Agenda 02/13/2018 Item #2C02/13/2018
COLLIER COUNTY
Board of County Commissioners
Item Number: 2.C
Item Summary: January 23, 2018 - BCC/Regular Meeting Minutes
Meeting Date: 02/13/2018
Prepared by:
Title: Executive Secretary to County Manager – County Manager's Office
Name: MaryJo Brock
02/06/2018 9:54 AM
Submitted by:
Title: County Manager – County Manager's Office
Name: Leo E. Ochs
02/06/2018 9:54 AM
Approved By:
Review:
County Manager's Office MaryJo Brock County Manager Review Completed 02/06/2018 10:27 AM
Board of County Commissioners MaryJo Brock Meeting Pending 02/13/2018 9:00 AM
2.C
Packet Pg. 14
January 23, 2018
Page 1
TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Naples, Florida, January 23, 2018
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Board of County
Commissioners, in and for the County of Collier, and also acting as the
Board of Zoning Appeals and as the governing board(s) of such special
districts as have been created according to law and having conducted
business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m., in REGULAR SESSION
in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida,
with the following members present:
CHAIRMAN: Andrew Solis
William L. McDaniel, Jr.
Donna Fiala
Burt L. Saunders
Penny Taylor
ALSO PRESENT:
Leo Ochs, County Manager
Nick Casalanguida, Deputy County Manager
Jeffrey A. Klatzkow, County Attorney
Crystal Kinzel, Director of Finance & Accounting
Troy Miller, Communications & Customer Relations
January 23, 2018
Page 2
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mike.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Good morning, and welcome to the Board
of County Commissioners meeting.
We'll start today with the invocation by Pastor Heath Jarvis of
New Hope Ministries.
Item #1A
INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
PASTOR JARVIS: Good morning. Let's pray.
Father in heaven, we thank you, first of all, for this wonderful
country that we live in, a country where we can come before you freely
like we are today and invoke your presence and your wisdom without
fear of reprisal or consequence from our government. We thank you,
Lord, for this opportunity to come together as the leadership of Collier
County, and we ask for your guidance as decisions are made that will
affect all who live here. May we never take our responsibilities lightly.
Order our steps and order our words today. May we always do
what you desire, for we know that your desires towards us, your
thoughts towards us, and your plans for us are always good, always
perfect, and always for our benefit; plans to give us a future, a hope,
and an expected end.
We thank you for a new year, a new season with a fresh batch of
opportunities, another year of challenges to overcome, another chance
for us to see you show yourself strong on our behalf.
We ask for your grace, your mercy, and your direction as we
endeavor to yield ourselves to your unction and leadership.
Lord, may we not simply try to persuade you to bless what we're
doing; instead, may we always do what you are blessing. We thank
you for your continued blessing on our great nation, magnificent state
January 23, 2018
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of Florida, and our beautiful community here in Collier County. We
know that whatever blessing we enjoy, it is because of you, for you,
Lord, are the giver of wisdom, the giver of all good and perfect gifts,
and the God of abundance and restoration.
We ask for your guidance in all of these things. And I pray this in
Jesus' name. Amen.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Saunders, could you lead
us in the Pledge.
(The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.)
Item #2A
APPROVAL OF TODAY'S REGULAR, CONSENT AND
SUMMARY AGENDA AS AMENDED (EX PARTE
DISCLOSURE PROVIDED BY COMMISSION MEMBERS FOR
CONSENT AGENDA.) - APPROVED AND/OR ADOPTED
W/CHANGES (COMMISSIONER SOLIS ABSTAINED FROM
VOTING FOR ITEM #17B)
MR. OCHS: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners.
These are the proposed agenda changes for the Board of County
Commissioners meeting of January 23, 2018.
The first proposed change is to withdraw Item 16K7. This was a
recommendation to set a ballot date for the annual election of members
to the Pelican Bay Services Division. We were advised just the other
day that one of the candidates dropped out, so we may not need to have
an election. The County Attorney and I have asked for this item to be
withdrawn so we can bring you back a follow-up item for appointment.
The next proposed change is to move Item 17A to your Public
Hearing Item 9A. And this is a recommendation to adopt an ordinance
making it unlawful to knowingly hire an unlicensed contractor. That
January 23, 2018
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move is made at Commissioner Solis' request.
The next proposed change is to move Item 16K6 to become Item
12B under the County Attorney regular agenda. This is a
recommendation to appoint a member to the Affordable Housing
Advisory Committee. That move is made at Commissioner Fiala's
request.
I have one agenda note this morning, Commissioners. It's a
correction on your consent agenda, Item 16F3. The reference should
be to six of seven alternative quantities and bids, not all.
One reminder about court reporter breaks will be typically around
10:30 and 2:50 in the afternoon.
We have one time-certain request. That's from Commissioner
Taylor, and it's Item 11B requested to be heard at 10 a.m. This is a
recommendation to accept the staff report on current public beach
access opportunities.
And then Item 12A is a shade session that will be set for 1 p m.
The Board will go into closed session at 1 p.m. and then come back out
and report out after the conclusion of that hearing.
And that's all the changes I have this morning, Mr. Chairman.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you, Mr. Manager.
Any changes, additions, or ex parte on the consent and summary?
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, typically we check with County
Attorney first.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Oh, sorry. County Attorney?
MR. KLATZKOW: No changes. If for any reason the Board is
going to be adjourning early, we'll have the shade session at that time.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No further changes or ex parte.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I have a bunch of little things, but
they're simple, okay, so -- but if you don't mind.
On 16A10 we were talking about the Mobilite and the installation
on the poles. Oh, thank you -- on the poles along the street and so
January 23, 2018
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forth, and they were talking about -- they were talking about -- oh,
now, come on, Donna, get that for you -- backhaul and antenna -- I
don't know what a backhaul is. I read it all, as you can see, but I didn't
know what I was really reading. What is a backhaul on an antenna? I
don't want to stop it. I just wanted to know.
MR. OCHS: Sure. Mr. French is stepping forward to answer that
question.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I can answer.
MR. OCHS: Or Mr. McLean. Matt?
MR. McLEAN: Good morning. Matt McLean, your
Development Review Director.
That's part of the equipment that they utilize to help transfer some
of the site or activity that's taken what traditionally has been used
utilized on very large macro cell sites down into these real small sites,
so they're transitioning that data.
It all gets within a small box. There's been some state regulation
that came into play last year. They're meeting all the criteria on the
spacing; just their particular business model includes the backhaul
there so it's not a direct connection by wire. It's actually a wireless
technology.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So is it rather unsightly, or does it fit
in a tiny little area? The reason I'm asking this is I have a funny feeling
this is the first of many, many, many, and I wanted to know what we --
you know, as we approve this, you know, after that, everybody will
say, well, you know, you did it once. So I just want to make sure of
what we're approving.
