
any type of a hearing officer concept without having the public
participation plan in place concurrently with that. And I think
with a public participation plan, there will actually be more
opportunities for the public, and there will be more effort on the
part of the county to make sure that the communities involved
and affected will be notified and will be able to participate than
there are in the process today.
And I keep saying, people in this community are not satisfied
with the development review process that we have. And if we
think that they're going to get satisfied if we continue doing the
same thing over and over, we're kidding ourselves, and we need
to do something different. And my suggestion to you is, and I've
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told you from the very beginning, this board needs to set its eyes
and its sights on policy issues. You need to change the rules of
the game if you want to change how the development review
process works here, and that's where this board needs to
function and where this board needs to spend its time.
If you don't like the RT zoning district the way it's currently
written, then we need to spend time looking at the RT zoning
district as a policy. And I promise you that with the amount of
public participation and interest that there is in these type issues
today, when we put together a schedule for you to start looking
at these policies on a regular scheduled basis, the public will be
here, and they will participate, and that's where you make real
change on how this community develops in the future.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: First of all, I'm not real nuts about
anything the last board did. I think that, you know -- is that
wrong to say? Am I getting cranky?
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah, you're getting cranky, but that's
all right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Anyway, and I always -- I always
appreciate what Nancy and -- and Nicole have to say. But I still
think that we're putting the cart before the horse, and I think we
need to start changing the rules. Yes, you can plan for hearing
examiner sometime down the road. But the lobs that you've
given him that are nondescript right now, affordable housing
bonuses~ you've given him cjuster development, you've given him
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: See, that list --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's what it says.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah, but, excuse me, Commissioner,
the last 15 minutes I think we've wiped that all off and said --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We have.
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CHAIRMAN CARTER: -- we only want the concept. We're not
making any decision what's going to be included on that sheet of
paper. I think those are examples of. And we're not going to go
there, I mean, unless I have totally missed the last 15 minutes.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I agree. I think --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And there's planned unit
development and so forth on here.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' We're rejecting -- as I -- you
know, you're -- I think we are, as a board, rejecting the ordinance
in front of us. We are directing staff by the next reading to come
back with something different along the lines of what Tom
described. And I'm hoping that we are also going to consider a
mechanism for having an ombudsman. I like to think of it as an
extension of the public participation plan. It's the person who
will implement that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Now, some of my other questions.
So what if we hire this hearing examiner who seems like a fine
person, and all of a sudden we find out that this person isn't what
we thought he was going to be --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Fire him.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- or that he isn't interpreting --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Fire him.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, right. Except that by the time
you find out -- and I won't mention any names, but we had a
problem with somebody that was on staff for a while and until we
could actually remove that person from staff, it took us a little
over two years. And the damage can be done by somebody like
that, and that's something that -- that I'm very concerned with.
Another thing that I fell -- I absolutely agree with you. We're
here to serve the public. One of the big things we're trying to do
is gain the trust of the public and the confidence of the public,
and right now I don't think they're ready to not be heard in front
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of the commission. I think we really have to give them that
opportunity. First let us earn their trust and their confidence and
then start moving toward a hearing examiner.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But we haven't said we're going
to eliminate that, either, Commissioner. We've said that we're
going to add two opportunities. We're going to add a process by
which they're notified. We're going to add staff to help them
organize their position. We're going to add two, hopefully,
hearings before a hearing officer in the evening when they can
come, and then we're going to allow those people who appeared
at one of those two hearings to also give testimony before us as
we make the final decision.
COMMISSIONER FIALA.' And do you know why so many
people are gone? A lot of people can't drive at night. Some of the
people who are retired have a problem driving at night. So --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: We could have one during the
day.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Could we have one in the morning
and one at night?
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Maybe.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think that's a mechanics thing that --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I realize that, but it's just something
I feel that we're starting -- I realize that they might have started
this a couple years ago. This is the first time for us to get into it,
and I just think that maybe we have some refining of our LDC and
GMP to do before we get this person aboard. Yes, variances like
the playground and --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I'm going to go to Commissioner
Coletta, but with all due respect, Commissioner, you have to
keep refining all of this. It never stops. It's never perfect. You
have to jump in at some point and say, "We're going to do this in
con]unction with," and then it'll evolve.
