BCC Minutes 04/24/2002 W (LDC Workshop - Sunsetting PUDs)April 24, 2002
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
COLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE,
PUBLIC HEARING SPRING CYCLE WORKSHOP,
Naples, Florida, April 24, 2002
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County Commissioners,
in and for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on
this date at 9:00 a.m., at County Commission Meeting Room, 3301 Tamiami
Trail East, Naples, Florida, with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN:
JIM COLETTA
DONNA FIALA
FRED COYLE
TOM HENNING
ABSENT:
JAMES D.
ALSO PRESENT: Tom Olliff, County Manager
CARTER
Joseph Schmitt, Commuinty Development
Administrator
Patrick White, Assistant County Attorney
Marjorie Student, Assistant County Attorney
Jim Mudd, Assistant County Manager
Susan Murray, Planning Services Department
Page 1
COLLIER COUNTY
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
AGENDA
April 24, 2002
LDC/BCC Spring Cycle Workshop
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.
COLLIER COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. 99-22 REQUIRES THAT ALL LOBBYISTS SHALL,
BEFORE ENGAGING IN ANY LOBBYING ACTIVITIES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
TO, ADDRESSING THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS), REGISTER WITH
THE CLERK TO THE BOARD AT THE BOARD MINUTES AND RECORDS
DEPARTMENT. ~
REQUESTS TO ADDRESS THE BOARD ON SUBJECTS WHICH ARE NOT ON THIS
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.
1
April 24, 2002
1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
2. AGENDA AND MINUTES
To receive Board of County Commissioner direction with respect to Sunset
PUD's and the conduct of the Comprehensive Review of the Land
Development Code.
3. ADJOURN
INQUIRIES CONCERNING CHANGES TO THE BOARD'S AGENDA SHOULD BE MADI-
TO THE COUNTY MANAGER'S OFFICE AT 774-8~38~3.
2
April 24, 2002
April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Good morning. Will you all stand for the
Pledge of Allegiance, please. (Pledge of Allegiance)
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Good morning, and welcome to the L.D.C.
Public Hearing Spring Cycle Workshop. Mr. Olliff?
MR. OLLIFF: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. As part of the Board's
strategic planning process, one of the things that the Board picked as one of its
highest priorities was a complete and thorough review of the Land
Development Code and the Growth Management Plan, and I couldn't agree
with the Board any more. A lot of what your staff has been doing over the last
year, frankly two years, has been responding to projects that have been
submitted that in many cases comply with the rules that are within your
Growth Management Plan and within your Land Development Code and yet
are obviously projects that the Board of County Commissioners, neighboring
communities and the community as a whole don't like, and what we have done
is run about and responded to those particular projects trying to find ways in
which we can force the development community to change that development
plan to make it a better project, to try and make it fit in better with the
surrounding communities or to try and see if there is some way that we can
get them to modify intensities or densities or heights or set-backs or whatever
the issue may be. It has put your staff in a position of being the proverbial
boy running around putting his finger in the dike and what the Board has
decided, and I think correctly so, is we need to go back and shore up the dike
and you need to spend some time replastering and restructuring the entire dike
to make sure that when projects come in, they are the kind of project that if
the staff does its job and reviews those in accordance with the rules that are in
place, will be projects that are acceptable to the neighboring communities and
to the community as a whole and to the Board of County Commissioners.
What we are going to do this morning is walk you through what the staff has
taken down as notes over the last particularly six months in terms of Land
Development Code related issues. These are the things that we think we have
heard from you and the schedule that we think the Board wants to see in terms
of sections of the Land Development Code that you want to review.
What we want this morning is dialog. What we're looking for this
Page 2
April 24, 2002
morning is discussion from the Board. There is not a big formal Power Point
presentation today. What we have got in front of you is a list of things that, in
all honesty, Susan has made a list of on a notebook and she has kept listening
to Board hearings on different development projects. These are the things that
we think the Board has had a particular issue with in terms of the Code, and
the things that are the highest priority in the Code for the Board to review.
The other thing that is in front of you is a list of 16 different P.U.D.s, and
these are old P.U.D.s that were approved years ago, have yet to have been
developed, are scheduled to come in front of this Board for a review over the
course of the next several months. They are required to be noticed in advance
of the Board having the opportunity to review them, but prior to the staff
going through a review of the P.U.D.s, we thought it might be advantageous
in a workshop setting to at least look at some of these old P.U.D.s and get a
sense from the Board about some of the major issues and we don't want to get
into the specifics of reviewing individual P.U.D.s this morning.
That's not what we're here for and that's not fair to those people who
own and have gotten the zoning on those properties, but we want to talk in
general policy terms about what kinds of things you want the staff to be
looking at when they're reviewing these old P.U.D.s to make sure that when
we bring those P.U.D.s back to you for review, that we've done our job and
we've done our homework and that we've done the kind of review and can
make the kind of recommendation that you want to see from us. Some of
what that discussion will lead to will drive some of the Land Development
Code changes because if we can put some of the Land Development Code
changes in before we actually sit down and look at some of these, then we will
have codes behind us that will tell us that certain things are required in new
development. The last thing we want to do is walk through a little bit about
the actual P.U.D. process in and of itself because I think that is part of the
Land Development Code and yet it is also a process question, so I think we
have had certain issues. The most recent one that comes to mind is the
Goodlette ---
MR. SCHMITT: Goodlette Comers.
MR. OLLIFF: Goodlette Comers P.U.D. at the comer of Goodlette and
Pine Ridge Road. That particular project, we got down to a level of
Page 3
April 24, 2002
discussion, of detailed discussion, on that P.U.D. that we have not done
before, and yet I think in certain instances the Board would like to see that
level of detail discussion when we have certain P.U.D.s, so we need to talk
about that P.U.D. process and how to amend it to make the Board comfortable
with the P.U.D. process in whole. There may be certain P.U.D.s that don't
require that level of detail, there probably are some that do. Our current Land
Development Code does not provide a system for that. It provides for a very
generic, broad, conceptual look at all P.U.D.s, regardless of their size,
regardless of their location. So those are the things that we wanted to cover
with you this morning.
The one thing that I want to start out the meeting with, though, is
encourage you to think, to talk, to let us know what it is that you want. We
want to produce a Land Development Code review cycle in a final document
to reflect what this Board wants. I think you've heard enough from the
community to be able to tell us what the community wants, and so hopefully
this is the meat of the next year, this is what I think where the rubber meets
the road and where you can really have an impact on how this community will
look, feel and develop from this point forward. With that, unless you have
any questions of me ---
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. In here it states that we were giving
them six months in order to bring their P.U.D. up to or to renew their P.U.D.,
whatever, these ones that are very, very old. The thing is if we don't have the
new Land Development Code in place, couldn't they rush in and renew in the
old standards, which certainly need updating as we are changing around and
taking a new more responsible and sensible look at growth, wouldn't we want
to make sure that we have that Land Development Code in place before we
encourage them to come in and upgrade their P.U.D.?
MR. OLLIFF: Yes and no. I will tell you that every time you change a
code, especially if you are going to make a substantive change to the code,
there is always going to be that opportunity of somebody who is out there to
rush in and try and beat the change. We have seen it over and over and over
again right up to and including the most recent changes in the state building
code. One of the things that we will suggest to you is that we have removed
Page 4
April 24, 2002
the limited number of opportunities the Board has to amend the Land
Development Code, so my suggestion to you this morning is that you look at
this as an opportunity to be able to almost in a continual basis over the course
of the next year, let's amend sections, and that's part of the reason we want to
talk to you this morning, is we want to know priority-wise what do we need to
get to first. Let's go ahead and get to that. Let's amend it and keep working
on the rest of it while we're amending that one and putting it in place. So we
don't have to wait until we decide what are the full package of the
amendments that we want in the Land Development Code, we need to decide
what are the priorities and, frankly, I think it's a good point to recognize in
your priorities which ones are going to affect a lot of these old P.U.D.s that
are coming in for review and maybe those need to be number one, number
two and number three on the list.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: We have a sunsetting date for all these
P.U.D.s and it has passed by several years in many cases. Exactly what does
the Code say with respect to sunsetting?
MR. SCHMITT: Commissioner-_ Joe Schmitt for the record -- I think
we're going to give a presentation and I believe with that you'll get a better
understanding of the process and we'll answer that question, but how about if
we just try and go through the process first so you understand what it is and
then we'll address the questions there because that's where we're going to kind
of want some guidance as well as we go through that process, and that was the
first part of the agenda.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA.. Good point, Mr. Schmitt. I think that
possibly we might want to take notes as we are going through the
presentation. When the part of the presentation is finished, then we can come
back with our questions.
MR. SCHMITT: And I would hope we would delve into just those type
of questions so you get a clear understanding and we get some guidance as to
how, because this will come back as a formal presentation to the Board. As
you are well aware, today's meeting we can't adjudicate anything, we have to
come back and make that presentation and provide the petitioner an
opportunity or the applicant an opportunity to petition as well. So, Susan ---
Page 5
April 24, 2002
MS. MURRAY: Good morning. I'm Susan Murray, Interim Planning
Services Department Director. I just wanted to give you a brief overview of
the development review process just so it would help you keep everything
we're discussing today in perspective in terms of the chain of events that
happen when an individual comes in and wants to develop their property. I'll
take about two minutes to do that and then I'm going to introduce Kay
Desellum, and she's going to talk through the P.U.D. sunsets and the P.U.D.
sunsetting process and give you an overview of what those regulations state
today, how they impact P.U.D.s today versus how they impact P.U.D.s that
were adopted before the most recent legislative change pursuant to P.U.D.
sunsetting.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Susan, before you begin, when you go
through this, can you give us the time flame of how long it takes for each
item?
MS. MURRAY: Sure.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: I have that, actually, on two slides but not on this one,
so 11 just start. This is kind of the overview slide itself. As you will see here,
basically you start out with the rezoning process. As a preface to that,
sometimes you will go through the Growth Management Plan amendment
process or you'll amend the Future Land Use Map. That process and the
rezoning process are the opportunities that the public currently has to part and
give their input via public hearing on the future development of land, which is
the subject of whatever you're discussing at the time. So I don't want to
dismiss the G.M.P. process. It's just something that you don't see that often.
Most of the land here through the Z.R.O. process, back when the comp. plan
was originally adopted, was rezoned to allow or -- I'm sorry, Future Land Use
Map was amended to allow where you wanted commercial development to
occur such as major intersections, et cetera, et cetera.
So a lot of that was handled through the Z.R.O. process and when the
comp. plan was originally adopted. You don't see a lot of Growth
Management Plan amendments other than the ones that are submitted by
individuals.
MR. OLLIFF: The Z.R.O. process is the zoning re-evaluation process
Page 6
April 24, 2002
that when the comp. plan was originally adopted, the Board at the time, with
the best of intentions, was going to go try and take a lot of the strip zoning that
was in the county and down-zone it. It didn't work. When they went through
the process, they put so many amendments and exceptions in that, frankly, I'm
not sure that we didn't end up with more commercial zoning at the end of that
process and it was a long and painful process, but we ended up with a Growth
Management Plan that ended up with a lot of where commercial can go and
where it can't go and that sort of thing. That's what she's saying. In the
rezoning process, if you already have a comp. plan that says you can put
commercial zoning here, you don't need to go through a comp. plan
amendment, but if you're going to do like the Eckerds that was on the corner
of Santa Barbara and Golden Gate Parkway, there was a proposal to put a
drugstore on that northwest corner of that intersection, that required a comp.
plan that was a full year process before they could ever get to the rezone
process.
MS. MURRAY: Starting with the rezoning process, again, you are all
familiar with the rezoning process, it involves public hearings before the
Planning Commission and before you before it can be approved. Then you
have the site plan and plat review process which is primarily an administrative
process with the exception of the plat process, the final plats come before you
for approval. Carrying you through the administrative process, you have
engineering inspection, building permit review, building inspections and then
a certificate of occupancy would be issued. That's a very quick rundown of the
process.
MR. OLLIFF: But, again, I am gonna jump in here because I can't help
it. The idea behind this entire development review process, and there is where
the Board needs to think about this, is the rezoning process.
The way it is set up in this county today is one that is a conceptual level
of approval here, and it's a conceptual in terms of does the kind of
development that the petitioner is proposing make sense in this particular area,
in terms of the number of houses, the amount of commercial, and that's really
it. The Board is not, under our development review process, making decisions
about does the point of access and adjacency to the intersection make sense, or
does this building height make sense, or those set backs make sense. Those
Page 7
April 24, 2002
issues, under our process, are administratively decided processes under site
plan review and the plat review process and are not ones that are usually or
supposed to be included in the rezone process here. So that a lot of the
community gets a misconception about what the Board is doing when you're
reviewing and approving rezonings and they think that someone who get a
rezone here can walk out tomorrow and pull building permits and start
building things and that's not the case. What you're doing is approving a
conceptual idea that, yes, on a conceptual basis, that kind of development in
that particular area of our community makes sense or doesn't make sense, and
that's really the decision you are making.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: While you are talking about that -- I'm
sorry, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Yes, if you would, please, Commissioner
Henning. Go ahead now.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Thanks. Can you explain the adequate
public facility certificate also?
MS. MURRAY: I may defer a little bit.
MR. SCHMITT: I think Patrick --- MS. MURRAY: If Patrick might
help me out a little bit with that.
MR. SCHMITT: He's been researching that.
MR. WHITE: The relationship between zoning -- Assistant County
Attorney Patrick White -- and the C.O.A. process is minimal. The point of
which certificates of adequate public facilities become relevant begins at site
development plan or final subdivision plat, specifically. In particular, based
upon the deletion of a provision back in January by this Board, and as a result,
the place in the development cycle where you start to see the monies that are
results of those certificates being issued is most typically in building permit.