MR. McLEAN: Yes, you're absolutely correct. There will be
more of these that come in from the technology perspective within
Collier County. They are -- you will see them. I'm not going to say
that you won't see them on the right-of-ways when you're going
January 23, 2018
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through, but they'll all be placed within small boxes to meet the criteria
that's established within the state guidelines and our local ordinances.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Thank you, Matt.
MR. McLEAN: You're welcome.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: My second question is on 16D4, and
I was just -- this one is -- I don't have any problem with what we're
approving here, but it said that it goes out for public comment, and no
public comment was made. And it was advertised on the 23rd of
December when most people are gone. That's not our fault or anything.
The newspaper would put it wherever they could put a free ad. But I
just thought it would be nice if we could send it out to a few people so
that everybody could see it.
There's not a problem with this issue or anything, and I
understand and agree with the CDBG funds going from the CRA into
the Immokalee fire district. I don't have a problem with that. I just
want to make sure people see these things. Can I do that?
MR. OCHS: Yes. I'm making a note right now.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay. Let's see. I'm sorry that I'm
taking so much time. I had -- oh, just another comment. This is the
Archaeological Historical Preservation Board. And they chose a
person who's been on there for a while, and that's fine, although I guess
he kind of dropped away for a number of months.
They have another guy on here. His name is Austin Bell, and I
think this is his first entry into this foray, although he wasn't chosen.
He is the guy that is going to be bringing the Marco Cat from the
Smithsonian and artifacts from the Pennsylvania Museum down here
to Collier County. And I thought, if there's ever another opening, I
would like him to be considered. I don't want to knock anybody else
out, but I think he is a treasure that we have located right here in our
county, and I would love to do that.
Okay. And that's -- oh, yeah. Okay. And that's it.
January 23, 2018
Page 7
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes, thank you.
Yes, I have one ex parte item, which is on Item No. 16A6. I
received an email on April the 13th from the attorney.
MR. OCHS: Ma'am, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, I'm sorry, yeah. Sorry. I'm
talking to you. Forgive me. I'm still asleep here.
Okay. 16A6, I received an email on April the 13th from the
attorney representing the owner of this issue, so I have one item to
declare.
And also, just as a note, I just think it was -- says a lot about the
progress that we have as in -- as being involved in economic
development in this county, and that issue is 16F6 where we are
terminating our impact fee payment assistance program with five --
four or five businesses that have been reviewed for 10 years and are
doing exactly what they need to do, have created jobs, have fulfilled
the agreements, and I think it speaks volumes for these companies.
So thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I don't have any changes, and I
don't have any ex parte either.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I didn't say I didn't have any ex
parte. I'm sorry.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: The only -- I don't have any ex parte. I do
-- I am going to abstain from voting on 17B, which is the saw palmetto
berry ordinance. I have a client that I have represented in the past
that's in that industry. Just out of abundance of caution, I'm just not
going to vote on that one.
MR. OCHS: So motion and a second to --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, I'll make a motion.
January 23, 2018
Page 8
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: We have a motion and a second. All in
favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion carries.
January 23, 2018
Page 9
Item #3A1
AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS: EMPLOYEE 20 YEAR
ATTENDEES – PRESENTED
MR. OCHS: Thank you, Commissioners. That takes us to Item 3
on this morning's agenda, awards and recognitions. If the Board would
be kind enough to join us in front of the dais for our service awards.
Commissioners, we're pleased this morning to recognize several
employees with many, many years of dedicated service to county
government. We'll start first this morning with our 20-year service
award recipient from Fleet Management, Jay Diaz. Jay?
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Thanks, Jay.
(Applause.)
Item #3A3
AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS: EMPLOYEE 30 YEAR
ATTENDEES – PRESENTED
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we're celebrating four of our team
members celebrating 30 years of service with county government this
morning. First recipient works with our Water Department, Bill Craig.
Bill?
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Congratulations. Thanks for all your
service.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Do you want to give a speech?
MR. CRAIG: No, I don't want to.
(Applause.)
January 23, 2018
Page 10
MR. OCHS: Celebrating 30 years of service with our
Transportation Engineering Division, Kevin Hendricks.
(Applause.)
MR. HENDRICKS: I feel every one of them.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Negotiated every deal, Kevin.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You've got a standing ovation, huh?
MR. HENDRICKS: Now how about that?
MR. OCHS: Get in the middle there, buddy. Take a picture.
(Applause.)
MR. HENDRICKS: Thank you.
MR. OCHS: This one's hard to believe. Celebrating 30 years of
service with our Operations and Regulatory Management Division,
Judy Puig. Judy?
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Like a rock star.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: And our final 30-year awardee this morning,
another one hard to believe, with EMS, Valerie Thorsen. Val?
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: She said she'll jump start my heart if it goes out. I
appreciate that.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that concludes our service awards
this morning. Thank you very much.
Item #3D1
RECOGNIZING ARIK GARCIA, SUPERVISOR - ATHLETICS,
PUBLIC SERVICES DEPARTMENT AS THE SUPERVISOR OF
THE YEAR 2017 – PRESENTED
January 23, 2018
Page 11
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, that takes us to Item 3D1 this
morning. This is the recognition of our Supervisor of the Year for
2017 with our Athletics and Public Services Department, Arik Garcia.
Arik, if you'd step forward.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Congratulations, by the way.
MR. OCHS: All right, Arik. Stand in the middle there while I
embarrass you a little bit while your picture's getting taken.
Commissioners, as part of the county's formal recognition
program, each year our Human Resources Division solicits
nominations from the county staff to highlight accomplishments of a
special supervisor who exemplifies the characteristics of great
leadership and project management. And this year 17 nominations
were received, and Arik Garcia, our supervisor in Athletics in Parks
and Recreation was unanimously selected for your consideration of
Supervisor of the Year.
As our athletics supervisor, Arik actively leads, evaluates,
supervises, and directs the athletic programs at our North Collier
Regional Park for both adults and youth serving thousands and
thousands of Collier residents. His dedication shows in both time and
energy that he puts into these special events, athletic programs, and the
day-to-day operations, always going beyond the call of duty.
In his time supervising at North Collier Park, Arik has achieved
100 percent of his revenue goals -- thank you --
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: -- while maintaining his dedication to his staff and
the community and the program recipients. As one of his staff was
quoted as saying: Many can manage, few can lead, and Arik is a
leader in every sense. He mentors young supervisors, he can correct or
direct with compassion, he's always available to step in with guidance.
Arik is truly an all-star supervisor and exceptionally deserving of this
award.
January 23, 2018
Page 12
Commissioners, it's my honor to present Arik Garcia as your
Supervisor of the Year for 2017.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's okay. I just find a place in
between.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Do they want to back up a little bit so that
we're all in the picture?
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Yeah. Back up.
MR. GARCIA: Thank you.