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June 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' And I got to tell you, I've been
trying to get this for six years. It took a long time to get the old
board to agree to it because, frankly, what this does that some
people in the community have begun to recognize is it takes the
politics out of it. No longer will there be any incentive for some
developer to want to be my buddy because I'm going to have a
hearing officer who's going to say whether their petition meets or
doesn't meet the law. I'm not ready to give them that power yet
because I got to go through the book and revise it.
But I would like it if -- just think, for the trust issue, how it
would change Collier County if it were no longer that developers
needed to wine and dine or had a desire to wine and dine and
golf county commissioners, because the hearing examiner's
going to be laying out the facts for us, and then we're going to
make our decision based on what we hear right out here in the
room.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So when did they start wining
and dining? Nobody invited me.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I don't know when that took place. I
mean, there's some need for policy level things that are up here
on your screen. And, Commissioner Coletta, I'm going to take
your comments first.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you very much. I do
appreciate it. Eventually at the end of the dais here, you do get
somebody's attention. No offense. Thank you very much. The
hearing examiner--
CHAIRMAN CARTER: You're getting cranky, you know. I'm
going to put you back in your office.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I did have dinner too.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: We've been here 15 hours already.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It's true. We have. You're going
to make me lose -- forget my thought, and then pretty soon I'm
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June 6, 2001
going to lose my turn to Para again. You know, hearing
examiner, as we got proposed now as a conceptual plan or
thought, I'm for going forward with it provided that we do not
even consider it unless we have this tied into the same thing, the
omnibus (sic) person, to be able to work with the public. And that
should be coming into effect even sooner than the hearing
officer.
And I also agree with what I've been hearing about the fact
that we do have to tighten up our ordinances or start the process
going forward so we don't get into the trouble that Lee County
did when they started off -- remember the big thing there in
Estero with the car lot? That was quite a -- I would like to
receive direction from this commission to be able to go forward
and interview two of the commissioners from Lee County with
about 20 questions that I would --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: You can do that any time. In fact, I
apologize. I was going to have Doug St. Cerny give everybody a
call here, you know, and discuss any questions that you have.
You can go up there any time. They would be more than willing
to share what works well in their system. And you know how
open Doug is, and he's been in it -- he's been in it for ten years.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: That's true, and that's what I
would like to do, and I'd like to take a member of staff with me at
that time too.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: That's -- certainly you can work that
out with Mr. Oliff. And they'll be happy to share the successes
and failures.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Sorry I didn't see you down there.
You're going to have to wave more often, Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was blocking him, really.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I see. Okay. Commissioner Henning.
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June 6, 2001
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Mac'Kie, you
brought out some
-- I think where -- the direction we're going is to go slow, start
out with the variances. And I think that you -- I heard you say
that let the hearing officer also work on amendments to the GMP
and the LDC.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE.' That's what I think. Why not?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's fine. Because my
understanding is in order to get an unbiased person, you know,
we can't have somebody working on both sides of the hall.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: No. That's right.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: So we're going to have to spend
the monies in order to receive the services and -- for this person
to make a living. So, you know, I wasn't too much in favor of the
concept of just doing it slowly and paying them $250,000 or
whatever --
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Can I apply?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: -- for just listening to variances.
But -- and I am in favor of the on-back-of-the-bus concern.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Public participation person.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I would like to see some -- a
lot of changes. And also, how we're going to get to public
participation -- that's going to be in December; I know that. But
there is a lot of fear out there that the -- this process is going to
limit the public to their elected officials, and that is one thing
that I definitely do not want to do. I think there is an education
process of the Land Development Code or the -- what drives the
development because it's a fear of people not knowing how those
rules work when it's coming in their backyard. So those --
CHAIRMAN CARTER: I think those are very well-founded
concerns, and this is off the top of my head, and I would just
suggest it to staff. The board can agree or disagree. I would like
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June 6, 2001
to see a production on Channel 54 that outlines conceptually
what we're talking about here; involve -- you know, Ms. Payton
and Mr. Anderson both made statements in favor of what the
benefits are, along with the public staff. Just enough to let
people know it's an evolving process, this is what it means, this
is what it doesn't mean, and this is kind of a time schedule in
terms of which we are going to crawl, walk, run with it.