Most folks go the route of giving the County a waiver and release, and
essentially under the Code allows them to wait until building permit time to,
one, obtain their building permit approval, or issuance, rather, and also the
certificate.
That's also the point in time in which they pay their impact fees for all of
the various different types of impacts that the project will have. So, what we
are proposing to do, not so much today, but in the very near future is to move
Page 8
April 24, 2002
one of those points of payment, if you will, back further into the land
development cycle, more towards zoning but not as far as zoning. Zoning, it
is almost impossible to know what your impacts and intensities are going to
be so that you could precisely pay the impact fees that are due at the time that
you get your certificate of adequate public facilities. That certificate,
essentially, is your insurance policy that there is capacity for those various
types of infrastructures. Attempting to do that at zoning, one, is so difficult
because it's imprecise in terms of what is actually going to go on the ground.
It's too premature and speculative to know whether anyone would actually be
willing to pay those dollar amounts for impact fees.
It makes a little more sense to have it a little more delayed in the cycle,
more at site development plan or final subdivision plat approval or request,
and then issue a certificate at that point, in particular, perhaps for road impact
fees and that thing. That's the current thinking on what we are moving and it
may not be a complete answer to your question, but I'm willing to address it
further, if you like.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: That's fine. MR. SCHMITT: Can I
take a moment just to make -- I want to make sure that, Commissioner Coyle,
you understand. You asked the question about time and Susan went over this
process. From the rezoning or P.U.D. process to certificate of occupancy, it
sometimes runs almost four years. We are talking about a P.U.D., and that's
where, as Tom said, the public sometimes believes that the Board, by
approving the zoning, has approved the project and that the construction
workers are going to go on site tomorrow to begin construction.
You have approved the zoning and then there is an administrative
process that has to go through, the preliminary site plans and then the site
development plans or the platted surveys or those types of things that have to
be done. From the P.U.D. up to the site development can often be anywhere -
- Susan -- sometimes eight to twelve months from the time you approve the
zoning up to when they walk in the door to have their -- to go through the
preliminary process for the review process and it can be another six to twelve
months before they actually come in with the architectural drawings, building
drawings and go through our building review process and then, of course, get
their building permit to begin construction, which can take anywhere from
Page 9
April 24, 2002
twelve to eighteen months. So you can compress that if in fact the planning
process, if the land planner or the development firm or whomever, they can
compress that if there is a planning that's been implemented to do that, but
normally that process can take anywhere from two to four years from rezoning
to actually having the keys in hand and opening the business.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle. COMMISSIONER
COYLE: You are absolutely right. That is one of the problems that we have
because of the misconception at that point, but ! think that misconception is
caused by the fact that we perform a rezone during the P.U.D. process or as a
result of P.U.D. process.
MR. SCHMITT: That's correct. COMMISSIONER COYLE: And I'll
ask the question, I'm not really sure I want to go there, because I don't know
the impact upon the property owners, but it seems to me that it would be
easier for the public to understand if we could separate those two issues,
rezoning and P.U.D., and I don't know if that's possible. I don't know if it
even makes sense, but it certainly would help resolve one of the problems that
we have with the public perception.
MR. SCHMITT: That's where we're gonna need some of your guidance
because what is happening, as Tom alluded to, like the Goodlette Comers, we
moved, because of public demand, because of the pressure put on, of course,
the elected officials for that specificity, we have moved the specificity that we
normally get in the S.D.P. portion of a project review, that is being pushed
back into the P.U.D. process and, as a result, our Land Development Code
roles aren't there, and somewhat the roles are changing as petitioners come
before the Board to present their project, both to the Planning Commission
and to the Board, where they have to have more specificity because of the
public demand asking for what is it going to be, what are the hours, how tall
will the building be, what color, so we're now putting that pressure onto the
development community to tell us that kind of detail, but that yet is not -- it's
not part of the L.D.C. So there is frustration out there, and one of probably
the hardest things that we're doing is through the architectural review process,
as part of the P.U.D. now, we're getting into that kind of specificity with
architectural review and even landscape review.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Well, I think there is a very different set of
Page 10
April 24, 2002
requirements, if the land owner and petitioner plans on developing the project
and has an idea exactly what they are going to do with it. There are
circumstances, of course, where someone merely wants to get the zoning in
place and gets a P.U.D. approval and then sell the property and let somebody
else develop it. So, in that case, they don't really know what is going to go
there and if it's going to be a ten to 15 or 20 year build out on a particularly
large project, it's almost impossible to specify that up front. Although I would
prefer it, it just seems impractical to me.
And that's the thing I'm struggling with, is trying to separate those two
issues in a way that we can be fair with the land owner, properly inform the
public and make reasonable decision ourselves, and this is a very, very
complex process. Marjorie Student, I think ---
MS. STUDENT: Yes, Commissioners, this is, although I've shared it I
know with Mr. Feder, but haven't, you know, shared it with all staff, but just
some ideas I had about this because I've been working on Collier County's
P.U.D.s since 1989, and when I first saw them I thought, gee, you know, these
are kind of general and so forth, and I think that one of the things that has to
be looked at is the size of the parcel and that maybe a more specific P.U.D.
would be appropriate for a smaller parcel, and then on the larger parcel,
because we have some competing things here, the government needs a plan
and the market, which we have relatively free market and our entire society in
this county, so there is some tension here and the idea with the larger P.U.D.s
that maybe at first they come in with more general, with some specific
language in the P.U.D. that as they know what they're going to do in a
particular phase or phases that they have to come in and amend that P.U.D.
and give us more specifics and each piece of it, as the property owner has an
idea as to the specifics, that they have to come in and amend that and provide
the detail. And that was just an idea and I talked to Mr. Feder about this and
in light of some of the transportation issues and problems that have arisen
with these P.U.D.s. It's just a thought, just throwing it out for consideration
and Planning might wish to address it and shoot it full of holes, but that was
just a thought that I had.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think we're doing a wonderful job here of
hitting different issues, but I want to make sure that the plan for this meeting
Page 11
April 24, 2002
today and the workshop that we're having is following the direction that stays
on course. I'm not too sure at what point in time we should be coming up with
our questions, but I want to hear a full presentation so that we can -- maybe
the answers might be there beforehand. Can you possibly help out by telling -
- helping us out and asking for questions at a specific point in time when you
have finished a full part of the presentation that covers certain specific items
and then we can come back with questions at that time so we're not going to
be repeating the same material over and over again and it follows in logical
order.
MS. MURRAY: Sure.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: This will give you a little overview of the time frame
you were asking for although I think Joe pretty much covered it pretty well.
Again, if you have a Growth Management Plan amendment or usually it
comes in the form of a Future Land Use Map amendment. That takes about a
year. After you have your Growth Management Plan amendment and then
you start the rezoning process and here is kind of the process in a nutshell.
You start out with vacant land, the rezoning application is submitted to the
Development Services, there is a staff review time, approximately ten to
twelve weeks, depending upon the nature of impacts to the environment it
may go before the E.A.C. and it does go before the Collier County Planning
Commission on and then the Board of County Commissioners.
Your total time frame, right now it's running about six months minimum
to complete just the rezoning process. Again, a lot of that time or some of that
time increased when we took on the responsibility of drafting the P.U.D.
documents and presenting them to you in the form that's acceptable and
recommended by staff, so that did increase some of our time there. Any
questions on that process?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Just a ---
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm sorry, just a fast basic question. With
the rezone, when people come in to rezone for the highest resale value, is that
a right as a property owner or a privilege?
MS. MURRAY: Well, that's not something we really get into analyzing.
Page 12
April 24, 2002
MR. OLLIFF: That's a simple answer. The answer is, no, it is not a
right.
MR. WHITE: It's only a right, Commissioners, for them to ask for it so
long as their application complies with the Code. If you will, the privilege
aspect of it is the manner and means by which through the quasi judicial
process the ultimate decision is reached. There is no guarantee that merely
because you asked for it you receive what you are requesting.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
MS. MURRAY: Let me stress to you, you know, during the rezoning
process, this is not a -- the rezoning process is not a permitting process. There
is no vested rights in zoning.
This is basically, as Tom outlined, it's a conceptual process. It says
basically, here's a list and in the case of a P.U.D. or a straight rezoning, here is
a list of permitted uses that could be established on this property and
developed under this set of development criteria or standards which are either
outlined in the L.D.C. or the P.U.D. or really the P.U.D. because P.U.D.
works in conjunction with the L.D.C. as well. I just wanted to make that
clear. After your rezoning process you start getting into the site development
plan process and I did give this to you in a hand-out because it's a little more
detailed, so if you want to follow along. Again, the site development plan
review process, now here you're getting into the administrative review process
and away from Board approval, and this is all handled through our staff in
conjunction with the other departments in the county that have jurisdiction
over the various reviews that we do.
Joe kind of outlined the time frame and it's very variable because a lot of
it depends on the time it takes an applicant to resubmit plans to us for review
after we have conducted our initial review.
Part of the time -- and let me back up and go to the beginning -- part of
the time is a processing time frame where we have a pre-application meeting
with the applicant. We sit down, we look at conceptually what they want to
do, we invite other members of departments, that's bio-engineering,
environmental, architectural, landscape and planning involved. We have a
pre-application meeting and then a period of time goes on and the applicant
makes their submittal. The submittal is reviewed for sufficiency, it's
Page 13
April 24, 2002
distributed and the review process begins. The review process is taking about
18 business days, probably a little bit more now, and again it really depends
on the plans as they were submitted. If they're clear, if they submitted all the
required information. Our L.D.C. outlines in detail every bit of information
that the applicant is required to submit, and those plans are reviewed, then, for
compliance with the various sections of the Land Development Code by the
various reviewing entities, engineering, planning, bio, stormwater, all of that.
So they're all encompassed in one review process. When that review
process is completed, again, hopefully after 18 business days, the comments
are sent out to the applicant, at which point they have the opportunity to re-
submit their plans in response to the comments and the plans are re-reviewed.
So, this cycle, on average, we're seeing about four to five reviews, which
means four to five re-submittals. Every time we review it, send out
comments, applicant resubmits, we re-review it, send out comments again, re-
submit. You finally get to a point where the plans are consistent with the code
and permitting requirements and then they can proceed through the approval
process, and then that becomes again more of an administrative process in
terms of processing. We have some site plans that have been in for over a
year. We have some site plans that are approved within four to six months.
It's variable. Any questions about that? (No response.)
MS. MURRAY: Just to give you an idea of howmany site plans we
process, and I took data from 2001because I have a complete year's worth of
data.
S.D.P. stands for Site Development Plan, and these are just submittals.
These don't include the site plans we had in the works from the previous year
that may have not -- we may have not completed the reviews on. In 2001, we
had 1,173 site plans submitted to us for review. S.D.P.A., the next line, stands
for Site Development Plan Amendment, so whenever somebody wants to
change something on a plan they have to come back through and that's called
a Site Development Plan Amendment process, and in 2001 we received 644,
and then bottom line S.D.P.I., stands for insubstantial change. The code spells
out criteria based upon the type of change that you want to make to the site
plan and then sends you through a different process and then 2001 we
Page 14
April 24, 2002
received 1,538. So, I didn't add that up in total, but that's well over 3000, I
think, in one year.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And you're understaffed.
MS. MURRAY: That's just site plans. That's not all the P.U.D.
rezoning petitions and all the variance applications and the conditional uses
and all that. That's just administrative site plan review, doesn't include the
other various permits that we issue, which total I think close to 70 in total for
all of our land use petitions, all of our administrative review processes and all
of our permits between us and the engineering departments. MR. SCHMITT:
And if I could make a comment here just so you understand, if the public
wants to be a part of that process, you can see the kind of administrative
burden that creates. It's 3000 presentations, so to speak, just in the site
development process but we know that's where the hot button is, that's where
the public wants the specificity as to size, set backs, shapes, architectural
themes, and as I just want to make sure that we were all clear that that is the
administrative process, that tends now to be more of what the public wants as
part of their processing and this is one where we be careful what we ask for or
we may get it.
MS. STUDENT: I would just like to observe, again, by way of
background, that -- and I hate to talk about up north, but where ! originally
came from, site plans are done through a public hearing, but bear in mind that
those are municipalities and they are smaller than a county. They typically
have -- where I originally came from, the county I came from, there were 18
municipalities in that county and a county up north does not do any zoning
work because what might look like it's out in the country and unincorporated
is really part of a township, which is considered a municipality, so when you
look at another model and say, well, thus and so local government, you know,
has a public hearing for that, it's helpful to look at -- and some cities in Florida
do this -- it's helpful to look at whether it's a city or county because city just
by limitations on size and so forth is going to have less of these facts. But I
think the Board can understand if we had 3,000 agenda items, over and above
what we already have in the system, and public input on all those, we'd
probably be having public hearings 24 hours a day, 24/7, so ---
MS. MURRAY: Just to kind of dove tail on that, keep in mind that
Page 15
April 24, 2002
when you're going through a rezoning process versus a site development
review process, you are really dealing with a lot of different issues and as you
get into the site plan review process, the level of detail increases dramatically,
so we're looking at, I mean, very high level of detail at the site development
plan review process and, as you can see, I mean, I've outlined here all the
various reviewing entities that are responsible for their area of expertise and
the plan review process and, trust me, current planning's level of detail alone
is enormous and you've got the same, almost the same level of detail for most
of those other reviewing entities as well. In your rezoning process, I mean,
you're really looking at conceptual types of issues. You are looking at
compatibility type of issues, you are looking at consistency with the Growth
Management Plan, comparability to the neighborhood and very general and
broad terms. This may or may not be of interest to you. It's just kind of an
outline of our fees. I won't go over each and every one. I did hand it out to
you. It just basically talks about what we charge for each process. If you
have any questions about it, I would be happy to answer it.
MR. WHITE: I think it's important to note if you were going to go
ahead and contemplate the idea that you have public hearings or any kind of a
process like that for site development plan review, there is a number of issues.