Item #4
PROCLAMATIONS – ONE MOTION TAKEN TO ADOPT BOTH
PROCLAMATIONS
Item #4A
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING JANUARY, 2018 AS HUMAN
TRAFFICKING AWARENESS MONTH IN COLLIER COUNTY.
ACCEPTED BY LINDA OBERHAUS, CEO, SHELTER FOR
ABUSED WOMEN & CHILDREN – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we move to Item 4 on the agenda
this morning, proclamations. Item 4A is a proclamation designating
January 2018 as Human Trafficking Awareness Month in Collier
County. To be accepted by Linder Oberhaus, CEO of the Shelter for
Abused Women and Children, and members of the Sheriff's Office
Human Trafficking Unit. If you'd please step forward and receive your
proclamation.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: There she is. I didn't see her.
January 23, 2018
Page 13
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: Joined by Sheriff Rambosk as well, so it's great to
have him here this morning.
MS. OBERHAUS: Hi, good morning.
For the record, I'm Linda Oberhaus, the CEO for the Shelter for
Abused Women and Children, and I just want to thank the Board of
County Commissioners acknowledging this month as Human
Trafficking Awareness and Prevention Month.
As you know, the shelter has expanded our vision and mission to
include human trafficking in everything we do, in addition to providing
services to victims of domestic violence here in Collier County.
I just want to refresh the Commission with some stats about
human trafficking and then talk a little bit about the partnership that's
happening between the shelter and the Sheriff's Office.
So what we know about human trafficking is that it's the third
largest illegal business in the world following weapons and drug
trafficking. Florida ranks third in the nation next to New York and
Texas for the number of calls received by the human trafficking
hotline.
Eighty-three percent of human trafficking cases are Americans
trafficked right here in the United States, and 50 percent of those are
children. The average age of a human trafficking victim is 13, and it
has literally become as easy to buy a woman or a child online as it is to
buy a book on Amazon.com.
So what we also know is that the stats show that between 18- and
20,000 children are trafficked annually in our country.
And so I just really want to give a special thanks to the Collier
County Sheriff's Office who, between -- well, the past two years, from
2014 to 2016, had 82 separate investigations of human trafficking. I
mean, that's a lot. That's right here in Collier County.
You know, I also want to acknowledge the fact that Collier
January 23, 2018
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County doesn't have any more human trafficking than any other
community here in Southwest Florida or in our country. We just have
a very proactive Human Trafficking Unit at the Collier County
Sheriff's Office doing their part to make sure that women and girls in
our community are safe, and so I think we should give it up for the
Collier County Sheriff's Office.
(Applause.)
MS. OBERHAUS: So -- and with that, I just want to pass out
some information, just one little informational flier to our
commissioners and to Leo Ochs here.
MR. OCHS: Good morning, Linda. Thanks for everything you
do. It's good to see you.
Item #4B
PROCLAMATION DESIGNATING FEBRUARY 3, 2018 AS
NAPLES LIONS CLUB DAY IN COLLIER COUNTY.
ACCEPTED BY MR. JACK ARVOLD, DR. AL CINOTTI, DR.
JERRY BOBRUFF AND DR. RENATE CHEVLI – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Item 4B is a proclamation designating February 3rd,
2018, as Naples Lions Club Day in Collier County. To be accepted by
Mr. Jack Arvold, Dr. Al Cinotti, Dr. Jerry Bobruff, and Dr. Renate
Chevill. If you gentlemen and ladies would please step forward and
receive your proclamation.
(Applause.)
MR. OCHS: State your name for the record.
MR. ARVOLD: I am Jack Arvold, President of the Naples Lions
Club, and I wanted to thank the county board for this proclamation.
And we're celebrating our 80th anniversary as a Naples Lions Club
here in Naples, Florida, and we've been serving the community for
January 23, 2018
Page 15
these 80-plus years.
For all of you who don't know what the Lions do or are involved
in, why, we are involved in sight. It's a horrible thing to lose your
sight.
And we are dealing with those ways that we can cure the problem
but before it exists. We're involved in eye screenings, and we've been
doing eye screenings throughout the community. We do all the
daycare centers and preschools. We do the homeless shelters where
we're trying to include all those that can't help themselves.
We do health fairs, and we will screen approximately 3,000
people here in 2018. We also, when we're dealing with the adult
portion, we, again, do the homeless centers. We do health fairs. We
also do diabetic and blood pressure screenings there to help them. We
go into the Immokalee work camps, and we screen there. In fact, we
have coming our yearly screening there next week.
Besides that, we are also involved in community service here in
Naples in the community. We give several scholarships each year to
Lorenzo Walker Institute of Technology in the medical field, we are
active in Arbor Days. We are active in reading. We also buy books
that we'll be giving out to the preschools and daycare centers in hopes
that they'll take them home and their parents will read to them so they
can have a better understanding of -- we know that when parents read
to children, the children learn fast, and this is what we're concentrating
on, and we're doing this in books both in English and Spanish.
So this is who we are, and we are proud to be a member here, and
we thank you for this day and this recognition.
(Applause.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Mr. Manager, should we have a motion to
approve the proclamations?
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Is there a motion?
January 23, 2018
Page 16
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I make that motion.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Second.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: All in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion carries. Thank you.
Item #6A
PUBLIC PETITION FROM ANN B. HALL, REQUESTING THAT
THE COUNTY PURCHASE TWO PROPERTIES ON CAPRI
BOULEVARD THAT FLANK CAPRI PARK, TO MEET THE
NEED FOR A PARKING AREA AND ADDITIONAL PARK
AMENITIES - MOTION TO BRING BACK AT A FUTURE BCC
MEETING – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, that takes us to Item 6, public
petitions.
Item 6A is a public petition request from Ann Hall requesting that
the county purchase two properties on Capri Boulevard that flank the
existing Capri Park to meet the need for a parking area and additional
park amenities.
Ms. Hall, good morning. You have up to 10 minutes to make
your presentation.
MS. HALL: Thank you, Mr. Ochs.
Good morning. And I would like to thank the entire board for
January 23, 2018
Page 17
having the time for us on this agenda. I hope that you got the packet
that I sent ahead of time to help you understand what we're trying to
propose here.
My name is Ann Hall. I'm a 20-year full-time resident of Isles of
Capri, and I'm currently serving on Commissioner Fiala's Advisory
Board for Islands, and I'm also the Capri volunteer communications
correspondent, better known by most folks as the coconut tele.
We have a recommendation to offer our concerns to you about
Capri Park. Our recommendation is also -- we have a recommendation
for resolving these issues, and I would like to bring to the Commission
a petition to purchase these two properties to take further action on it at
a later meeting.
The two properties in concern that we have a concern for are
properties -- Mr. Ochs would help me, he said -- that are -- if you'll
notice that -- on the overhead there, the existing park is marked, and
then you've got 145 Capri Boulevard immediately adjacent to the park,
and right across the street is 135 Capri Boulevard. These are the two
properties that we are asking the county to consider.