So I think we could frame that because I think -- and that
could be available to homeowners' groups. A lot of them are
gone now. They can bring back, they can run that in the fall so
that we can communicate with a community that this is not
something that we're rushing out into and we're taking the
commissioners away from the process.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: I might point out one other
thing. Donna, you had concern over the fact that we get
somebody in there we might not be able to get them out if they
became a problem. It's a lot easier to fire a hearing officer than
it is a commissioner.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's true.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Amen.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's true. I wanted to note, one
of the things we mentioned a lot was an unbiased person. I don't
know many unbiased people.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Well, I'm one.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: There was a way to get on talk radio
for a while. A lot of unbiased people call you.
Okay. Are we -- do I see three nods up here that we can move
forward with any refinement and language by the next session
that kind of clarifies what is and isn't and incorporate what we
need to do here? Are we all right?
MR. OLI. IFF: And I think with all the limitations that you've
provided, we'll try and bring that back in that form for your
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June 6, 2001
second hearing.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you. All right. Let's go to the
next item.
MR. OLLIFF: The next item -- Susan, it's your call, but the
dock facilities is the item that has the next number of speakers.
MS. MURRAY: Okay. The dock facilities would be on page
62 of your handout. I have a staff member to make a
presentation, or if you wish, I could just have him stand here and
answer questions after you hear public input.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: How about that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Let's go to public input on this and let
staff answer questions.
MR. OLLIFF: I have two speakers, Mr. Chairman, Anthony
Pires followed by Dick Lydon.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Let's do it.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Pires, the court reporter has asked me to
inform you on your way up that you need to talk slowly.
MR. PIRES: Even at 10 p.m., I'll try to talk slowly. Tony
Pires, for the record. I'm here not representing any particular
client but --
(A discussion was held off the record.)
MR. PIRES: -- not here representing any particular clients,
but just expressing some concerns about the proposed changes
to the dock facilities extension portion of the ordinance based
upon my recent experience in representing individuals.
The preamble to the dock facilities portion of the LDC states
that -- in 2.6.21.1 that it's to basically allow for safe mooring of
vessels while minimally impacting the navigability of the
waterway and the use and view of the waterway by surrounding
property owners. Yet in the proposed change made later on at
page -- at Section 2.6.21.3.2.4, the view impact on the
surrounding property owners doesn't -- is not factored in; it's the
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June 6, 2001
abutting property owners.
And that becomes significant because, if you recall the
Liberty Ventures case where this board reversed a decision of
the Planning Commission, the major impact of view was to a
person across the canal, not abutting that particular petitioner.
So I think in one sense the LDC states that we're taking -- we're
trying to minimize impact of view on surrounding property
owners, but you look at the criteria, it says we shall look at
whether or not it has a major impact on the waterfront view of
abutting property owners.
So as opposed to having a public participation process~ this
becomes a public nonparticipation process, and you are, in fact,
narrowing the range of individuals and making it easier for the
dock facilities extensions to be granted. If that is your desire,
that is your wish, that may be your legislative desire, but that is
not what is stated in the beginning because you're trying to
protect surrounding property owners, and you're narrowing it
down just to abutting property owners.
Furthermore, there is a use of the -- as far as how the Planning
Commission, under this concept, would hear it, in Section
2.6.21.3 it states the Planning Commission at a, quote, duly
advertised public hearing. And I'm not aware of any definition of
duly advertised public hearing. Right now notice is given to
surrounding property owners by mail, and the property is posted.
I think it needs to be very clear that that occurs, the posting of
the property and the notification by mail to the surrounding
property owners.
Additionally, another -- I think this is more than housekeeping
or housecleaning issues. I think they're major revisions to make
it easier to get extensions, quite frankly. Section 2.6.21.3.13
(sic) adds what appears to be an innocuous term, as far as when
you're looking at impacts to navigation, where the petition has to
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June 6, 2001
present a drawing to scale showing the proximity of the facility
to any adjacent marked navigable channel, as opposed to the
prior text just said to the -- any adjacent navigable channel. We
have a lot of waterways where
they don't have marked navigable channels. Vanderbilt Lagoon
is a classic case of that.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: What's that number?