Certainly, those are things that courts most recently in Charlotte County have
told them where they had a committee type review for site development plans,
that that was something that was subject to the Sunshine and, of course, there
is all the attendant administrative costs for notice and public hearing,
advertising, that are required and these types of fees would have to be
increased correspondingly. So there is that additional burden to the applicant
as well, and there is any number of ways that this process could be amended,
our current process could be amended. I know we have contemplated the
notion of a hearing examiner over the past couple of years. Certainly, in
Charlotte, one of the things that they have contemplated doing is having, for
example, the hearing examiner program they're developing actually consider
the review and recommendation of their plats. Assuming, based upon this
most recent litigation that they're giving consideration to a similar process
with respect to their site development plan review, rather than have a
committee, per se, they may have one individual or a number of individuals
Page 16
April 24, 2002
actually make recommendations and if they are not something that the
adjacent property owners, the neighbors, or the applicants themselves are
satisfied with, there would be a right of review, perhaps something similar to
our B.P.A.
So there are any number of ways that we could creatively redesign the
process. The idea is that we need to understand what the parameters are, what
the effect would be upon both your staff and what the legal risks are as well as
what the impact to the community would be.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Getting back to specificity on certain
P.U.D.s or, I think the Goodlette Comers was a great exercise. I think we do
need specificity in the commercial rezones or P.U.D. mixed uses is smart
growth, but I don't want to discourage that element and hopefully encourage
mixed uses, but I also think if it is serving the motoring public, we need to
know and the community needs to know what that type of commercial is
going to be. But as far as P.U.D. process, for like kind P.U.D.s as a neighbor,
I don't think that we need to get into that specificity. I think that's where you
guys, through the S.D.P. process, is you are the experts and that's what you're
there for.
MR. OLLIFF: And I think that's a great point. What the challenge will
be, I believe, in the revised P.U.D. discussions that we have is recognizing
that within the number of P.U.D.s and the number of S.D.P.s that this county
reviews over the course of a year, that they all encompass all of these within a
circle and how we cut out the ones that need to have the additional level of
detailed discussion in this room, that's going to be the challenge on figuring
out which ones we need to talk about and deciding which ones we really don't
need to talk about because, like Joe pointed out, if you want to go through
3,000 of them, I think we have drawn too big of a circle, you know, but we
need to figure out a way and it's either going to be by size or a process like
Marjorie here has determined where on a bigger project ultimate phases have
to come back for more specified discussion or whether it's based on use or
whether it's based on surrounding properties. You know, there is a number of
different ways to be able to carve the ones out that are going to be in here with
some additional detail, but it's obvious to us you want some additional detail
Page 17
April 24, 2002
on some of them and we need, when we get to the P.U.D., the actual specific
P.U.D. amendment to the Land Development Code, we need to have some
discussion about just generally is that a true statement and then what do you
think we need to have in an L.D.C. amendment for you to review.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I personally like the way Commissioner
Coyle handled the uses for the Goodlette -- what was the name of that?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Goodlette Corners.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Goodlette Comers. I thought that was an
excellent approach and I think that's the direction you are going to find -- I
may be wrong, speaking one commissioner -- I think you are going to find
that's going to be a direction we'd like to explore further as we get into this
process.
MR. OLLIFF: I agree, and just recognize on that particular one, we got
down to talking about whether the fish were going to be in a dumpster for
how many days in the back of that project, and that's probably a reasonable
discussion to have for certain projects, but when you're talking about perhaps
a 2,000 acre multi-family, single-family golf course community, they're not
going to know whether they're going to have fish in a dumpster anywhere, so I
mean, we've got to be able to -- what we've got is a shoe that doesn't fit all
sizes and we need to come up with some different sizes.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: That's why we are here today.
MR. OLLIFF: Right.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: You are not going to try to get that done
today, are you?
MR. OLLIFF: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
(Laughter)
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Easy, Fred.
MR. WHITE: I think at the top one of the things we brought to you was
the idea that this was intended to be a little less structured than some of the
prior workshops you have received and so the exchange of ideas, although it's
following a format and a time line, certainly at certain points like now, the
idea that the shoe doesn't fit all sizes starts with the notion that a planned unit
development was typically envisioned, I believe, to be the units, dwelling
Page 18
April 24, 2002
units, a type of zoning district that applied to residential developments. We
have now expanded it to fit feet that are commercial, industrial and in
particular mixed uses and so one of the ideas about how to handle planned
development district zoning may be that you set up a set of uses in a
commercial planning development, for example, where you pick a table of
uses from a Chinese menu.
Same thing for industrial, same thing for residential. You have some
specificity up front and you can pick from them for your project, and
depending upon those which you picked your staff can correspondingly
review for the consistency with the comp. plan, compatibility with the
surrounding neighborhood internal to the project and it may be that some
combination of that type of structure, along with the idea of how big it is and
where it is, the notion is that the regional scale, when you look at
development, developments of regional impact, there are thresholds that are
analyzed based upon what the proposed types of uses are, and that types, if
you will, the level of scrutiny that's given by the government agencies. So we
may want to consider a concept such as that as well. Not only just the acreage
but perhaps the proposed intensity of development. Number of square
footage, commercial, how close they may be, for example, to our materials
and collectors that would provide reasonable transportation that would be
necessary for folks to get to.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think Commissioner Coyle was right on the
mark before when he addressed commercial, is one of these that needs a closer
look at, needs to be dissected to the point that we have a very good
understanding what's taking place.
I don't suggest that retail -- excuse me -- residential has to receive the
same kind of criteria because more or less it's a repetitive type of thing that
takes place from one house to the next, but definitely commercial. I'm glad
you brought that forward back a couple meetings ago. It moved everything,
the whole process forward.
MS. MURRAY: Mr. Chairman, I will remind you that we are meeting
with you again a week from this Friday and that's nice that we're meeting so
close because I don't want you to feel pressured today. If we want to have our
-- we have other things to present to you and, like I said, it's very -- I don't
Page 19
April 24, 2002
want to say very unstructured, but it's loose, and if we want to carry forward
this discussion as well in the next week after you have heard everything, had a
little time to think about it, digest it, we'll be back.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: All right. One procedural question to Mr.
Olliff. I notice on the agenda we didn't have anything about public comments.
At what point in time are we going to be bringing them forward today?
MR. OLLIFF: Typically, in the workshops, Mr. Chairman, you provide
an opportunity at the end of the workshop, if you did, for public comments, so
I would, if you want to remain consistent with your workshop process in the
past, that's what we would recommend.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: All right. I appreciate that. I just want to
mention we are very fortunate that we do have some people in the audience
today that have an interest in this and, if you would like to speak, if you would
you fill out a form and turn it in up front, you have plenty of time to do it.
We would like to hear from anyone that would care to comment. MR. COYLE: 6:00 p.m.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: With respect to guidance, I would like to
discuss this issue of specificity. It seems to me that it's important for the
public, it's important for the government and it's important for the
landowner/developer for a number of reasons.
It's only with some degree of specificity that we can do the appropriate
planning for infrastructure, and it's essential to me, I think, that we be able to
anticipate what our infrastructure requirements are going to be, sufficiently far
into the future to permit us to go through the lengthy time-consuming and
expensive process of developing the infrastructure, so it is available whenever
the impact is felt. So I would encourage you to try to work on some ways that
we can accomplish that. It does the developer no good if they start with their
development and then we start cutting off permits part way through because
we don't have enough infrastructure there. We have an obligation to do that,
but we also have to establish a sound planning process that will permit us to
do that and, in my mind, it's the lack of specificity of some of these projects
that deprives us of the information necessary to properly plan for that.
Now, I would appreciate, as we go through this process, that we kick
Page 20
April24,2002
this around. We are going to need, I think, substantial input from the property
owners and developers as to how that impacts their ability to proceed with
developments that are in fact a benefit to our community, so it's essential that
we cover all those bases but as a general statement of guidance, I would
appreciate any recommendations you might have with respect to how we can
do that, and you can report on that at the end of this meeting.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I guess we can continue at this point.
MS. MURRAY: Actually, we're not sitting still on that. I mean, we
hear you, we've been hearing you, we've been conducting some research. Not
sure I feel entirely comfortable presenting to you what we have, but we
definitely are working on it. We're not sitting still on that. At this point, I'm
really finished. I wanted to introduce Kay Desellum. She's a principal
planner. She's been here since January. Very productive and important
member of our staff. We're very happy to have her here and she's going to
walk you through the P.U.D. sunsetting process, give you an overview of the
rule change and then bring you up to speed on where we are with sunsetting
P.U.D.s.
MS. DESELLUM: Good morning. As Susan said, I'm Kay Desellum.
I'm happy to be here and I will attempt to explain the P.U.D. sunsetting
process to you.
I know you did have some questions already, so it made me feel wanted
and needed. That was nice. As you're probably aware, in October there was a
change made to the Land Development Code regarding the P.U.D. sunsetting
ordinance. The projects that we'll be bringing forward to you for review
under the sunsetting will be under the older provisions because in that
particular provision that was adopted it was noted that anything that was
approved as a P.U.D. prior to that date would be reviewed for sunsetting
provisions by the older regulations. So, in this instance, the older regulations
are the ones that will prevail. So, P.U.D.s are granted, the Board grants the
rezoning, and hopefully everything goes well, the project gets built and the
P.U.D. stays a P.U.D. If, however, that doesn't occur, and there is some glitch
where development doesn't occur in the timeframe that's anticipated, staff
needs to go back and review that because we've granted some zoning and
some uses that may no longer be appropriate, so there is a sunsetting provision
Page 21
April 24, 2002
in the Land Development Code that requires, under the pre-October
regulations, that the developer put in some portion of the infrastructure and do
some portion of development and that way if that isn't done, it triggers staff to
know that it's time to review it.
Specifically, the owner must, and I roughly -- not quoting, I'm
paraphrasing from the Land Development Code -- the developer must have at
least 15 percent of the gross land area provisions for the infrastructure for that.
That means roads, access roads, utilities, that type of thing. That should be in
place within five years. They're given five years. One main difference
between the old regulations and the new is the timeframe. The previous rule
was five years, the current rule is three years. That's one difference. It's a big
difference because that's an important issue. The next thing that we look at is
-- that has to occur, again, every five years in five year increments, so the first
five years they need to do 15 percent of the infrastructure improvements.
Then within five years they need to do 15 percent more and that continues that
way.
law?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Excuse me, that's the old law, not the new
MS. DESELLUM: This is the old law, and I'm emphasizing this
because the projects that are going to be coming before you for sunsetting are
the ones that were approved and subject to that sunsetting provision.
The next thing they're supposed to do, and this is an and, not an or,
they're supposed to obtain some final development order or some
development approval for at least 15 percent of the dwelling units, if it's
residential, or 30 percent of the gross leasable floor area if it's commercial,
industrial or non-residential, and the owners are required to submit monitoring
plans to show where they are in this process, and that's what we use to glean
the information to determine if they are then subject to sunsetting and indeed
further action. Once they have submitted the information and the monitoring
report and it can be determined by staff that they haVe not met the
requirements noted above, about 15 percent and 30 percent, then there are
three issues that arise. I say three because it's numbered one, two, three in the
Land Development Code, but in actuality one is contingent on another, so
there's two options.
Page 22
April 24, 2002
One option is the Board can grant a two year extension of the P.U.D.
Basically, it gives them two more years to develop under the requirements that
they met originally. The other option that the Board has is to give the
property owner six months to submit an amendment. The third criteria is tied
to the second one, and that is if they don't submit something within that six
months the Board can then initiate rezoning action and that's where we're
coming up to on these. We're going to have to chose between one or two. In
your packet you were given, I hope, a list of P.U.D. sunsetting projects and it's
summary one, because there were 16 projects that were initially reviewed and
determined to be subject to the sunsetting rule in that they hadn't done the
action. You also have, that you got this morning, a map that shows the P.U.D.
developments and in the beautiful pink color is a depiction of the projects that
will be subject of the sunsetting review. Bear in mind that some of the
projects that you'll be seeing in the second round are in Immokalee and this
particular map does not show that area. This morning you were also given a
packet of updated information. It says P.U.D. sunset summary, and in that
packet were some maps and those maps depict each of the listed projects on
that summary sheet one. You will receive summary sheet two next week. We
figured it was easier to divide it into two different things.
And as Susan said, we're not going to get into detail and review each one
of these projects because that's not appropriate to do now. We're just basically
trying to give you an overview of where the projects are and what the issues
might be. I do need to note that Waterford Place, the representative for that
particular development has asked that we not discuss his project today
because he has other projects that are in the second group and it's his intention
to be here on the 3rd so that he can hear any discussion that might revolve
around his particular project. And I am hearing from different property
owners. We did send a courtesy notice out to the property owners to let them
know of the workshop so that they could come if they wanted to and it's nice
to know that my phone has been ringing, so people do care and they are
responding. There have been some issues where some property owners see
their name on here, their project name on here and they're saying, no, wait a
minute, I need more time, I need more time, and they want extensions.
Others, one in particular, the VFW, the property owners didn't even know a
Page 23
April 24, 2002
VFW was on their property and I got faxed letter from them this morning
saying we don't want a VFW, we just want it to be single family residential
like everybody else has around. And that raises an issue, you'll see in the
footnote number two, in that the way the ordinance is currently written, and
the County Attorney's Office can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe
the Board can just jump into initiating a rezoning. You have to give them
either, one, the extension or, two, you need to give them six months to amend
it.
MR. WHITE: Well, I think what it is is that you can require them to, at
the hearing when you consider any one of these specifically, and then can
come in at any point in time thereafter up to six months and, if they fail to
within six months, then the Board can essentially initiate an amendment
process.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Is this the time for questions? So
sunsetting really doesn't mean sunsetting?
MR. WHITE: I believe it does. It's just that, as a typical sunset, from
the time that the sun hits the bottom of the or hits the horizon until the top
clears ---
COMMISSIONER COYLE: It gets dark.