The reason being here is, I think to make it better to understand --
would be to understand how Capri Park came about in the first place.
There was no community recreational facility in the community
before, and a concerned citizen, back in 2002, petitioned the Board,
just as I am here again today, and the county purchased the vacant lot
that was where it says "existing park."
At that time the other two lots that you see joining those were not
available. Had they had been, hopefully we would have petitioned for
that as well because there is no parking in those particular areas.
What happens is, we have only enough room for this. We have
one single swing set with a swing for middle school, I guess you'd call
it, and a baby. We just added the baby one and transferred out of an
adult swing that we had there. And then you have a small play
January 23, 2018
Page 18
climbing apparatus, and you also have two small rocking kind of
horses that are there. And if you notice in the background is the bocce
court. The bocce court has been added for adults to have an amenity as
well.
Now, that worked all -- was fine and dandy until the bocce league
started, and the community demographics began to change. The bocce
league started with two committees, two teams rather, of five members
each, so that was 10 players. We now have over 100 players, which is
wonderful, because the goal of the community there was to bring
people together, help people exercise, enjoy one another, get to know
their neighbors, and it has mushroomed by far.
This is just an example of some of the happy times in this small --
I think the smallest -- I think Barry said it was the smallest park in the
community.
Now, here are the current issues that we're facing. The two
properties that have been on either side have been kind of obscure, and
no one has complained that we've had illegal parking in them or that
we've treaded on trespassing, I guess you'd say. But now that we have
the two properties for sale, the issues have grown and have raised quite
a concern.
This is where you see cars parking on the sidewalk, and the lot
across the street is the private lot, 135 Capri Boulevard. If this lot is
sold, there's nowhere for people to park.
The participants that we have are mostly seniors in the
community, as we have down here in Southwest Florida. Many of
them have health issues, cannot walk. Walking is not an option for
people coming with bocce balls and equipment to come and play this
sport.
So this is another picture of how some of the illegal parking has
resulted, and it's making us extremely concerned for the safety of the
community.
January 23, 2018
Page 19
The demographics have also changed, and it's brought out more
younger ones. You'll find Jeeps, et cetera, but people are using the
park. It's one of the most used small parks, I imagine, in this county,
and we're grateful for that.
And the second issue -- the third issue that we actually have is the
property that's adjacent to it, which is in 145 Capri Boulevard, this is
what it looks like. It basically has been a two-story, I guess, a duplex.
It has been used for storage for the most part. It's in really poor shape.
All of the things that you see behind it, minus a toilet that was there for
years, has been there for years. The debris, it's deplorable, and the
building is unsafe and also, we think, could even be a health hazard.
So this particular property is for sale by owner now, and she
seemed to be motivated to sell the property for county use.
So we're petitioning the Commission to secure these two
properties; both are critical at this time. We think that they both could
be negotiated for under $400,000 to include removing the duplex there.
Jeri Neuhaus, who's a Capri Realtor here, has all of the latest
figures, and she's been the one that's been dealing with the two
properties, and Eddie Hall here is the bocce coordinator for the 14th
year, so we'd like to thank him for the growth of this use of this park.
We've had many meetings with Director Barry Williams and
members of his staff, and after presenting our concerns to the county --
the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, they gave us what they said
was warranted, the go ahead, and asked us to see if we could come up
with 100 signatures back at the peak of off season in late July and
August that would be supported. In less than three weeks we had 234
signatures, and they were still coming, if we would have accepted them
at that cutoff.
But we had planned to bring this before the Commission in
September when Irma intervened.
So this is what we present to you, is to consider a later date
January 23, 2018
Page 20
coming up with the purchase of these two properties for us to expand
this court.
We would also like to entertain questions that you might have at
this time.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I don't have a question at all
because, naturally, I know this property, and I feel that it's been
waiting for something good to happen to it, and the people on Capri --
Capri contains four islands. I don't know if you know that. And so
they've been waiting for something like this to happen because they
were worried that they were going to be shuffled off when somebody
did buy these properties, and then they would have no place to park so
-- and the price seems to be very reasonable for property on Isles of
Capri. Wow.
So I would like to suggest that we bring this back for a board -- a
board hearing, is that what you would call it, Leo, board hearing or a
board consideration?
MR. OCHS: A staff presentation that would, you know, evaluate
the appraised value and what operating issues, if any, would be
involved.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's what I would like to do.
That's a motion.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I would support that. I think
it's a reasonable request for that community.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: As a point -- I'd support it as
well, but I do have -- when we move to discussion, I would like to ask
a question of Commissioner Fiala.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: So there's a motion and a second.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes.
And as a point of discussion, I just -- when we acquired this piece
of property in the first place, was there any kind of work done to
analyze the population of Isles of Capri? Any other facilities that were
January 23, 2018
Page 21
available? Any other alternative properties that might be available for
parks to actually acquire and do a community park?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I don't know.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Because we're kind of -- I
mean, the location is wonderful, and I'm by no means disputing that.
I'm just wondering if there -- has anybody done any work to --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Here comes Mr. Answer.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Maybe that's part of what the staff would
come back and let us know.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm good with that, if that's
where we're going to go; that question can be answered. That's
something that I want to see when we do bring it back.
MR. WILLIAMS: We can address that, Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Very good. So there's a motion and a
second. All in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: All right. The motion carries.
MS. HALL: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Item #7
PUBLIC COMMENTS ON GENERAL TOPICS NOT ON THE
CURRENT OR FUTURE AGENDA
January 23, 2018
Page 22
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, that takes us to Item 7 this
morning, public comments on general topics not on the current or
future agenda.
MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman, I have one registered public
speaker under public comment, H. Michael Mogil.
MR. MOGIL: Here is a penny for the cause.
MR. KLATZKOW: I can't take it from you.
MR. MOGIL: Good morning, Commissioners and others.
I moved from Washington, D.C., down to Naples back in 2005 to
escape politics and to escape traffic. I was unsuccessful. It's followed
me.
I want to talk about traffic this morning. I've become very
religious driving the streets of Naples and Collier County. I do a lot of
praying as people weave in and out of lanes racing to the next red light
only to stop.
But I'm not here to talk about that as a way of traffic enforcement
or anything. That we can't do anything about right here. But I want to
talk about some signage issues and things that possibly could be done.
The first issue is westbound Pine Ridge Road approaching 41.
There's no notification about the lanes splitting into five until you're
right at the point of where they split into five. That gives drivers who
are unfamiliar with the area no warning. Then they stop, try to cut in,
et cetera.
Some additional signs further back from 41 would be very
helpful. Similar to what we have at Airport Road where the overpass
is on Golden Gate where there's signs on there -- where you get off on
the side where they show you the lanes are splitting into six, that would
be beneficial.