MR. PIRES: Section 2.6.21.:3.1.3.
MR. OLLIFF: It's on page 70 of your booklet.
MR. PIRES: And I apologize. I was using the text off the
Web site versus the text that was available out here tonight with
the stamped version. So that, I think, actually, again, makes it
easier. You're making it easier for the petitioner, contrary to the
surrounding property owners' interests that they may have.
I think what also should be part of any petition process,
because I believe it's critical to understand the relationship of a
proposed extension to the surrounding uses, is the survey should
not only show water depths -- and by the way, it doesn't say at
what intervals. It doesn't say I foot, 5 foot, 10 foot. I think that
needs to be clear, like at 5-foot intervals at a minimum -- as well
as showing surrounding dock facilities and surrounding
properties so you really have a good picture as to what the
impact is. That is not a requirement of the petition under the
proposal.
Furthermore, one of the secondary criteria is -- the existing
criteria as to view, I think, is very protective of abutting and
surrounding property owners because there are two criteria that
need to be looked at: Whether or not the proposed structure is at
minimal dimensions to minimize the impact of the view of the
waterway by surrounding properties owners, and then whether or
not the proposed vessel -- the addition of the structure will
increase the impact or negatively impact the view of the
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June 6, 2001
waterway by, again, surrounding property owners.
Here the -- once again, the test becomes a little bit easier,
whether or not it would have a major impact. The difference
between minimizing impact and having a major impact is
minimizing impact is go to the store, don't spend much money.
Major impact is don't spend a lot of money. So I think it's a
significant difference. I think there are a lot of areas of this
ordinance that need to be revised to more properly protect the
surrounding property owners, not just abutting, and to clearly
notify the property owners of the hearing. And I can provide the
comments. I have not talked with staff about this, and we ask
that you take this into consideration. It's not just mere
housekeeping. I think these are ma]or changes.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, just to respond for staff quickly,
I think it was never our intent to make it easier for a boat dock
extension. If Mr. Pires has some suggestions for some language
amendments, we'd love to be able to get them from him, and
we'll work with him prior to your next hearing and then make
some revisions that we'd get to you in advance.
MR. PIRES: I'll provide them to the staff this week.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: You took the words right out of my
mouth. I think that'll work fine.
Any other questions that we need to address to -- oh, I'm
sorry, Mr. Lydon. I apologize. You're still here? I thought you
were home having a toddy.
MR. LYDON: I had one out in the hall. You didn't know I
brought my flask. Dick Lydon for the record, Vanderbilt Beach
Property Owners' Association. We're probably impacted more by
this. And I think Rocky Scofield did a real good job in the
rewrite, staff. I think you called on a pretty good fellow to get
that done. I agree with the comments that Tony had. We are
very concerned about people other than abutting property. That
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June 6, 2001
would tell me that some guy could build a Taj Mahal across the
canal from me, and I couldn't say a thing about it because I am
not an abutting property.
There's one other thing, and as long as you've given that
charge to Tony, I'll be glad to pass it along. There's one place in
here where navigation has to be no more than 20 feet. You get
two boats that are 10 foot wide, and there could be a little
problem in meeting one another in a canal somewhere, but we
can get into those details.
I am concerned that this be done and done properly. And my
comments to you-all on the hearing examiner were explicit in
that connection. The hearing examiner is only as good as these
pieces of paper are good. And, unfortunately, the hearing
examiner will not have to do anything to have you offset because
his word will be the final word on docks. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. You have comments that you
can share with staff, and we have Tony's comments for the next
meeting. Any other comments, questions?
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, you've got three speakers
registered on three separate items. If you're willing, we'll just go
ahead and call those speakers.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Sure.
MR. GOCHENAUR: I have a comment, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: On which issue?
MR. GOCHENAUR: I'd just like to clarify one statement that
the gentleman just made. For the record, Ross Gochenaur,
planning services. This amendment was drafted by staff. It was
not drafted by Mr. Scofield.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: And I think everybody up here, you
know, recognizes that.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And besides, if Rocky did it, it
would be really good.
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June 6, 2001
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, your next speaker would be Ed
Fullmer to speak on the Goodland item, 2.2.34. CHAIRMAN CARTER: Page?