MR. WHITE: There is a time period that takes place, and if you will, in
our process, it is a six month timeframe before that occurs.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: But what I don't understand, though, is
we've had five year time frames for the last ten or fifteen years on some of
these projects and nothing has been done on them and we get to the sunset
provision and now we say we're gonna have some more time to deal with this?
I don't quite understand that process. It seems to me that if the requirements
aren't met, and the requirements should be reasonable, of course, but if the
requirements aren't met over time, that thing should go away, and then if
somebody or a new owner wants to come in and petition for a new P.U.D.,
then that's fine, but the problem, once again, is the complication in planning
for things like this. We have these things hanging over our heads for ten or
fifteen years. We don't know when they're gonna be started and, yes, we can
deny permits if they want to get started, but there's always a perception of
Page 24
April 24, 2002
some kind of vested interests and some are vested and some are not, but it
creates a lot of confusion and consternation, I think, among the public, among
the staff, makes it difficult for us to plan.
It seems to me that when we give somebody a number of years to begin
on a development, the P.U.D., and they don't do it in that period of time, then
it seems to me it expires and I understand that the current code doesn't require
that, but that's at least my personal feeling concerning that. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Ms. Student.
MS. STUDENT: One thing I need to put on the record about sunsetting
is that it cannot automatically expire. We have to have another hearing.
There is law, case law and A.G.A.s about this, they have to have another
hearing to undo the rezone, so in any event, after the specified time period, the
P.U.D. cannot automatically go away, it comes back to you for a rezoning
action to take it away, and the reason for that is because of public notice
requirements.
If it automatically expires, there's no notice to anybody, it's just
automatic, so that's why we at least have to have another hearing, and I just
wanted to put that on the record.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Wait a minute. I can't think of better
public notice than to say to someone, you've got 15 years to get this thing
started. If you haven't done it in 15 years, it goes away. That's as clear public
notice as I can imagine.
MS. STUDENT: Well, sir, there's no notice to surrounding property
owners and so forth, that they wouldn't, after that time period, necessarily
know. I'm not arguing with the concept at all, after a certain amount of time it
goes away, we just have to have another public hearing. That's all. And
there's law about that.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: But then the problem arises, we'll have
another public hearing and our Land Development Code apparently permits
the petitioner to come in and say, okay, I haven't done anything for ten years
on this property, but I want to do something sometime in the next ten years, so
I want this thing renewed. Now, what right do we have to refuse to do that?
MR. WHITE: The Code has now changed as of January, Commissioner,
that the cycle is now three years.
Page 25
April 24, 2002
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Three years.
MR. WHITE: And if you amend any P.U.D., it is subject to the three
years, even if prior to that it was on a five or six year cycle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: But it's a three year review.
MR. WHITE: Yes.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And what I'm looking for is some point in
time where nothing happens, this thing drops off the books, you know, that's
what I'm looking for.
MR. WHITE: As much as we'd like to advise you that not only is that
good public policy and something that's in the best interest of the citizens, we
have to tell you that if you attempt to go that route without providing adequate
procedural due process, I can tell you that some of the folks in this room will
be doing an open face here into the courthouse and filing suit.
MR. OLLIFF: But what I am hearing is if that's the case, then the
Commission at least wants to know what is the minimum public hearing
requirement necessary in order to be able to make that zoning go away.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: That's right, and my guidance would be,
it's not saying, hey, we'll review it every three years and every time you come
here and tell us something new, we'll review it, it will keep getting extended
and extended and extended.
It seems to me that when you tell somebody this approval is valid for a
period of ten years and they don't do anything with it in ten years, you gave
them public notice the day you've approved it.
MR. WHITE: The difficulty with the concept is one that grounds in real
property law which essentially is that once you have granted that set of uses,
they run with the land. They aren't something that's, if you would, indivisible
except by subsequent government action.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: But a P.U.D. is by definition a
negotiation.
MR. WHITE: I don't want to go that far. I think we are looking to
create more structure in the process so that there is, quote, less negotiation,
and we stay closer to the idea that it's not so much contract zoning but rather
the application of reasonable role under public health, safety, welfare as
concerns this specific property.
Page 26
April 24, 2002
COMMISSIONER COYLE: And one of those rules could be it expires
in ten years or 15 years.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Fred, may I make a suggestion?
MS. STUDENT: As Mr. White stated, you can do that, but we are
running a risk, and a great risk, I fear, of lawsuits that we cannot win and
maybe even damages. And, I mean, it's always you can do, but there are risks
if you do that and that's what we're here, you know, to explain and those risks,
as Mr. White stated ---
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Let me say one thing. I know where you're
going, Fred, and I couldn't agree with you more, but within the framework of
the law, I think the direction we'd like to give staff is that we want this process
shortened to the shortest possible period that we could possibly do it and
remain within the notification laws and the state statutes. I believe that's the
message you're trying to give. I mean, we can't ignore these laws and the last
thing we want to do is have to increase our legal team another 28 people to
start handling a whole mess of lawsuits. Any legal way that we could
possibly do this in the shortest period of time, to be able to remove these
P.U.D.s, I think that's the direction we should be looking for.
MR. SCHMITT: And I think the frustration, as I sense it, if you look at
some of these sunset dates, when you look at '97, '98 --- CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Very much so.
MR. SCHMITT: What obviously that portrays is the staff's failure to
monitor this and make sure that we were on the process and when they reach a
sunset that we notify, and we're gonna do that. We're gonna be coming to you
periodically with even over the next year as we begin to look at those that are
coming up this year to sunset so we have a process to make sure that we keep
track of it, because this shows failure to keep track where we're now going
back and trying and get the ones that we didn't do anything about for the last
three or four years that have already passed their sunsetting days by three or
four years.
MR. OLLIFF: It seems fairly simple, though, I mean, and I guess what
the Commissioner's asking, and I don't understand why this is not a reasonable
approach, that when the P.U.D. is scheduled for review, the Board has three
options, and those options are to continue the P.U.D. as it's currently drafted,
Page 27
April 24, 2002
to direct that amendments be drafted to that P.U.D. or, after hearing that
particular petitioner and the staff at that rehearing decides to downzone that
property in some way, can it not then within 30 days advertising schedule a
rezoning?
MR. WHITE: I believe the minimum time would be whatever it takes to
adequately provide notice to certain -- I think that six months was probably
originally picked as a reasonable time because that seems to be consistent with
the notion a subsequent property owner would develop some plan for rezoning
and submit that to the county within the six month timeframe, and I don't
know this for a fact but I suspect you may hear a public comment that that is
maybe reasonable, maybe too short, maybe too long, whatever the case may
be, as a matter of law, if you could make it a shorthand minimum amount of
time it would take for the Board to come back with the results.
Administrative implications, then, there would be you would have to have
your staff essentially within that same time period do what it takes over a
matter of much longer in order to bring a rezoning forward from the date the
application is filed. We have our, quote, pre-application, public participation
process, C.C.P.C., and then the B.C.C., so there is a time line to that process.
I understand what you're saying, but we have to essentially parallel and
repeat the same process in order to sunset the existing zoning. You essentially
have to rezone.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner ---
MR. WHITE: That's what sunset means, rezone.
CHAIRMAN FIALA: That's exactly what -- the problem I'm having is
if they -- I don't care if it was ten years ago and they applied for a P.U.D. and
they had five years and they've done nothing in ten years, which is way
overdue and we've been too lenient there, if it says it sunsets in five years, I
mean, that's the law. It sunsets in five years. We don't have to do anything.
What we're doing is encouraging, in my opinion, we're encouraging them to
slap down their money so that they can hold some type of P.U.D. in whatever
the rules were then instead of coming up to current rules, which allow us to
address these P.U.D.s more sensibly and guide growth a little bit better than
we've been doing in the past.
I don't see why legally we can't say you sunset, you sunset, period.
Page 28
April 24, 2002
MS. STUDENT: It's because you have to -- it's a rezone and there's a
process for a rezone and rezones, site specific ones, are quasi judicial, so when
you're dealing with a quasi judicial matter, there are certain things that have to
be accorded to the property, and that's procedural due process and that the
decision complies with the essential requirements of law, one of which would
be consistent with the comp. plan and it's based upon competent substantial
evidence. Those are requirements for site specific rezones and you have to get
there by way of having an advertised public hearing or these criteria are not
met. If we come up with a process that's where it's automatic, then we don't
have a public hearing, we don't have advertising and when the lawsuit comes
and we go over to the courthouse to try to defend it where the other side says
there was no procedural due process, no essential requirements -- the essential
requirements of law met, there was no competent substantial evidence because
it was automatic, we can't win that lawsuit.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So, in other words, sunset doesn't mean
sunset at all?
MS. STUDENT: No, it just means you have a process and you go
through a public hearing to sunset it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Boy, do we need to change that around.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, whatever we can legally.
MR. WHITE: Where do you draw the line, time-wise, is up to the
Board.
MS. STUDENT: Right.
MR. WHITE: You could, for example, say that if you have it within the
six months prior to the three year window that we now have to come in and
apply for your P.U.D. or final subdivision plat, that the Board will at the end
of that six months a public hearing and we will begin the rezoning process.
That gives you a, if you will, window during which your staff could begin,
even if it's three months, whenever is a reasonable period of time, that acts as
a trigger to let your staff know and let the property owner know what it is that
the process will be. But the whole notion of the discussion today is to
examine these ideas and try to develop some flexibility in the process that
balances private property rights versus the government's right to regulate for
public health, safety and welfare.
Page 29
April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: What we are going to do, Commissioner
Coyle, I'm going to let you speak next and then the next commissioner go
ahead, make a comment on this. We're going to move forward into it and
then we'll open it back up for questions again later. Commissioner Coyle first.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just one final comment. Under the current
provisions, then, I do not understand why we have any requirements that they
have 15 percent of the infrastructure in place by a certain time. Why have that
at all? They're not obligated to make it, they're not obligated to do it, they can
wait ten, fifteen years and not do any of it and then when we want to do
something about that, we have to have another hearing and, quite frankly,
make up reasons why we want to disapprove it. That seems to be a very
unfair way to approach this thing, because if we approved it five years ago
and no one has made -- met the requirements of the approval now, and we
want to do something about it, we've got to argue with the logic we used five
years ago to approve it in the first place.
So, now, how are we going to disapprove it? We're not gonna
disapprove it, because we don't have the basis for disapproving it and so we'll
approve it again and again and again. It'll just keep going forever and ever.
So it seems to me if we establish requirements for the property owner
and the property owner agrees that those are the requirements up front and
they fail to do it, it seems to me that they violated the provisions of the P.U.D.
approval and we must be fair and give people time, but it seems to me that we
either have requirements or we don't have requirements.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: It appears to me that we are repeating
ourselves up here and you're repeating yourselves down there, and I think that
maybe what would help us get through that process is provide the language of
property rights and the provisions in the Land Development Code on the
sunsetting timeframe and make recommendations how we can change it to
what we want like Commissioner or Mr. Olliff has stated as -- is we want to
shorten it. Now, there is provisions for sunsetting as far as how much
infrastructure that we need. We need to see that so that we understand that. If
you could provide that information to us, that would help us out a lot.
MR. OLLIFF: It sounds to me like the P.U.D. sunsetting processes
Page 30
April 24, 2002
within the Land Development Code are something that needs to be added to
our list of Land Development Code amendments that you want to see and the
direction that I'm getting from you all is that you want to see the minimal
process that the County Attorney's Office can recommend that would allow a
review of the P.U.D. that has not commenced construction or met whatever
criteria we have in terms of proceeding with the original development plan to
be rezone by this Board in as short a time frame as is possible.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I think that that would probably be a very
fair statement of our feelings at this time. MR. OLLIFF: Okay.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Let's continue with the presentation.
MS. DESELLUM: Perhaps to clarify, I will go over the high points of
the differences between what we have now, because some of those properties
have been addressed to some extent, whereas before the requirements were
increments of every five years you had to do something. Now the increments
are every year. It triggers it at three years first, and then you must meet an
increment of development every year and, in addition to that, the definition of
what you must do has changed.
In the old ordinance requirements, you had to have a development order.
Now you have to have substantial commercial or, I'm sorry, physical
development on site. You have to have vertical construction or some kind of
infrastructure and in the case of commercial development, it's both. You have
to have the infrastructure and commercial development. You have to have a
certain amount of residential units physically on site and, like I said, so there
is a difference, it has become more specific than it was before and we do have
a build out date, or a percentage of build out for a non-residential P.U.D. of 75
percent, so you've got something a little bit more measurable, but as we go
through the process and we try to determine what it is you want, as Patrick
White mentioned, there are ways that you can change that as far as I've seen
regulations that require a six month window, like he was talking about. I've
also seen regulations that say, yes, you can extend your P.U.D. X-number of
times but no case can it be extended beyond X-number of years.
So there are other things you can do to put a stop to how far it can go
and staff can look at those things as part of it, and as Mr. Schmitt mentioned,
Page 31
April 24, 2002
we are looking at what's coming up. We looked ahead for the next year
through til May and there are five other cases that will be subject to P.U.D.
sunsetting. It's unlikely that they'll meet the criteria and get that much
development or the requirements for the sunsetting, so we are watching them
and it is our intent to keep on top of that. In total, there are like less than a
hundred acres, probably, but we are watching those and I did want to make a
correction. I had mentioned it was Waterford Estates and it's not Waterford
Estates, it is Myrtle Woods that we're being asked not to review. And there
are some unusual issues that come up in some of these because now like one
portion is now owned by the County and I understand it might actually be a
water retention area or something else that was approved for units. Well, I
don't think we can put units in a water retention area, and those are the things
that, you know, we can look at through the process, but the way it's worded
now, we have to deal with exhausting two options before you can go to option
two, but option two requires the rezoning.