Eastbound on Golden Gate Parkway, approaching I-75, right lane
disaster area at 4:30 to 5:30 every evening. Traffic is backed up for
well over a mile. Cars race up, cut in right as the people get on the
January 23, 2018
Page 23
bridge. I don't want to propose blocking that egress to the right lane,
but clearly there's a dangerous situation there and that right lane just
backs up way, way down the road. Possibly some attention.
The last thing I want to talk about is the traffic boxes at the
intersections. I've had numerous instances in the past week, two weeks
where the intersection, which they call the box, cars get into the box,
can't get through the box with the light cycle, and then jam up the
traffic going across Immokalee Road.
The county has a traffic center that has cameras on all these
intersections. Surely they can see where that's happening and get a
police officer out there to do something. I called up the Collier County
Sheriff's Office the other day about Immokalee Road and Oaks
Boulevard. I called up a couple of weeks back about Immokalee Road
and Livingston. Disaster areas that only add to the traffic on
Immokalee Road when cars block the box. Hopefully something can
be done about that.
Thank you.
MR. MILLER: That was our only registered speaker for public
comment.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: County Manager left us for a second
here.
Item #9A
RECOMMENDATION TO ADOPT AN ORDINANCE MAKING
IT UNLAWFUL TO KNOWINGLY HIRE AN UNLICENSED
CONTRACTOR - MOTION TO CONTINUE TO THE NEXT BCC
MEETING – APPROVED (COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL
REQUESTED A TIME CERTAIN FOR PUBLIC
PARTICIPATION)
January 23, 2018
Page 24
MR. CASALANGUIDA: All right. Commissioners, I think that
takes you to your first advertised public hearing, Item 17A, which is a
recommendation to adopt an ordinance making it unlawful to
knowingly hire an unlicensed contractor, and I think that was pulled at
Commissioner Solis' request, and it was Commissioner McDaniel's
item.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Right. And the only reason I wanted to
pull that is just to have a discussion. It is something that's going to
make something criminal, and I just wanted to make sure that if we
adopt this ordinance, that the public has as much an opportunity to
discuss it as well and just to make sure that we've discussed the
unforeseen consequences.
One of the things I was concerned with is one of the things the
ordinance says is that it's unlawful for someone who hired --
knowingly hires a contractor that's unlicensed but also finds out during
the construction that they're unlicensed and continues with the
construction.
I'm a little concerned that there could be unforeseen consequences
in situations where somebody could be held, you know, criminally
responsible for something that they didn't know at the beginning; it
turned out -- whether it was the contractor's presenting false papers or
whatever it is -- that the contractor actually wasn't licensed properly
and suddenly the homeowner's in a position of their house is almost
finished, the contractor's unlicensed, what do they do?
And I think practicing or engaging in contracting without license
in and of itself for the contractor is already an offense under -- what
was the section -- 489.128, and the contract is actually not even
enforceable by the contractor.
So I just want to make sure that we've thought through the
potential for homeowners to be in a position where they suddenly
could be held criminally responsible for something that they didn't
January 23, 2018
Page 25
knowingly do going into it. And I wanted to have a discussion about
that before we adopt this, because it was on the summary agenda, and
we wouldn't have this discussion, so...
Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes, thank you very much. I was
happy that you pulled it because I, too, have some concerns. Mainly I
was invited to speak to over 200 people at a mobile home park, very
active mobile home park. They were hit pretty hard by the hurricane.
And there was a lot to do in that mobile home park. Some of their
places were destroyed, some were half gone -- a lot of them were half
gone, by the way, and they still are.
And so these people in the mobile home parks all got together to
help one another to clean up some of this stuff, to repair some of the
stuff, anything that they could do.
Well, one of the mobile home park people had hired a contractor
who went about looking at everybody else working on their places and
reporting all of them because they didn't have a license, but they were
residents here helping one another in a disaster. And I thought, you
know, that can be carried too far. So I was happy that you pulled it. I
think that also affects these people.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: What's your solution?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Well, I think what I'd like to do is maybe
continue this item because, obviously, unlicensed contracting is a
problem. It does present some safety hazards if the contractor's not
doing things according to code, and I appreciate that it is a problem,
but I'd like to see if we can continue it and maybe flesh out the
language a little more and see if we can't address, kind of, these
situations that we've -- the owners could find themselves in without
putting them in such a difficult position when they didn't intend to put
themselves there to begin with. That's my concern.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm the one that brought it
January 23, 2018
Page 26
forward. I did hit my light.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Oh, Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm there. You still can't see
me. Maybe there's something going on.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Maybe you're too short.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I would like to maybe address
the County Attorney. Just so you know, I've said this regularly. We're
not doing these things for fun. There is a circumstance that's
prevailing in our community; unlicensed contracting work is being
performed on a regular basis.
Our residents are regularly being taken advantage of by people --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- misrepresenting their
licensure, and certainly this doesn't apply to someone who's been --
someone -- a homeowner who's been -- fraud's been committed to. If
false documents are -- this ordinance isn't going to do that.
What we have is a circumstance where currently our unlicensed
penalties for people that are performing unlicensed work have no real
enforceability under the statute that you quoted earlier, Mr. Chair.
There is enforceability; they come before our Contractor Licensing
Board who only regulates who? Licensed contractors. And then, in
turn, there's a fine imposed, which statute disallows any apportionment
to assets that that unlicensed individual, in fact, has.
And so we have no real enforceability with people that are
continually engaging in unlicensed contractor work. So this was an
effort -- and I'm really glad you brought it up because, again, I mean, I
don't want it to ever be perceived that we're just sneaking things
through on the consent or on the summary agenda, and I want this
engagement, and I certainly am not interested in negative impacts or --
and unintended consequences.
So if you have some suggestions to assist with tightening it up so
January 23, 2018
Page 27
that we don't -- so that we can avoid some of those potential -- every
time we make a new decision, there's always going to be unintended
consequences. So I'm fine with continuing it. I would certainly really
enjoy your response to and suggestions to what we might be able to do.
For your solace, Mr. Solis, I did consult with the Sheriff's Office,
their counsel. I did consult with our County Attorney and our staff and
members of our CBIA board along the way to come up with this. It
wasn't just pulled. So there was a little bit of work on the front end.
But I'm fine with continuing it, bringing it back up. I can bring in
some of the folks that have approached me. It's not just -- it's not just
general contracting. I mean, there is a -- especially with Irma, a lot of
people representing that they are qualified lot clearers and tree clearers
and things. Lot clearing in Golden Gate Estates for home construction
is going rampant right now with the growth and development in
Eastern Collier County.