MR. OLLIFF: I knew you'd ask me that.
MS. MURRAY: Fifty-seven.
MR. OLLIFF: Fifty-seven. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you.
MR. FULLMER: My name is Edward J. Fullmer, president of
the Goodland Civic Association. I signed up earlier tonight to
thank staff and the commissioners for authorizing the overlay of
Goodland. It's been a very trying three years, and we're up --
coming up to the final meeting. But I noticed when I got here
tonight the fax that I got on the 30th has changed tonight, so
there's a few things that I'd like to go over with you so we can
get them clarified.
On the original page here, on page 43 and down on the bottom
it says 57, the fax that I got from Ray Bellows on the 30th, for
"reason," it seems that between the 30th and tonight was added
(as read): "Furthermore, any new subdivision on the remaining
vacant lot will allow lots that reflect the currently plotted RSF-4
lots." I'd like an explanation on that. Does that mean the rest of
the lots in Goodland that are registered RSF-4 will need the
hundred by a hundred in order to build a home on there?
Because what we're doing was trying to conform the lots that are
there now in -- case of a hurricane, that we could rebuild back on
them the way they are. So this was added here, and I don't know
what it's for.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Mr. Fullmer, just a second. I think Ms.
Strudent -- Strident -- Marjorie, answer the question.
MS. STUDENT: I made some changes to it, but not to affect
the substance. I was trying to clarify it. I'm not sure if that's one
of the changes. But, Ed, I'll be happy to meet with you before the
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June 6, 2001
next meeting and talk about it. Okay, Marjorie.
It wasn't intended to change anything
MR. FULLMER:
MS. STUDENT:
substantive.
MR. FULLMER:
Thank you. Okay. And then on -- one more
thing we have here, on 2.2.34.2, listed underneath of it it says --
I'm sorry. It's 2.2.34.6.1, "Property owners within the VR and RSF-
4 zoning districts may store or display fishing equipment (crab
traps, anchors, and other similar equipment) in," it says, "any
yard subject to the following conditions." We'd like to have that
changed to "their yard." I don't know what "any yard" means. It
sounds like somebody else's property or something.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: We're coming over to your place, Ed.
MR. FULLMER: Well, we just had that done in commercial. I
mean, it's pretty important.
Okay. On -- under A, again, the storage of fishing related
equipment is allowed only in association with that property
owner's fishing related business. We would like "that property
owner" inserted in there because "with a fishing related
business," he could be leasing property. We don't want it
leasing. We want it for the people that are fishermen down there
now to be able to use their property the way they've been using it
for the last 50 years.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: But if they're leasing the
property, would they be exempted from doing it if they've been
there for 50 years?
MR. FULLMER: As far as we know, there's nobody leasing
the property in VR or RV (sic). There's people there leasing
commercial now for it, but there's not in the VR or the RS (sic}.
There's people that's been down there like Frog and Old Man --
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Kirkwood? Kirkland?
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Marjorie, what do you think?
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June 6, 2001
MS. STUDENT: I need to -- and I can talk to --
MR. FULLMER: -- that's been there for years that we don't
want to stop their business because they're in VR or RSF-4. We
want them to continue, and that's just a few things.
And, again, I'd like to say I thank you's very much for all the
help you's been in the last three years, and for staff. And I will
meet with Marjorie. I'll be up here Friday, and I'll meet with
Marjorie on Friday.
MS. STUDENT: I just have a concern. I don't know if that
was one of my changes or not, but treating somebody that leases
property different than a person that owns it for a purpose like
that, we may have a equal protection problem, because you have
to have a rational basis when -- to the public health, safety, and
welfare when you make those kinds of distinctions, and I just
want to put that on the record. It's a legal thing, and we want to
make sure we stay within those parameters.
MR. FULLMER: Okay. I notice on the -- at the zoning -- I
mean, at the planning board there's a note on here about
"however, require fencing around personal vehicle and
equipment," but I can't find it anywhere in the writing where that
refers to. I noticed it last month when I was here also, but the
meeting was so late at the planning board, I left. But I can check
it over with Marjorie when I come up on Friday, and get it over
with.