And, like I say, we have 11 listed here and we'll have eight more for you
in the next spring. You have a map that shows you where each one of them is
and you have a detail that tells you the ordinance number.
Some of these have already sought and received extensions and that
information is shown for you, the extent of how big it is, where it is and what
it was approved for is all provided for you, and that gives you some idea what
we're looking at as far as sunsetting and we hope to have those back to you at
the end of May for actual action on those petitions. And I don't have anything
further. If you have any questions.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning, I believe, was ---
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, if we could go to public
speakers, I think that we can ---
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I believe it was going to be towards the end
of the whole presentation. Was that the last presentation? MR. OLLIFF: No, sir. We've got an agenda there.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: We will wait until the end as we normally do
for workshops. And Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just one last observation. When we're
talking about this, I understand there are circumstances beyond the property
Page 32
Apd124,2002
owner's control that could delay them in the process. We need to
accommodate that as we're developing these guidelines, so I believe we must
be reasonable in the application of this.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Why don't we take a short break
here to give the stenographer two minutes to rest her weary fingers. Thank
you. (Short Recess Taken.)
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Ready?
MR. OLLIFF: Mr. Chairman, if you will look on Page 3 of your
agenda package, and maybe we should have started here. COMMISSIONER COYLE: It's too late now.
MR. OLLIFF: It's much too late now. This is the agenda that we are
following. We have just covered one through five on that agenda. We had six
and seven left to cover and if you will flip over in your package to the
stamped Page 14, this is the same page that I highlighted for you at the end of
yesterday's meeting. This is in essence number six on your agenda and the
staff will now go through the proposed L.D.C. amendments and we'll stop at
the end of each one and allow the Board to participate in some discussion and
let us know what, if anything, they think we need for the amendments that we
bring back to you. And the last thing on our agenda is try to get you to
prioritize by telling us what in this list and the ultimate list that gets decided is
number one, number two, number three and try and tell us what is important
to you. Susan just disappeared under the table. There she is.
MS. MURRAY: I just realized I was missing a page. Okay. What I
attempted to do ---
MR. MUDD: This is also on Page 14 of your packet.
MS. MURRAY: What we attempted to do here was, without getting
too, too detailed because there is just a lot of information here, the L.D.C. is
very large and I don't need to give you every page. I just try to outline the
division in sections. I rank them and I put a very brief outline of their
contents and then put a space for you all to rank them and some notes,
whatever, but this was taken, again, over a course of period of time and
listening to you and going through the public hearing process with some of
these rezoning petitions and/or other petitions, listening to your comments and
concerns, priority and attempting to outline that using a ranking system one
Page 33
April 24, 2002
through eleven in a very general form and to give you kind of an overview of
what the sections involve. You'll see the first ranking is the P.U.D. procedure
section and we obviously had a lot of discussion about that today, so that
involves the P.U.D. sunsetting and involves the P.U.D. rezoning process itself,
it involves -- if you wanted to make some changes in terms of the level of
detail that was submitted, that sort of thing, that would be that section that
would be amended. So I made the assumption that that would probably be
your priority as well and put that first on the list. ! also included, just for your
information, a table of contents. If you want a little bit further breakdown as
I'm going along, I'm not gonna get into a lot of details, but if you want the
details, you can look at the table of contents.
The second ranking was given to the remaining sections of 2.7. That has
to do with the variance conditional use process and affordable housing
process.
Third rank was given to Section 2.2. That is the zoning districts, and let
me just stop and say we've been working on this one for a while as well. As
you recall, the last cycle we amended the purpose and intent of all the
commercial zoning districts. We reduced the height, we eliminated height, we
eliminated wedding cake set backs. This cycle starting -- actually, well, it's
already started and tonight's the first public hearing in front of the Planning
Commission, we have taken a look at the list of permitted and conditional uses
and tried to make them consistent with the purpose and intent of the district,
which was amended last cycle. So that section has been kind of ongoing for
quite sometime now, that Section 2.2. Fourth on the list is Section 2.6, which
has to do with the supplemental district regulations and that includes a whole
host of things. It has to do with accessory buildings and structures, exceptions
to require yards, exclusions from height limits, parking and storage of certain
vehicles, guest houses, fences. That's a pretty broad category and we rank that
fourth.
Section 2.1, general zoning regulations, was ranked fifth. Again, that's
kind of a multitude of things. Talks about definitions of groupings of various
districts, prohibited uses and structures, continuation of provisional and
conditional uses, how to amend the code, that sort of thing. The next is
Section 3.3, site development plan process. I put that a little bit behind the
Page 34
April 24, 2002
others ahead of it because amendments to the sections ahead of it are going to
have some impact on this process as well, but I think you're gonna want to tie
in some amendments to that section in terms of what you do with the P.U.D.s
and then what you do with the various sections ranked ahead of it. That's
basically the procedure to submit and S.D.P., have an S.D.P. reviewed, what is
required to be submitted and that sort of thing. Rank number seven, 3.2, is
subdivisions. Rank number eight, 1.8, is the non-conformity section that deals
with non-conforming structures, land or uses and basically a non-conforming
use, for example, is one which was previously permitted under an old zoning
district which may not be permitted now as a result of a code change or what-
not, so that's what non-conforming usually deals with.
Section 1.6, all sections deals a lot with interpretations and that was
ranked ninth. And tenth was all divisions dealing with decision making and
administrative bodies. I didn't see a lot of need for change there, maybe just
some clarification and that sort of thing. Section -- or the last one was
applicability and that deals with Section 1.5, talks about time limits on non-
conforming signs, time limits on previously approved development orders and
non-conforming signs, regulating noise from construction activity, permitted
uses and structures, that sort of thing. So in a very broad sense, I've
categorized what I felt would be your top, actually ended up eleven priorities,
and just looking for some feedback from you as to what, if you agree with
that, if you don't agree with that, if you wanted to switch some of these
around. If you wanted time to think about it, if you wanted us to come back to
you with more detail, I'd be happy to do that next Friday.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning, Commissioner
Coyle and we've got Commissioner Fiala, when you're ready for questions.
MS. MURRAY: I'm ready.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, I just wanted to know if I could
possibly sit down and meet with you sometime in the next few days because,
as I'm looking at all of these things, this is the perfect time for us to implement
some of the changes in the Land Development Code so that we avoid some of
the pitfalls that have occurred in the north end of town, now that the
developers are looking at the East Naples area and saying this is where we're
Page 35
April 24, 2002
gonna go and we've got some outstanding developments on the horizon, but I
wanted to make sure that we have a checkbook in place for all of the
infrastructure, even though I'm welcoming some of these wonderful projects
with open arms that can improve our area, we can't -- we have to make sure
that they don't come in before our infrastructure is in place. And so what I'd
like to do is meet with you and get any guidance I can to make sure that I have
these on the list of Land Development Code amendments that we would like.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I know in the G.M.P. that we have
activities centers listed, but I don't remember seeing in the L.D.C. how they're
supposed to be built. Am I correct?
MS. MURRAY: How they're supposed to be built in ---
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Well, you know, are there standards, in
other words, for service roads, are there standards for setbacks, are there
standards for the limitation of square footage per acres?
MS. MURRAY: Well, the standards are established by the zoning
district, albeit it could be straight zone district - COMMISSIONER HENNING: Right.
MS. MURRAY: -- or it could be a P.U.D., and there are some
guidelines in the Land Development Code that talks about certain types of
P.U.D.s like a business front district, industrial or we've got very specific
when it comes to certain things, but in terms of if you're located in an activity
center, you have to do this, you have to do that. No, I mean, all that's really
directed by all of the various components of the P.U.D. put together in terms
of access management and also the G.M.P. as well.
MR. WHITE: But there is, Commissioners, a specific example that
came forward in the January round of amendments, Section 2.2.35, for
activity center number nine that in effect created a zoning overlay district for
that where those types of regulations, property development regulations were
set forth.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And then I guess what I am asking for
is that we all know the activity centers don't work. I mean, they fail because
of infrastructure or how they were put in and I think that we -- what we need
to do is a collective road, service by collective roads, those types of things,
Page 36
April 24, 2002
you know, and I guess we don't need how many parking spaces depending on
the use, that's you guys' job; correct?
MS. MURRAY: Right, that's part of the Code and that's ---
MR. OLLIFF: It is unless you feel as a policy, when you drive around
the commercial shopping centers that there is not enough or there is too much
parking, then we can look at the standard that the staff reviews in commercial
development spots, and I think, when you start looking at how commercial
development and activity centers develop, if that's an issue, then we need to
highlight that when we go through the P.U.D. procedures, because some of
them come in as P.U.D.s. We need to highlight that when it comes in under
the zoning districts in 2.2 when we start talking about the commercial districts
because some of them come in as straight commercial zoning and we also
need to highlight that under the Site Development Plan regulations because a
lot of the issues that I think we have are Site Development Plan related, so we
need to just make a subnote that commercial development, particularly at
activity centers, is one of the things that this Board wants to look at whenever
ifs applicable in each of these sections.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Correct, and I think that we can change
our landscaping criteria for activity centers and there is things that are going
through the -- that are recommended in the Dover, Cole plan about activity
centers so we need to take a look at those things.
MR. OLLIFF: And to help the Board a little bit, Charlie Goutier was the
chief planner who wrote the sections of our comprehensive plan that are
activity centers. Charlie is now a D.C.A. He's in Tallahassee and he review
the plans that we submit up there. Charlie's idea in this particular case was
very Dover, Cole-ish(phonetic), if you will, for what the activity centers were
supposed to be. They were going to be mixed use with residential and
commercial and interconnecting roadways and service roadways where people
got off of the arterials and the whole idea was if you could put all of the
commercial and the heavy intensity stuff at the maj or intersections and avoid
all the strip development in between, the traffic would flow from intersection
to intersection. When it got to the heavy activities there at the intersection,
they would peel off onto service roads and have interconnected service roads
in between them, they would have affordable housing as part of the
Page 37
April 24, 2002
developments that had activity centers so that people that worked there didn't
have to drive there, they could walk from where they lived right to the work
place. Never happened. What we ended up with was great big boxes of
commercial without service roads and congested intersections and that goes to
how important it is and what actually gets written into these plans in terms of
what then gets reviewed and approved. If that's what we want to see and we
want to see some Dover Cole-ish type activity centers, we have the
opportunity and the ability to write that stuff in there and make it a
requirement. We didn't go that far when we ended up adopting the final
language that's in the comprehensive plan about activity centers. We bit off
about a third of it. We bit off, in my opinion, the bad third of it and we left
the good two-thirds out there on the table somewhere, so when we go through
the comp. plan amendments and some of these land development
amendments, I think there is a ton of opportunity for this Board.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And as far as the G.M.P. goes, and I
know this is not a part of it, but we're talking about activity centers and what
we have, Pine Ridge, what I see is interstate services but it has turned out into
a one big strip commercial, in my opinion, anywhere from Airport Road
almost to Logan Boulevard and I don't think that was the true intent of that
area. And also I want to reserve the right for the Smart Growth Committee to
interject. Whenever we can, we're going to be meeting this afternoon, talking
about smart growth and still bring forward those community character ideas.
MS. MURRAY: I think that's one thing we need to strategize as staff
because we have got smart growth, we have got community character and
we've got your direction to do this comprehensive review of both the G.M.P.
and L.D.C., and I think that we are gonna need to really strategize on how to
combine all of those efforts if that's the direction that you want to give us,
otherwise you're -- we're going to be spending years amending and re-
amending and reviewing and re-reviewing and that's fine. I mean, there is
obviously certain maintenance that's necessary for the L.D.C. on an ongoing
basis and as well as you have state law that requires you to evaluate and
appraise your comprehensive plan every five years, so those are things that are
going to happen anyway, but I think we also need to be thinking about how
we're going to incorporate Dover, Cole and smart growth into this process, if
Page 38
April 24, 2002
that's what you want.
MR. OLLIFF: And what I committed to the horizon committee that's
dealing with community character and smart growth issues is that for all of
these land development code amendments we will cycle those amendments
through that committee first before they get here, so that if there is a series of
recommendations that are coming out of the Dover, Cole report, that they
think you need to recognize or you need to consider as you're looking at
amendments, the committee can make them, so you will hopefully get a Land
Development Code amendment recommendation that will not only include the
staff recommendation but it will include the Community Character/Smart
Growth committees' recommendations as well.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I have a question. I have a question
concerning your rank number four, Section 2.6. It seems to me that there are a
lot of things in Section 2.6 that we're not going to be reviewing, like manatee
protection and fencing and things like that. There are a couple of items like
polling places and workforce housing that are important to be reviewed, so I
question that as being that high a priority for the entire section, 2.6. I can
understand that we might select certain items to be a high priority, but the
remainder are, in my mind, clearly low priority items and shouldn't take
precedence over some of the other more important issues like Site
Development Plan. But I'd just ask that you take a look into that.
MS. MURRAY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Okay.
MS. MURRAY: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Ms. Murray, I do have some comments, too.
I had some questions about the ranking, but I'll be honest with you, I'd like to
have a personal meeting also with you and you may wish to schedule personal
meetings with each commissioner, to go through this and get a feel for the --
they can get a better feel for the rankings. The descriptions were good, but
they're a little vague and I have some personal questions. I switched a couple
numbers around, but I think it would be premature at this point in time for me
to even offer them up for suggestion.
MS. MURRAY: Would you like me to provide you a very detailed
Page 39
April 24, 2002
outline of everything in those sections and rank even within the sections, the
subsections for you or ---
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, I know you're time ---
MS. MURRAY: I just don't want to bombard you with this.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No, I know, and I know your time is limited.
I'll be honest with you, I wish I had more information before this meeting, but
there was enough that we could operate. If I had a choice between the
detailed information and a personal meeting to go over it, if I had to chose
between the two, it would be the personal meeting I'd prefer so we could go
through it and the parts that I'm weak on you could bring me up to speed. If
you already have this information prepared and you don't spend a lot of your
time and staff time to put it together, I would appreciate that also. Any other
questions or comments from anyone?