So this -- I'm fine with it, and I would certainly look forward to
your responses as to things we might do to enhance it.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. So maybe if -- if we make a motion
to continue this, then maybe we can put it on a regular --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, it will need to be. And
because, there again, the folks -- please, I'm not dictating. It would
need to be -- and I would like to have it as a time-certain because the
folks that I'm talking to actually work for a living, have businesses, and
it's difficult. But if they know in advance it's going to be at a time
certain --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- then we could bring in some
of the folks to speak on behalf of this.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Well, maybe we address that with
the County Manager and put it on an agenda where we can have some
presentations from the community on it and do that.
January 23, 2018
Page 28
So I'll make a motion to continue the item to a future meeting.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Soon.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I'll second it.
MR. KLATZKOW: Do we have a date-certain for that?
Otherwise, I have to re-advertise.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. A date-certain. Why don't we do it
at the next meeting or the one after, either way. The next meeting?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: How much time are you going
to need to provide comments?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: No, that's fine, the next meeting fine.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The next meeting's fine? I'm
good with that.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: So there's a motion and a second. All in
favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion carries.
I thank you for understanding that. I just -- that was a concern of
mine.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, you're more than welcome.
I mean, thank you for bringing it up. I shared last month when we
talked, even, one of the difficulties is we really only have an
opportunity to speak when the TV's on and Terri's writing down every
one of my misspoken words, and it makes it difficult to hash these
things out in advance.
And, you know, Commissioner Fiala, you're traveling and talking
January 23, 2018
Page 29
to folks in your district as well, and I have to talk to a lot of those folks
in those mobile home parks, and there's a lot of things that are
happening that should be being performed by contractors that aren't,
and the distinguishment between a friend, neighbor, helping a friend
and someone actually hiring someone who's unlicensed is difficult.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Too many people have gotten
filched, right?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I believe that as well. So there's got
to be some words that people with much more knowledge than I have
could come up with to protect the homeowners, at the same time to
protect the licensed contracts. And we have one guy that could do it,
and he's sitting right there in the front row, and he can help -- yeah,
you, Mike.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Mr. Bosi. Did you see him
start looking around? Who, me?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: He can help formulate the words we
need so it's a fair presentation on both sides, I would suggest, anyway.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Sure.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Mr. Manager?
MR. OCHS: Sir, I'm just looking at the clock. We have a 10 a.m.
time-certain, and I'm looking for a couple items we could button up
maybe before that. So if you don't mind if we jump around.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Take one more, sure.
Item #11F
STAFF TO ADVERTISE AND SCHEDULE A PUBLIC HEARING
TO AMEND ORDINANCE 2008-33 TO EXPAND THE
HALDEMAN CREEK MAINTENANCE DREDGING
MUNICIPAL SERVICE TAXING UNIT (MSTU) BOUNDARIES
January 23, 2018
Page 30
OF THE UNIT TO ADD 17 PARCELS – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Perhaps we could take Item 11F next. This is a
recommendation to direct the staff to advertise and schedule a public
hearing to amend Ordinance 2008-33 to expand the Haldeman Creek
Maintenance Dredging MSTU boundaries to add 17 parcels.
Deborah Forester, your CRA Director, will make the presentation.
MS. FORESTER: Good morning, Commissioners. For the
record, Deborah Forester, CRA Director.
This item is a follow-up to a public petition that was presented to
you on December 12th by Dr. Stephen Kwedar regarding the MSTU
boundaries for Haldeman Creek and the relationship to the Regatta
Landing condominium development.
So staff has reviewed it. Today we are looking direction from
you to move forward with drafting an ordinance and scheduling a
public hearing to expand the boundaries to include 17 parcels that are
shown on this map Mr. Durham is bringing up for you. It's on the
bottom, the southern portion of the Regatta Landing condominium.
And we're happy to answer any questions you may have.
MR. OCHS: You may have some public speakers, sir.
MR. MILLER: I do have one registered speaker, sir. Stephen
Kwedar. I hope I'm saying that right, sir.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Does anyone have any questions, first, of
the director?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No. I think it's a good idea, myself.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I do, too. Do we have
registered speakers? I didn't hear.
MR. MILLER: Yes. This gentleman here, Stephen.
MR. KWEDAR: I'm Stephen Kwedar. I spoke to you at your
last meeting, Commissioners. Thank you for allowing me to speak
again.
January 23, 2018
Page 31
I'd like to address some of the things that Mr. Kratzkoff (sic) put
in his memo to you.
There's no question that my building and the two other buildings
are outside the MSTU. Mr. Kratzkoff uses the argument that we
benefit because of the fact that we're in a condo association from
Haldeman Creek, and he uses in his argument two things: One is the
boat docks, and the second are the kayak spaces.
The boat docks are a totally different condominium association.
If I'm not a member of that condo association, I may not use the boat
docks. I may not set foot on them.
The second is the kayaks. And he says that the kayaks -- the fact
I do have the right to use the kayaks, the kayak launching site;
however, in our condominium document it states that residents within
Windstar on Naples Bay, including Regatta Landing unit owners and
their families, guests, invitees, licensees, have the right to use the
kayak launch.
Now, notice that said Windstar, the residents of Windstar. Not
just Regatta Landing, but Windstar. That's a lot of people. And if you
apply the reasoning that because of the fact that I can use the kayak
space I should be in this MSTU, then everybody in Windstar should
be, and that's not right.
He also says in there that the financial impact to us is $1,800. On
my TRIM notice, my financial impact is over $600, and there are 12 of
us, and that would be about $7,000 for a budget that's $78,000. We're
paying almost 10 percent of the budget, and we don't have -- we have
no benefits from the -- from Haldeman Creek Association. We're not
on it, and we're out of it. And I really don't think it's fair, and I don't
think it's fair to try to get around it and say, well, we're going to vote
you in, because I think if you vote us in, Mr. Kratzkoff, you're going to
have to vote everybody that's in Windstar in.
I thank you.
January 23, 2018
Page 32
Do you have any questions for me?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: No, sir.
Is there a motion?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Make a motion to ask staff to
advertise and schedule a public hearing to amend Ordinance 2006-60
as amended, to expand the Haldeman Creek maintenance dredging
municipal service taxing unit to the boundaries of the unit to add 17
parcels.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Is there a second?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Second the motion.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Second by Commissioner Fiala.
All in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion carries.
Item #11B
REPORT REGARDING CURRENT PUBLIC ACCESS
OPPORTUNITIES AT COLLIER COUNTY BEACH SITES AND
AUTHORIZE STAFF TO INITIATE A FEASIBILITY STUDY
FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PARKING STRUCTURE AND
RELATED BEACH ACCESS IMPROVEMENTS AT CLAM PASS
PARK - MOTION TO BRING BACK HB631 AS PART OF THE
LEGISLATIVE AGENDA WITH THE COUNTY ATTORNEY TO
January 23, 2018
Page 33
DRAFT AN ORDINANCE FOR CONSIDERATION FOR BEACH
USE – APPROVED; STAFF TO PREPARE A FEASIBILITY
STUDY FOR DISCUSSION AS PART OF THE PARKS MASTER
PLAN TO BE PRESENTED IN APRIL, INCLUDING WIGGINS
PASS AND CLAM PASS – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we'll now move to our 10 a.m.
time-certain item. This is Item 11B. It's a recommendation to accept a
report regarding current public access opportunities at Collier County
beach sites and authorize staff to initiate a feasibility study for the
development of a parking structure and related beach access
improvements at the Clam Pass Park.