Otherwise, from the village of Goodland, we say thank you,
and we think you're doing a great job.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Thank you, sir.
MR. OLLIFF: Next speaker is -- and I'm not sure she's still
here -- Kathleen Avalone. Nope. She's gone.
The next speaker is Tim Hancock.
MR. HANCOCK: Good evening, Mr. Chairman, Colonel,
Commissioners, Tim Hancock with Vanasse & Daylor and also
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June 6, 2001
representing a host of formerly fired county commissioners. It's
easier than you think, Jim, trust me.
I'm here to talk about C-4 zoning district. The Planning
Commission recommendation on this I'm in agreement with. The
Development Services Advisory Committee is in agreement with.
However, one thing the Planning Commission requested is that I
work with staff in developing some additional language on,
particularly, the issue of motor freight transportation and
warehousing. I don't want to chew up too much of your time.
In fairness to Ms. Murray, I handed her language today
because I've been out of pocket since Wednesday's meeting, and
she has not really had ample time to review it. I'd be more than
happy to go over it quickly with you. If you wish to table it and
let me work with Ms. Murray in the meantime on any concerns
she might have and come back to you at your next hearing, that
would be fine in the interest of the hour. I'll leave that to you.
COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: I like that plan.
MS. MURRAY: I'd prefer that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Works for me.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I'd like some discussion on this
one. Motor freight transportation in C-47 Can you explain that to
me?
MS. MURRAY: It's basically describing your mini- and self-
storage -- air-conditioned mini- and self-storage warehousing
only. That's the classification under which it's listed, but if you'll
see the caveat after that, 4225 should only refer to self-storage.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: There is -- is self-storage
allowed in C-47
MS. MURRAY: Not currently. This is an amendment to allow
self-storage.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Self-storage. You know, we
really need to take a look at the -- in my opinion, the C-4 here in
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June 6, 2001
Collier County and the locations and see if it's what -- if it fits the
community character. I have real concerns with this one. So I'm
I suggest--
I'd like to know the overall
going to be taking a look at that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: Yeah.
implications of that.
MS. MURRAY: Certainly.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: But, you know, you haven't had a
chance to see what Mr. Hancock has written up, and let's come
back and revisit that and flag it for the next meeting. MS. MURRAY: Very good.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, that's all your registered
speakers. Ms. Murray or Mr. Dunnuck, is there anything else we
need to get on the record for this evening?
MS. MURRAY: I don't believe there is. Everything else is
relatively benign, and I'd be happy to go through --
MR. OLLIFF: Ms. Student has some closing comments, Mr.
Chairman.
MS. STUDENT: I just have to make one comment on the
rooster amendment. As it's currently drafted, it's constitutionally
overbroad, and I have some language to tailor it, narrowly tailor it
to achieve the purpose.
(Several speakers at once.)
MS. STUDENT: And I'll bring that back next meeting.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: And the roosters, the problem is
the fact that you have people raising them for fighting cocks.
They get 50 of them together in one spot in a residential area of
the estates, and the things go crazy all night long. In the early
morning hours, you can hear them for blocks. It drives the
people out of their minds. They get animal control down there.
They address the situation. They just ship them someplace else -
- to a friend, a relative, or a neighbor -- and they bring them back
again in a short time. So that's the reason for this particular
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June 6, 2001
ordinance change.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Commissioner Coletta, it's not
just in the estates, and I can assure you of that.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: It happens in Golden Gate City
too. Okay. I didn't realize that.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: It's time for a rooster hunt.
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, at close we need to announce
the next public hearing, which is June 20th at 5:05 in this same
chamber. And with that, I believe we've done all the business we
need to do here.
CHAIRMAN CARTER: All right. Thank you. We stand
adjourned.
Page 147
June 6, 2001
There being no further business for the good of the County,
the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 10:21 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DIS~DER ITS CONTROL
JAMES'. C~RTER, Ph.D., CHAIRMAN
AT, rEST: .* .
DwIGHTE.. BROCK, CLERK
A::est as to Chairman'S
signature
These minutes approved by the Board on
presented c-~ or as corrected
, as
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT
REPORTING, INC., BY BARBARA DRESCHER, NOTARY PUBLIC
Page 148