MS. MURRAY: Is it safe to say that 2.7, the P.U.D. process and
procedures is the first priority? Because we can start working on that now
and, again, we need to come back to you with an outline of a schedule of how
we plan on attacking all these once we determine a priority, but, again, that's
something we can start now or possibly we could get you to take a vote and do
a special cycle sometime before you go on break so that we could get that up
and running as soon as possible, if that's acceptable to you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: In other words, you are asking us to make a
decision at this meeting?
MS. MURRAY: Not at this meeting, no, sir, but maybe at one of your
regularly scheduled meetings we'll put on the agenda for you to take -- as you
recall, the L.D.C. requires I think it's a super majority in order for you to have
the special cycle. We'd like to go ahead and do that so we don't have to wait
for the fall cycle, at least for the P.U.D. process.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I see some heads nodding up and down.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yeah, I like the layout and we can also
interject certain things, I would imagine, under other sections of the L.D.C.
for a tweaking.
MR. SCHMITT: But it is our intent at the workshop a week from Friday
to come with the number one issue first as we've kind of discussed the P.U.D.
procedures and that was going to be the purpose of the next workshop.
Page 4o
April 24, 2002
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I agree with that myself.
MR. SCHMITT: Okay.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning, you got another
point?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: One thing, and I don't know if I'm out
of line in bringing this up for change for the community, but I think it's
important. Commissioner Fiala is working on a noble idea of bringing
workforce into future P.U.D.s. The problem is the County has many P.U.D.s
and great communities that demand work force, you know, cut the grass or
sprinkler system, repair that or the maintenance of the golf course now, those
types of things, those communities that we know that we can't put that type of
workforce housing in because it's already built, but for the welfare of the
community, can we site specifically say this is where we want housing that's
going to be from $95,000 to $143,000, on smaller parcels such as ten to 40
acres, and that would cut down on the need for infrastructure, hopefully, that
we're putting communities near that service each other. So, that's something
that I hope we can think of.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You are talking about owner occupied,
right?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes, when I said that's 95 to 143.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Hopefully we'll leave all options on the table,
but my first run through this, and like I say, I think I'm a little premature, I did
move number two up to number one. I thought that as a top priority. Then,
again, too, I really am looking forward to my meeting with staff.
MR. MUDD: Commissioners, ifI can interject real quick, there is
something on this list that's very apparent that it's not there, and it's Section
3.15, which is adequate public facilities. We are in the process right now of
going through the adequate public facilities for the road process, because the
other ones we pretty much, if you heard earlier, where when they come in for
a plat or they come in with their S.D.P., water, sewer and they provide us the
detailed plan, as we go over that in our checkbook and start taking a look at
what's left, then it comes off that promise capability process. Right now we're
taking a good hard look based upon your direction at roads and how we do
that so we can get them in a checkbook type format. We are doing yeoman's
Page 41
April 24, 2002
work at 3.15 right now and changes to the Growth Management Plan, which
you have to have before you get to that process and we'll have drafts of both
of those the middle of June and we will go for -- and I will meet with each one
of you to tell you the time line of that process that we've got going so it's the
early part of the summer, so that we're raring to go with Land Development
Code changes, in particular for 3.15 in the fall period of time.
But I'd let you know, it wasn't by the staff overlooked it, it's because
we're in the middle of 3.15 right now hot and heavy in order to make those
changes to get adequate public facilities and the checkbook system for roads
input into it.
MS. MURRAY: As well the architectural standards aren't listed on
here. I've got staff members that have formed committees with a group of
architects from the outside and they're going through the review process via
committee, so that's ongoing as well and that's why it wasn't ranked on this
sheet.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Does this conclude staff presentation?
MS. MURRAY: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Why don't we go ahead and move to the
speakers.
MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, right now you have ---
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Well, could you wait until after the public
participation? We'll come back and we'll ask questions. We may have some
more after they make their presentation. We'll roll them all together.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: This wasn't a question, it was a statement.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Go ahead, then, Commissioner Coyle, I'm
happy to accommodate you.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Just one quick clarification with respect to
some of the guidance I was trying to provide earlier. On the sunsetting of
these P.U.D.s, I hope it was implied that we not be unreasonable about this
process and that the P.U.D. sunsetting provisions really don't start until
someone has obtained all of their necessary approvals to begin the work; is
that not the case?
MR. OLLIFF: That's not the case, and I think however, if the property
owner/petitioner has the opportunity to be able to show when he comes in for
Page 42
April 24, 2002
a review that they have continued and have been making a good faith effort --- COMMISSIONER COYLE: But that good faith effort would be
considered -
MR. OLLIFF: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: -- when you review the P.U.D., and if
there is a lawsuit that is clearly not something within the control of the
petitioner, and I don't think they should be held responsible for issues like
that.
MR. OLLIFF: No, and I think that's a decision the Board will make and
as long as the petitioner I think has shown that they have been trying to go
through a process, either through Army Corps, South Florida, Collier County,
whoever it may be, to move that project along, I don't envision any
opportunity where the Board would say no. You know, I think that's the
political decision that the Board needs to make and assuming that the
developer has made a good faith effort, based upon the zoning, to move that
project ahead. That's why you have extension processes, that's why you have
continuations available to you as an option when you review -- it's only for
those that haven't done any real progressive work on that project, the ones
where I see the Board actually going through and taking the aggressive stance
of rezoning that property to something else.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Then maybe during that initial phase of
the P.U.D. sunsetting provision, there would be a definition of what would be
expected, like the application for appropriate permits and things of that nature,
and not the development of the infrastructure on the property.
I can see where some of this permitting can take three or four years.
MR. OLLIFF: I may, but my recommendation to you would be that you
still ought to have that public hearing process where the developer comes and
presents his case as to why there is no infrastructure in place, and I think they
can make a very reasonable argument South Florida hasn't issued the permit,
they can show that they resubmitted three times and I think that's justification
enough.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: But in order to make sure there is not an
arbitrary decision by the Board, that should be written into the procedures.
MR. OLLIFF: Okay.
Page 43
April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Speakers?
MR. MUDD: Mr. Chairman, we have three speakers. The first speaker
is Bob Krasowski, followed by Rich Yovanovich. We'll go with the five
minute rule.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
MR. KRASOWSKI: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Bob
Krasowski, for the record.
I understand these workshops don't require you giving an opportunity for
people to speak, so I thank you for that opportunity.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I believe we are required by law, aren't we,
all public meetings?
MR. OLLIFF: No, sir.
MR. KRASOWSKI: Not in the workshop format.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: In any case, we'll always make this available
to you.
MR. KRASOWSKI: I have the opportunity to say, thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You sure do.
MR. KRASOWSKI: The reason I'm here today is in particular the Land
Development Code and how it applies to an issue I have been involved in, and
I don't know if this is the appropriate meeting to be at but I'm sure Ms. Murray
can direct me when to become involved, but as part of the analysis for the
commercial recycling ordinance, it was identified and is present in one of
these working drafts that we are looking at now, the situation where existing
businesses as part of the L.D.C. requirement have just so much space set up
for dumpsters, for the waste to be collected and that all that space on a given
piece of property is allotted, according to parking requirements or other
requirements in the design of the overall property, so if we are to go with
separate containers for recyclables requirements, even though those
recyclables are taken out of the dumpster that would diminish the size of the
dumpster requirement and then would go into a recycling container and some
businesses would also have a provision for organics, however that works out.
There still might be a requirement for more space in order to enable -- to
manipulate those dumpsters. Also, there is a requirement that businesses have
these dumpster areas fenced in or protected from view so the Land
Page 44
April 24, 2002
Development Code must be modified in some cases in existing businesses to
allow for more space that might encroach on the requirement for parking
spaces. You might have to allow, according to what the county manager
would allow, for exemption to existing businesses to provide them a little
more space, so that's why I'm here, to encourage your attention to that detail
along with what I believe the county manager will be looking for.
MR. OLLIFF: And those requirements are included in the 2.6 section,
the supplemental district regulations and that's number four on your agenda of
the L.D.C. amendments that will be brought forward for discussion.
MR. KRASOWSKI: So that's already included in this process?
MR. OLLIFF: Yes, sir.
MR. KRASOWSKI: Okay, wonderful. Then some other comment, my
ears perked up when I heard the county manager speak of something being
Dover, Cole-ish, you know, and I enjoyed the Dover, Cole approach to the
project they did recently for the County, but I did note at that time that they
didn't give attention to the solid waste aspect of these communities. You
know, I thought a little more attention should be given to that, and what I like
about Dover, Cole was the academic application of design criteria, design
theory application, to helping get resolutions to whatever problems or
circumstances were involved in community development, and as I spoke to
you yesterday, we're looking to accomplish that on the solid waste scheme to
have this, and that offers maybe a little idea as to under whose purview you
might place if you -- if I ever can convince you of this, of a design that maybe
have Dover, Cole, whose already looked into the system, oversee that, that
process, performing and design trend on the solid waste issue.
I'm really into design, design, design, I think that's the answer. It gives
us a good view and answer to everything. This one last thing, this -- what I
heard mentioned earlier about a five year and three year leeway to place
something in regards to planned unit developments, I have heard a number of
times in front of the commissioners speak of people concerned of the lag time
for putting in infrastructure for development and that's like you have your --
you explain it away as having your checkbook process, but it's always -- it's
still unclear to me. Now, I think what they are talking about is different, okay,
so I understand that to be different, but with your checkbook scenario, I think
Page 45
April 24, 2002
what's missing is the fact that we already have a credit card that has a balance
on it, and that -- whose going to pay off that credit card, that is being paid by
everyone and I don't want to pay for, you know, other development, but
thanks again.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Thank you very much, Bob.
MR. KRASOWSKI: Yes.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: If there is anyone else out there that wishes
to speak that hasn't signed up yet, we have the forms in the back of the room
over here. You are more than welcome to submit your name and we'll call
you up also.
MR. MUDD' Next speaker is Rich Yovanovich, followed by David
Ellis. MR. YOVANOVICH: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record,
Rich Yovanovich. I didn't really plan on speaking, I just came to kind of
watch and see what was happening, but I did want to address a few points that
were raised during the staffs presentation regarding the process. I thought it
was interesting that staff pointed out basically that the process from beginning
to rezone to maybe getting a building permit is about a four year process.
The sunsetting provision is three year sunsetting provision, so take the first
step out, which is the rezone, taking about a year, it's about what it really
takes, it takes you three years to get your building permit through the process,
we are already sunsetted before we pulled our building permits, if you go to
an automatic sunsetting.
I was pleased to hear Commissioner Coyle's comments about
intervenors in some of the other process because it's not just the County's
permits that we have to get, we have to get water management district permits,
we've got to get the Corps of Engineers permit and anybody can enter into that
process and challenge the permit and basically drag the process out to where
that three years quickly goes away, and I have had some clients who have had
to live through that process so I'm pleased that we're going to have to a
process where we still review, we come back and if we can show you good
reason why we haven't put the infrastructure in yet, the P.U.D. would stay in
place. I do also want to point out that the P.U.D. many times benefits the
counties because -- the county because there is sometimes required
Page 46
April 24, 2002
dedications, I have set aside some right of way for some very important
roadways and if you were to sunset those P.U.D.s automatically, that
requirement that the right of way be set aside would likewise go away, and I
think there is a, well, yes, it would and the question becomes for the county
attorney's office to answer is what happens if the P.U.D. is approved and the
right of way is dedicated to Collier County, do you have the right to then
sunset the P.U.D.? You basically got the benefit of your bargain, which was
the right of way, so I think there is a lot of things that need to be considered
when we go through the sunsetting analysis as to what is or should not happen
with the sunsetting of P.U.D.s.
I think the County Attorney's Office is absolutely correct. If a property
today it makes sense to rezone it, let's just go a straight zoning. If you go
straight zoning to, let's just say, C-4, there is no sunset. C-4 made sense
today, it makes sense in five years, it makes sense in ten years until you do a
study or an analysis to change it to something else. There is really no
difference between a P.U.D. and C-4 zoning. What the P.U.D. does is it
allows some more flexibility but you still have your minimum set backs, you
still have your maximum height and you still have limited uses. Just because
three years passes doesn't mean that the uses on those properties are not
appropriate at that three year time period, so I would hate to see the policy
decision be that just because you are a P.U.D. the P.U.D. automatically goes
away, just because of the passage of time. I do want to point out, though, a lot
of what was discussed as far as the analysis and the review and the right of the
public to get involved in this process already exists in the Land Development
Code.
There is a process for the public to challenge an administrative approval
and, as I understand it now, basically, and I'm not the most computer literate
person, but you can get on the county's website and you know who's applied
for a site development plan, you know who's applied for a building permit, all
of information is out there so the public is in a better position than they've
ever been to monitor what is happening and to interject themselves into the
administrative process. I would hate to see the planning, the Board of County
Commissioners after you review 1,500 site development plans because you
would be working probably 24 hours a day and you would be here all the
Page 47
April 24, 2002
time, so there is already existing, there is already an existing process out there
and the public needs to be made aware of what that process is. Also, I think
something that has been beneficial is the neighborhood meetings that we do
before we apply for a rezone, because we do tell the public exactly what we
intend to do on the property when we go through our rezoning.
There is a lot of give and take through that process, there is a lot of
information shared with the public, not always -- the public doesn't always
come, but there is nothing we can do about that. We advertise them and we
send notice and, quite candidly, sometimes the public doesn't share with us
what they really want, and I think Goodlette Comers is a good example. It
wasn't that we didn't try to meet with the people and understand that, but we
finally got down in a room to talk about specific uses that may or may not
have been appropriate for that location. It wasn't because we didn't want to
hear it, it just took a while to get that information. I think the process works.