Steve Carnell, your Public Services Department Head, will make
the presentation. Steve?
MR. CARNELL: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the
board. Steve Carnell, your Public Services Department Head.
You will -- the five of you will remember that we ended 2017
with the successful completion of a negotiated agreement with the City
of Naples to extend the current beach parking arrangement out to the
fall of 2022. In that discussion, there were a number of considerations
that got discussed in dialogue back and forth between the city and the
county, and one of them was the capacity for beach access, our current
capacity and our plans going forward.
And I think there was a realization by both the city and the county
in that discussion that our population continues to grow, we get new
residents, we gain new seasonal residents, we gain increased volumes
of visitors each year. This is a popular place to visit and live.
And with that, the population continues to grow, the traffic
continues to grow, if you will, our beach access has really not grown.
It has remained stagnant for several years, and I think there was a
desire from the Board back in November, a request, to have the staff
January 23, 2018
Page 34
come back and discuss this issue. So that's why we're here today.
I want to take a moment and just walk you through very briefly a
very, kind of, 5,000-foot view of our current county beach sites and
amenities at each, talk about vehicle parking and capacity and
utilization at each, and also give some brief reference and
consideration to some possible other modes to get people to and from
beaches, and then a look ahead to some next possibly tangible steps we
could take to address this with your guidance and direction.
Very briefly, if you look at all of our beaches combined, we have
seven beach park facilities presently. They are almost 428 acres in
size. We also have nine distinct beach access points along North Gulf
Shore Drive that are mostly the product of plat approvals from the
1950s. Those are strictly pedestrian access and limited bicycle access,
but in addition to all that, when you collectively run it together, our
entire system has almost 1,700 parking spaces, and we estimate almost
1.2 million visitors each year to those sites.
Just walking you through each one of them, beginning at the very
north, Barefoot Beach access. This is the access right on the
Lee/Collier County line, and the fuzzy red line there on the left side of
your screen is the actual physical beach access which attaches to the
parking lot immediately to the right. We have 67 parking spaces there
and picnic shelters and quite a bit of traffic.
In 2017, I'm sorry, Fiscal Year 2017, we had over 36,000 visitors.
I'm sorry. 87,000 visitors and 36,000 vehicles.
Immediately due south of that is the larger Barefoot Beach
preserve, which is a property of almost 350 acres; 160 of it, roughly,
belongs to the county, and the balance is state lands. All of the land at
Barefoot Beach is managed by Collier County under a joint
management agreement with the state. This is a beautiful natural
barrier island, as you all know. It is governed by a land management
plan, that we are the lead administrators and the managers of day to
January 23, 2018
Page 35
day. A number of wonderful amenities there and -- nature trail, canoe
trips, launches, boat launches, and we have an environmental learning
center that is staffed by just a very robust group of volunteers that
deserve a little shout out as we go through this.
There are 400 parking spaces in the preserve, and you see the red
lines there on your screen are the parking areas. There are three. And,
again, that area in FY '17 got over 325,000 visitors and over 135,000
vehicles through it.
Heading south to Vanderbilt Beach, this is our busiest beach
access park in our jurisdiction, if you will; five acres. And, again, it's
like a lot of our beach access sites. It's very robust. There's a myriad of
things within the site: Gopher tortoise habitat preservation area, beach
concession, bike racks.
And then, of course, we have a parking garage which houses 340
vehicles, and we have an additional 20-some-odd vehicles -- vehicle
spaces for on-street parking. Total capacity of about 360 vehicle
spaces. And 146,000 vehicles visit here each -- visited in FY '17 and
over 350,000 visitors we estimate to Vanderbilt Beach.
Clam Pass, moving further south, 35 acres. We've got the
boardwalk, of course, that goes out through the existing boardwalk that
takes us out through the estuary to the beach. It's a shorebird natural
resource protection area, and, of course, we transport people. People
can walk or they can be transported through a tram service that we
operate cooperatively with the Naples Grande. We have guided nature
walks there, restrooms, foot showers, beach concessions, kayak, a
number of amenities at that site now, and we also have a CAT bus stop
that stops there.
At present, the parking -- the flat, one-level parking area has 171
spaces available, and each year we process -- well, at least this past
year we processed over 65,000 vehicles, over 157,000 visitors
estimated to that park.
January 23, 2018
Page 36
And then moving down further to North Gulf Shore Drive, I
mentioned earlier the beach access points. These were deeded to the
county many, many moons ago. There are nine of them altogether,
starting with Bluebill access at the north end and Vanderbilt Road at
the south end. These are largely pedestrian access only. There are
legal prohibitions within the authorizations as to what can or can't be
placed at these sites, but essentially there are pedestrian access
cut-throughs between various private properties to the beach. Some
have amenities; some don't. They all receive some minimal daily
maintenance but, again, there's no vehicle parking at any of these.
The Seagate access -- and this will be fresh in you-all's mind.
You may remember we did some improvements to this site last year,
and this is another good site to stop and take a reflect on what's
happening to our community. We've had a significant steady growth
in biker traffic in this area, and it's become a wonderful pathway, if
you will, from Pelican Bay to the north down into the city, and we
have a good -- bicycle.
MR. OCHS: You said bike.
MR. CARNELL: Okay, yeah. Pedal bicycles. The kind of bike
that I ride, okay.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I was thinking about biker.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Commissioner Saunders and I
are members of ABATE.
MR. CARNELL: Well, I'll bring my Harley and tattoo to the next
meeting. But we -- thank you.
Bicycles. We have a lot of bicycle traffic through here, and so
much so that we really recognized the need to make some
improvements to this last year, and we did kind of a three-pronged
project. If you look at the red line, on the far right end of it, you'll see
the parking lot, which houses almost 40 cars. We repaved the parking
lot. And then that diagonal line is the pathway, if you will, coming
January 23, 2018
Page 37
from the north and heading down and dropping traffic onto Gulf Shore
going south. And we widened the pathway several feet, and then
going west towards the beach, towards the actual access point, we
rebuilt the wall to the south of the access that borders the park
condominium.
And all that was done last summer successfully. Again, nice
steady traffic there. The real challenge with this spot is the beach is
pretty narrow. There's not a ton of room to put people there. But it's a
very popular access, particularly for the bikers who pedal bicycles.