You will see change over time where the applicants are now when we are
doing a P.U.D., you are not going to see a laundry list of S.I.C. codes. You'll
still see S.I.C. codes, but you'll also see a laundry list of things that we don't
want under those S.I.C. codes and that's a process that's already started and is
in place and you will see that change, without even changing the land
development code, you don't need to change the land development code,
we've heard that message loud and clear.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Excuse me, wrap it up, Mr. Yovanovich.
MR. YOVANOVICH: I understand you're meeting again next Friday,
but, again, I just wanted to point out that there already is a process, a good
process and it's important that the commission conveys to the public the
difference between the rezoning hearing and the site planning. It's more of an
educational, I think more of need for getting information out than really
changing the process. And with that, I'll answer any questions you may have.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Mr. Yovanovich, ! disagree with you
on two points. One is on P.U.D. and easements. The land owner came in for
a rezone and we said, well, we need easements to run this road by to service
the community and your community, and if the owner decides that, well, I
don't want to develop it, I think I'll sell it and make tons of money, that
Page 48
April 24, 2002
commitment on the county's part is still there and ---
MR. YOVANOVICH: Which commitment are we talking about?
COMMISSIONER HENN1NG: The commitment of building that road
on an easement to service it for the community, not just that P.U.D.
And those easements are there, and if we are talking about section lines,
they are there anyway; correct?
MR. YOVANOVICH: No.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: There is no easement on section lines?
MR. YOVANOVICH: Not on that, no.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Interesting, I thought there were. The
other point was -- is the commercial P.U.D.s and how can you sunset those
when they have a specific commercial zoning district on them, but what we
want to do is, maybe it's not appropriate to have that there, maybe it's better as
a mixed use. Is there ways that we can put a service road into it by sunsetting
it, and putting in something better for the community?
MR. YOVANOVICH: I didn't say that you shouldn't re-review, I was
concerned about a date, whatever, three times 365 days, the zoning
automatically goes away and reverts to whatever was there before and I think
that is inappropriate. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a review of the
zoning, see if it still is appropriate, as currently, as the P.U.D. currently
exists. I think we're saying the same thing. I just don't think you can
automatically change it and that gets to the -- I I have a fundamental
difference in analysis of the right a property owner has. I think a property
owner has a right to do on its property, on his or her or its property whatever
he, she or it wants to do subject to reasonable regulations of the government
and if a property owner comes in and meets all of the criteria in a Land
Development Code for P.U.D., the rezoning and all of the competent
substantial evidence supports the rezone, and there is no competent substantial
evidence to the contrary, I believe that a property owner has the right to that
rezone. It is not a privilege, they have the right if they meet the criteria. So,
that's what I -- that's where we differ and I think that the public believes that it
is a political decision that if there is 100 members of the public out here that
say we don't want this, it's a popularity contest, that's not what the law says.
The law says you meet the criteria.
Page 49
April 24, 2002
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Mr. Yovanovich, I don't think that's fair.
You've seen many times when we've had the public here on an issue that was
pretty narrow and we stood up for what we believe was right.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You just won one.
MR. YOVANOVICH: No, I'm not saying the commission doesn't
understand, I'm saying the public doesn't understand. Commissioner Carter --
I mean, Coletta, I have seen you make some very brave decisions that
politically were not the popular decision and I've seen every one of you up
there. I'm just saying the public doesn't understand the process, doesn't
understand the legal constraints that you have. I was just addressing a
comment made by the County Attorney where it was advised that there was a
privilege to rezone and I don't agree with that. I think that if we meet the
criteria, it's a right.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Coyle, and then we're going
to go to the next speaker.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think this is important. I agree with you
with respect to the property, private property rights. Excuse me. I think that's
the crux of the problem. The public really doesn't understand that we are
governed by certain laws and that's what this process is all about. If you do
meet the requirements of the law, generally you will expect approval.
One of the problems we have now is that the law, I believe, permits too
much and we've got to tighten it up a bit so that we can make decisions that
are more consistent with the future needs of the community, but, I might add,
because I really do believe in private property rights, we have to do it in a
non-discriminatory way and that's really what we're trying to do here, is
develop a set of laws that are reasonable that recognize private property rights
but also provide us the opportunity and flexibility to make decisions which are
in the best interest of the community overall, but otherwise I agree with you.
MR. YOVANOVICH: I think we're speaking the same language. I'm
not -- that's all I'm saying is uniform application, get the word out to the
public that you are constrained, and I hope I didn't imply that you haven't
made the right decisions but you are limited.
COMMISSIONER COLETTA: Mr. Yovanovich, thank you very much
for your comments.
Page 5O
April 24, 2002
MR. MUDD: Next speaker, Mr. Chairman, is David Ellis, and he's the
final speaker that I have.
MR. ELLIS: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm David Ellis. I'm
with the Collier Building Industry Association. Briefly, to recap because Mr.
Yovanovich and Commissioner Coyle actually mentioned several of these I
was most concerned with. One of the things I'd like to reiterate, just to say it
out loud, I think you've done a number of things in the last year to address
some of these issues and some of the concerns that can come from it. Just to
change to the three year sunsetting provision was a big change, a significant
change. The involvement of the neighbors in the public, the mandatory
meetings, those have been excellent changes to address these issues. You're
seeing better process because of it and, frankly, for the folks that I work with,
it is another thing that they have to deal with in the process. I'll tell you, one
of the things I always like to clarify and it ties into what Mr. Yovanovich just
said, there is a perception, and I'll speak plainly about it, that someone's
driving down the road and they say, there's an empty comer, I'd sure like to
put a mini-mart there, they swing by here either the 2nd or the 4th Tuesday of
the month, come up and say we'd like a mini-mart, you all say, sounds good to
us, you all approve it and they start construction a few weeks later. It doesn't
work that way. Even by the time they get to you oftentimes for a P.U.D. there
are months and years of planning and preparation, there's hundreds of
thousands of dollars often invested just in concepts with the hopes that they
get over the hurdle here and get the approval, then we've got hurdles to go.
We've got water management, we've got this, we've got that, we have even at
this time, and you all talked about it yesterday, we have significant delays
even with our own departments and getting our S.D.P.s approved and then our
building permits. When people say oh, it's just willy nilly, and we just do
what we want, I've gotta tell you, it is the high hurdles to get many of these
things to where we want to go through the system, and I know you all -- those
of you that are sort of new to that process are learning that, but I'd like to
remind you that the thing that really concerned me when I heard you talking
about the three year sunset, we can't do this with an Etch-a-Sketch. You
know, after three years we just shake it and it all goes blank and we start over,
because oftentimes that first three year window we could come in here and we
Page 51
April 24, 2002
could show you 104 lots of paperwork and lots of activity but very little thing
vertical or horizontal.
Do keep that in mind because, and you'll hear me say this all the time,
we crave certainty in the process. Give us a certain process we can work with
so that when we come to you with that financial investment, we can have a
reasonable expectation for now and into the future. At this point, I guess that
would be the generalized statements I would add. I know you understand a lot
of that, but take that into your consideration in this process. We can't just say
three years, let's make them prove that all over again. At least -- I mean, I
agree with Mr. Yovanovich, it's an appropriate time for review. Let's come in
and say, gee, is there any reason why we wouldn't go ahead with what we
approved three years ago. I'd like to approach it with that mind set as opposed
to convince us again, because that's gonna create some real challenges, I think,
and from time to time we will change and over years and ten years later we
may be looking at things differently, and I think you're right, Commissioner
Henning, and I think you make what you talked about with Rich, I think
there's a way to see it where we can actually look at it and still continue
partnering through that process.
Thank you for your time and we look forward to working with you as
we go along with this, but I was concerned to make sure that we got that point
forward. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I just wanted to discuss with you, really, for
a second here. I agree with you when you say consistency, because that's how
everything should be. I mean, if we tell you something, then that's the way it
is. Now, if something, like, for instance, P.U.D. has been approved, 10, 15,
even 25 years ago, has never been -- has never been addressed at all, it's just
kind of languishing there. In my opinion, those that were approved quite a
while back were approved with very developer friendly or developer driven
land development codes in place and what we're trying to do is take a very
fresh approach, a more sensible, if you will, and responsible approach to
growth because we have a lot of future in front of us, not much land left, and
we have to make sure that everything we do is forward thinking, and I think
that that's the biggest concern we have and the sunsetting of three years, in my
Page 52
April 24, 2002
opinion, would allow us to go back and say maybe this part needs to be
tweaked to bring it up to standards for today.
MR. ELLIS: I think we are saying the same thing. I mean, as far as the
sunsetting goes, I mean, I think you have that right now and even as we look
at this, I mean, I think it's important that we do that tweaking or we do that
reconsideration process. That's what that three year process is and I really try
to stand more on the level of the land owner, the shoes of the land owner and
say, wait a minute, I can go this whole three years of all of this stuff and I'll be
back here and you all go, you know, we changed our minds. You know, we
know you -- and I don't mean to put that on you, but with that kind of a
spectra hanging over a business person or a land owner, it's difficult. I could
probably come to you with some kind of an analysis just how much money is
into that process and it's a very challenging thing for a business person or a
land owner to take on. I don't disagree with you, Commissioner. We want to
do the best we can do in Collier County.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I know that. MR. ELLIS: And I'd say
-- you'll 107 even find some of the flexibility that these guys offer to the
process, and they're realistic, and I think Rich makes an interesting example
with what happened over at Goodlette Comers. Those guys ended up with a
good profit. It came out well. First it didn't feel very elegant, I don't think,
but we got through a good process and, again, I encourage you, because we
have flexibility and there were, you know, we created expectations, we got
there, but yet I think we need to be sensible in that process and what we do.
But I appreciate it, I don't want to drag that out.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: No, you're not dragging it out. I'm glad you
came forward, but what we're trying to do is make up for some of the sins of
the past where there was a move for development. MR. ELLIS: Sure.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Now a move that there was a very active
rubber stamp that things were passed on through. If we can get everything
back in front of us now that has some age to it, we might be able to correct
some of these sins of the past and still offer the developer, the land owner, a
way to be able to make reasonable profits in the future, but we have to address
this. We can't allow what we had approved in the past no longer fits into the
Page 53
April 24, 2002
picture to continue, and I think that's one of the things that this commission is
trying to look at at this time.
MR. ELLIS: Once again, Commissioner, I don't disagree with that
thinking, but also I think it's reasonable to think that because it was a good
idea to have a commercial center there ten years ago doesn't mean it's a bad
idea today, it doesn't mean it should have to go away. I don't disagree,
though, that the ideas of how we build shopping centers or how we look at
mixed use or what we might do, some of those things may have changed,
revolved over time, and those are reasonable things, and I think you'll find
most of these guys fairly reasonable. They just want to have a good
expectation of what they can do. And, again, we're changing a process and it's
going to be a little bit painful and it's gonna cause -- it's gonna provoke, I
think, some dialog, but at the same time understand that perspective, because
it's not -- I think you do understand that perspective, but I just wanted to kind
of bring that out and I understand your perspective, too. We've got some
things that we could do better and we could have done better in the past, and I
think the good news is, if there's good news in that, is you all have already
made some changes that are looking to the future and the things you're
approving today are going through a different process than they did in the past
and I think in many ways it's a very improved process for the community and,
again, I'll go back to my certainty message, if you add certainty and
reasonable expectations for the guys in our group, we'll make it. We will
work to that end. We just need that because when the rules keep changing or
this idea of the Etch-a-Sketch and it all goes away, that doesn't work for the
folks that own land and that are business people in our community trying to
make something work with the County. Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Don't go away yet, Mr. Ellis.
Commissioner Coyle wants to lean on your expertise also.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: I think there are a couple of points to be
made here, Mr. Ellis, and I think you've touched upon them. I want to
emphasize that one of the problems we as a Board have is that we are being
judged today based upon what happened five or ten years ago because that's
what people think is still going on and it's really not.
You've pointed out that we've made some substantial changes that will
Page 54
April 24, 2002
make this process work a lot better, but until the public can see the evidence
of these things, it's going to be difficult to convince them that we're really
doing anything productive with respect to managing growth, and I know that
you understand our objective is not to stop growth, because of the severe
problems it would create and in fact transfer costs to property owners, and we
don't want to do that, but we want to manage it effectively and we need your
assistance in doing that and we appreciate your input. But I just want to
emphasize again that the Goodlette Comers P.U.D. was an excellent example,
as you've stated, where responsible development can be accepted and even
endorsed by the neighbors, and that's exactly how that worked out and I think
we can work together in solving this problem and in making the people happy
and in recovering from this infrastructure deficit that we have inherited and I
think we're making progress and I encourage your input and to make sure that
we're doing these things in a way that is reasonable and fair for everybody.
MR. ELLIS: Commissioner, I would like to add something back into
that thought process, because I never want to give the impression that I think
we've done an overall bad job. Our present zoning laws have allowed us to
build one of the more beautiful communities in the world. We have our big
judging this weekend for our big awards program. I put the word out that we
need 30 judges to come from anywhere in the United States to judge. We
have a waiting list that's much longer than the actual because people want to
come see, they hear what you're doing in Collier County and I'll tell you, our
old zoning laws allowed for the Vineyards, a world class community, it
allowed for some of the other development. I never want to be just an
apologist or say what we've done is wrong, I think we can always do better
and, again, I agree with you. If we approach this from the idea that we're
trying to manage it better, to work better, I think that's the kind of thing that
we need to bring to this process. We look forward to partnering with you,
Commissioner, because I think we always can do better in some of the efforts
we're doing, Commissioner, with your Smart Growth Commission and
looking at those ideas and trying to blend them in to what works in Collier
County, excellent thinking.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Next speaker.
MR. MUDD: I said before we had the last speaker, but we had a late
Page 55
Apd124,2002
entry here. Jeff Perry is the next and last speaker.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Unless somebody else signs up.
MR. PERRY: Last but not least, unless I inflame somebody to come up
and speak. I appreciate the opportunity. For the record, my name is Jeff
Perry. I'm a planner with Wilson Miller. I did not come specifically to speak
on this topic of P.U.D. sunsetting, I actually came to listen to presentations on
the adequate public facilities, but I guess that's not going to be discussed today
so we'll save that for another day. But ! was a little concerned about the
dialog concerning P.U.D. sunsetting because it wasn't clear to me what that
meant in terms of the minds of the commissioners, because I heard
automatically sort of vaporizes at the end of three years is what we want or
five years or it goes away, something happens at the end of the process where
now you have a review process that kicks in. And I just wanted you to step
back and take a planner's perspective, a long range planner's perspective,
because you plan every day. You have to sit up there and make long range
planning decisions about land use, about infrastructure and you take the
advice of your experts.
I can tell you in 23 years working for the county in long range planning,
it was always my belief or preference that if every acre of the urban area was
planned in planned unit developments, it would make my job as a long range
planner a lot easier, because then the only thing I'd have to worry about was
when something was going to be built, not what was going to be built there
because I knew what was going to be built there. It was simply just a matter
of timing, monitoring what was going on, when projects started to come out of
the ground, when plats were filed, when S.D.P.s were filed, when building
permits, all that stuff is there, you can see how projects develop over time.
So, really, from an infrastructure standpoint, planning the roads, planning the
water and sewer lines, planning how many parks you need, how many
libraries you need, how many schools you need, the idea of having a planned
community, if you take it to its global scales, so to speak, the entire urban area
as a planned community, you start changing that yellow back to white,
agricultural, you lose that valuable information that you're looking for, what is
going to be out there some day that we need to plan for when we're laying a
sewer pipe or water pipe, how big does it have to be to accommodate the
Page 56
Apd124,2002
furore growth that's likely to occur.
I can tell you we're working for the county on a project on Vanderbilt
Drive fight now and it's pleasing to be able to go to a P.U.D. map and see -- I
can tell you exactly what's going to be built out there. It's certainly not there
today, it's only about 50 or 60 percent complete, but by adding up all the
P.U.D.s we know exactly what the potential is, what the maximum potential
is. Hopefully, we presume that there will not be everything built, there never
usually is, but being able to have that information is key to the long range
planning infrastructure process. And I would encourage you, when you set up
a procedure, to review P.U.D.s that come in after a period of time, two or
three or four years, they get stale, we have better best management practices
that need to be incorporated into them, Land Development Code changes that
need to be incorporated if they're not automatically subject to Land
Development Code adjustments, which most renewal ones are subject to Land
Development Code provisions, so that when the provision changes, the older
P.U.D.s are still subject to those newer provisions.
It's important for you to look at those, refresh them, make sure they meet
all the current requirements. If there's bad planning in those things, fix them
when they come in for process. If you do find something that is now
inconsistent with something that's next door, then you, at that point in time,
then you tackle that particular project, but don't just arbitrarily say at the end
of four, five, six years, or any period of time, it's just gonna revert back to
agricultural because I think that really does a disservice to the planning
process where you today, basically, know where something's going to be,
what's going to be someday, may not be there yet but we know it's going to,
you know, impact our infrastructure in a way that we can at least plan for
accommodating some day. With that, I appreciate it. I hope I'm still the last
speaker.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think some places that I personally have
confusion is in these particular P.U.D.s, as you say, you can look at it and you
can see what's planned, but in many cases they come in for a rezone only to
jack the value of the property up, not that we know what's gonna be on there
at all, and so I look at everything now with a different eye. I used to believe
Page 57
April 24, 2002
everything everybody ever told me. ! don't believe it anymore. They come in
only to raise the price. They argue for something and then they sell it, so I'm
afraid that a lot of times I look at it with a jaundiced eye.
MR. ELLIS: I understand that, and I think there is some resentment to
that when you have a petitioner standing up here telling you this is what I
want to do and then you say, okay, that sounds like a great idea, you bang the
gavel and then a week later there's a for sale sign up on the property.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right, right. Over and over and over.
MR. ELLIS: I mean there's no way of discouraging that, but if you
stand back and look at what you've done, you have planned something on the
ground -- whether it's this developer or some other developer who comes in to
build those 100 units or that shopping center or whatever it happens to be, you
still know that there's going to be a shopping center there some day or there is
going to be 100 units or a golf course or whatever the planning process was or
the master plan for that particular site was.
I was in that position so I can tell you that it bothered the heck out of me
as well until I realized that I was actually getting the planning done and maybe
there was two or three developers hence that were actually gonna build on the
site some day, property split a couple different times, but at least I knew some
day I was gonna get that site built that way. I could then at least plan for it
today knowing that all I had to do was figure out when it was actually ---
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Possibly, unless they rezoned it again and
again; right?
MR. ELLIS: Well, you have that under any circumstances.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Right.
MR. ELLIS: Hopefully you make it better each time you do that.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I would like just to make a point. I can
understand where everyone's coming from, the fact that they're asking for
something that gives them certain guarantees, but the truth of the matter in this
life there is very few guarantees. We're always in a changing mode as we go
into it and we find the needs of the public and the needs of the landowners
will sometimes differ as time goes along. Rules that were made ten, 15, 20
years ago, if we apply them today in today's world with the crowding situation
and the infrastructure deficit that we got coming down at different times just
Page 58
April 24, 2002
won't work, and we have to bring everybody back in the planning in a
reasonable way to make it work. I'm not trying to put your profession down.
I thank God we got planners but I hope the planners can work with us to plan
our next phase of what we're gonna do to be able to overcome the shortfalls of
what's out there now. Commissioner Coyle, I know you got something to say.
COMMISSIONER COYLE: Thank you. With respect to sunsetting,
terminating a P.U.D. at the sunset time, I am concerned about situations such
as this. We had an approval date of 1975 for one of these items and nothing
has been done with it. Another approval date of 1981. So these things have
been lying out there for a very, very long time and I certainly agree there's a
different criteria to be established for someone who is going for a three year
review, so I wouldn't propose that these things just drop off the end of the
earth after three years.
I'm more concerned with things that have been hanging out here for a
long, long time, with no clear intent to do anything with property except just
let it sit there and that puts us in a situation where we really don't know what's
going there. Even though we have a P.U.D. approved for that, we really don't
know what's going in, so that's my concern and I wouldn't advocate that we
just erase a P.U.D. after three years. I think you're right, we should review it,
but I don't know that we should erase it.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much. Commissioner
Henning, did you have anything?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Yes. I think that we're here to give
staff directions. Did you get that direction on these P.U.D.s?
MR. OLLIFF: On the P.U.D.s, I believe we have. You all have been
out in the community, you've heard a number of things and sometimes I get a
sense that you're uncomfortable bringing some things up because you're not
sure where it fits or whether it's part of this section or that section or the
Growth Management Plan or where it fits. Don't let that preclude you from
bringing up issues.
I mean, if you've got issues with the way newspaper racks look in this
community, or you've got, you know, those kinds of issues that you're hearing,
we need to know that, you know. I need to know what it is that you're hearing
so that we can make sure that we're bringing you the right thing.
Page 59
April 24, 2002
I used to work for a boss and he would say bring me a rock and I would
bring him one kind of rock and not that kind of rock, bring me another rock
and I would bring rocks for a month until finally I brought the right kind of
rock, you know, so I'm asking you all for as much specificity as we can get in
terms of what kind of rock you want. Our job is to try and make sure this
code reflects what you want, you should be reflecting what the community
wants, that's the way we get ahold of development here, so don't think that
anything's too small, too big or too confusing to bring up and tell us because
we'll find a way to get there from here.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Henning.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: Some of the smart growth techniques,
David Ellis shared a document with me the other day, which I'm gonna share
with you, that really I think predicts the atmosphere of what we have here
today and also the feelings of people in the community, what we should have,
so I'll share that with Mike and then you, and then how do we get over this
stigma of sprawl, and that's what -- actually what we do have and by some of
these P.U.D.s that we're getting is 1.5 units per acre and when their zoning is
four units per acre. That's smart growth.
And even some of these condensed communities that we have out there
like the Divosta Development is less than four units per acre, believe it or not,
so smart growth is just not putting it on the ground, it's also coming up a little
ways and that mixed use concept is a great concept and how can we encourage
that? How can we encourage the different homes, different values of homes?
Do we need to do zoning ourselves in certain areas? That's something that I
think we should look at myself besides, you know, spreading that, the
affordable housing, we're gonna -- I think that we have all made enough
comments that we're really going to get into that topic, what is affordable
housing and what is density bonuses and what do we need here in the
community and are we giving away too much. By the way, we do have some
units that was given to us when Terrafina came through. They gave us those
units and we lost an opportunity to sell those units so that we can take that
money and use it for workforce housing and we need to keep that in mind.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: How did that happen?
COMMISSIONER HENNING: I guess we were too busy dealing with
Page 60
April 24, 2002
what is affordable housing, what is not affordable housing, so --- COMMISSIONER FIALA: Boy, is that a revelation. Can we talk
amongst each other?
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Sure we can.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Are we allowed to do that? CHAIRMAN
COLETTA: That's what we're here for.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Boy, if you can identify how that happened
so we don't let it happen again, that would be a great discovery in itself. I
didn't even know we missed the opportunity.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: I don't know where the answers are to that,
but I would like a full report, whoever would be the responsible party.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And maybe I'm misstating, but
Terrafina gave us a density, you know, so that's giving in to the County, can
we use it to -- for density bonuses or can we use it for infill, you know, 20
acres or less. We're saying that 16 units per acre is acceptable and it has to
come through a zoning process. Can we use that for that type of zoning
instead of just giving it away, to take that -- those units and sell them and use
those monies for some of the things we need in Collier County dealing with
land or affordable housing or workforce housing, whatever they want to call
it.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: You are getting there, Commissioner
Henning, we are all getting there.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: None of my committee knows what it is
either.
COMMISSIONER HENNING: And I think David Ellis, being the
president or executive director of C.B.I.A., knows what we need here in the
community. We do need affordable housing and he's on the affordable
housing task force. We do need smart growth in the community. So we need
to get the message out to the other residents of-- in order for us to make a
great community, we do need certain elements.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Do you have any closing comments,
Commissioner Coyle?
COMMISSIONER COYLE: No.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Commissioner Fiala?
Page 61
April 24, 2002
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you very much for a lovely
presentation, and I tell you, Joe Schmitt ---
MR. SCHMITT: I just want to make sure I set the framework for the
next meeting and that we have consensus on that. I think I'm gonna steal a
couple of words from both Mr. Yovanovich and Mr. Ellis and the points we're
gonna be bringing to you as we address L.D.C., we'll be talking about P.U.D.
amendments and the P.U.D. process here in the next workshop, and we'll talk
about the affordable housing and we'll have to make a choice which was first.
We'll sort through that. But I just want to make sure that you understand what
we're looking for. The time -- and we talked about Goodlette Comers -- but
the time for the specificity is not when they come to the Board and we wrestle
through those issues, we need to define the rules in the L.D.C. so that when
the staff works with the developer, the rules are there, the L.D.C. backs up
those -- is the bible that contains those rules so that they can go through the
process so when it's presented to you and when it's -- that project is presented
to the planning commission, that it's already been bedded, because though that
was an excellent result, the process that we went through was where we were
stumbling because the rules were there, so that's what we're going to be
sorting through in the next meeting when we're talking -- we're gonna start
zeroing in on right into the L.D.C., and please understand these amendments
will not be part of this L.D.C. amendment cycle, it will be in the fall so that it
will be a while because we'll have to then go through the process as we write
the language and it goes before the various phases through the planning
commission and, of course, well, through the E.A.C., the Planning
commission and even the D.S.A.C., Development Advisory Counsel, so with
that, I thank you for your time and ---
MR. MUDD: Joe, when's the next meeting, the next workshop?
MR. SCHMITT: That is scheduled -- let me look -- Friday the 3rd at 9
o'clock.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: May the 3rd.
MR. SCHMITT: May 3rd, yes.
MR. MUDD: Commissioner, just -- I saw a puzzled look on a couple
faces, and I think we talked about it, maybe someone forgotten, the three
Page 62
April 24, 2002
workshops we're having here this spring and the early part of summer are
going to be able to set the groundwork for the Land Development Code
changes that you're gonna get in the cycle in the fall. CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Correct.
MR. MUDD' And the workshops we're gonna have in the fall will set
the framework for the Land Development Code changes that will happen in
the springtime.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Uh-huh.
MR. MUDD: So you're setting it and staffgets time to get them written,
get then done, drafted over to summer, have them for you when you get back
off summer break, and then we start the groundwork again in the fall time
during workshops, get to spend our Christmas holidays drafting the language
so that we can be ready for the springtime Land Development Code changes.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Mudd. Mr. Ollift'?.
MR. OLLIFF: The only thing I would ask is between now and the May
3rd meeting, if you will go through pages 15 through 29 of this packet, I think
it will help bring to mind issues that you have dealt with, issues you have
heard about as some of these rezonings are in front of you, and maybe when
we sit down on the 3rd you will be better able to maybe tell us some other
things that have come to mind that you would like to make sure are in this
process.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you, Mr. Olliff.
MR. SCHMITT: We will meet with each of you individually as you had
asked so that --
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you.
MR. SCHMITT: -- we can get some clear guidance.
CHAIRMAN COLETTA: Thank you. Well, with that (bangs gavel).
Page 63
April 24, 2002
There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting
was adjourned by Order of the Chair at 11:55 a.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEAL/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS
CONTROL
~RMAN
ATT,EST;,
D,~~~';,,BROCK, CLERK
'"'~;~~%7~~ ~toved by the Board on
as Pre,bna'ed~ or as co~ected
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF DONOVAN COURT
REPORTING, INC.
Page 64