Okay. Now, moving south, Tigertail Beach, Marco Island. This
one, when I came to Collier County 32 years ago and I took my
children to this place, it was a beach, and today it's a lagoon. Mother
Nature's done her thing here. And you'll see at Tigertail I highlighted
for you the parking area to the left. There's four access points out of
that parking lot. The parking lot houses a little over 200 cars. We had
65,000-plus vehicles come through in 2017; had over 158,000 visitors
estimated to that park.
Number of amenities at this site and location, we continue to have
dialogue with the City of Marco Island trying to find creative ways to
optimize this site and get more people into the site in an
environmentally sound, safe, and appropriate way, and we have some
discussions. If you'll look to the right of your screen, you'll see the
dotted blue line. There's been some discussion about how to try to
move more people through this beach, and two options have been
talked about. One has been to erect a boardwalk over that -- roughly in
that area where the blue line is. There are concerns about doing that,
obviously, and things we'd have to give much more consideration to
moving forward. But, we as a staff, are noticing some degradation to
the area because there are people on their own traipsing through the
lagoon and making their way across to Sand Dollar Island and the Gulf
of Mexico.
January 23, 2018
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The other possible alternative, of course, it would be -- if you
look to the left of the screen, you'll see the yellow line, we could
potentially initiate a tram service that would leave from the parking
area and go to the south down to the open beach and take people to the
Gulf of Mexico and onto the heart of Sand Dollar Island through those
means. So those are things we've talked about for Tigertail.
South Marco Beach is due west of our Caxambas Park all the way
over on the Gulf of Mexico. And if you see the line there, you'll see
the beach access point to the left, and to the right is county-owned
parking area, county-operated parking area. We have almost 70
parking spaces; 30,000 vehicles came through there in 2017, and we
estimate about 73,000 visitors.
That's what we have right now, current inventory. There are
some other ideas. We've given some consideration that I wanted to put
in front of you today. Not ready to present any hard proposals on these
but just want to make you aware of them as possible options for further
exploration.
Our Collier Area Transit system, I think many of you know we're
operating the second year of a three-year pilot in-season beach
circulator along north shelf -- I'm sorry -- North Gulf Shore Drive, and
we also have the possibility of potentially looking at developing some
other routes, one that would circulate through the downtown area of
Naples along the southern portion of Gulf Shore Drive as well as and
connecting it to the downtown Fifth Avenue South area. There's also
some possibility to go more north with a more northerly run along Gulf
Shore Drive.
Then we have water taxi. We've kicked around the idea of
initiating a water taxi service that -- we've initially been talking about
Barefoot Beach as the logical place to maybe connect people between
Barefoot Beach and the Cocohatchee boat park or some other launch
location off of U.S. 41, potentially. We do have some private
January 23, 2018
Page 39
concessionaires in that area who may be approachable and interested in
operating that as an outsource for us, and we'll talk more about that just
briefly in a moment.
We've also looked at the idea of bicycle rentals, of providing
rented bikes that would be locked and stored at different key beach
locations, and we're in the middle right now of updating our five-year
update to the parks and recreation master plan, and we're doing a lot of
citizen engagement through that right now as we speak.
I mention that because we are talking about beach access along
with 50 other parks-related issues, and so we're going in with open ears
and eyes, and we're going to be bringing back to this board some
update on that in April in terms of what we're hearing from focus
groups and from our citizens at large and, essentially, our constituent
groups, our stakeholder groups. And keep that in mind as we talk
about all of this, because that may be an opportunity; that may be the
next logical round to talk about all of this.
Again, briefly -- I want to just elaborate on the water taxi service.
The concept might be to find a central vehicle location where people
could park away from the beach and then transport them by water
shuttle to Barefoot Beach. There would be some challenges with that.
We'd need to erect a pier at Barefoot Beach, and that potentially could
run as much as a million dollars, but there's some other possibilities
with water taxis beyond Barefoot Beach, which we'll come to in a
moment.
But the simple idea would just be to provide kind of a novel,
unique different way to get to the beach and also offload a little bit of
the demand for vehicle parking use.
Within our beaches, we're looking at ideas within our existing
parks of trying to maximize or optimize the sites, and one simple one
is on Caxambas Marina, which is maybe a half mile to the east of
South Marco Beach, of maybe developing an outsource trolley service
January 23, 2018
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where we do have parking space available at Caxambas. There's green
grass there, and we think we could park several cars and operate a
trolley for profit with a private trolley operator who would just run --
essentially, run people down the street to the access.
And then we're looking -- I mentioned Tigertail a moment ago, a
concept of either pursuing a boardwalk or potentially a tram service.
That may be the first and more appropriate step.
And then I mentioned electrical bike rental. These are actually
electric bikes. Our park staff has identified a product that we could use
for rentals at various locations to connect people from Site A to Site B
and move them around and, again, get more mileage, if you will, out of
your vehicle parking through that utility.
Okay. Then we get to Clam Pass and to Wiggins Pass, and these
are -- I'm going to put these in front of you this morning for
reconsideration. We've been dealing with beach access. You-all have
dealt with beach access for years and trying to enhance and build a
resource, and we have given some consideration in the past to a couple
of ideas at Clam Pass. One would be to construct a parking structure
there over the existing parking lot. Right now you have about 170
spaces available. If you went vertical with a three-story structure, you
potentially could triple your parking or add more than 300 spaces to
your capacity. Estimated cost right now, about seven to 10 million.
That's a pre-engineered cost. We'd have to obviously work the details
to see what the real costs could be further.
The other piece is an idea we talked -- this board talked about,
prior board talked about a few years ago, which is to look at expanding
the southern boardwalk on Clam Pass.
Now, this past Christmas season didn't cooperate with my evil
plans as much as I would have liked in the sense that in true peak
season on Clam Pass, if you look to the north of where the existing
boardwalk is now and you look to the south, you see a striking
January 23, 2018
Page 41
difference. And my evil plan was to get you a drone shot to see both
views, and the challenge I ran into was it was cold this last Christmas
season. It didn't have quite the desired effect I was wanting to show
you. But what you just need to think is you look to the north, ants.
You look to the south, crickets. There's a whole lot of available beach,
almost a half mile of which, which is extremely underutilized right
now and at Clam Pass Park. It is the one area in all these parks where
there's clearly some room to place more people on the beach.
So that's the reason why we're putting this back in front of you
this morning to take a look at the possibility of moving forward with
developing a parking structure and/or boardwalk expansion.
Now, I think all of you know that that park is under deed
restrictions and covenants with the Pelican Bay Foundation. So right
off the bat we would be needing to partner with that group and with
that board, and we'd be looking at making multiple public
presentations about either or both amenities, because there's an awful
lot of public comment and discourse that has to occur on this going
forward before it would be approved into full production as a project.
Put those ideas in front of you this morning as our best options
right now of having maybe the most high impact gain you could in
terms of increasing your beach access inventory. The other one is one
that's pretty -- oh, I'm sorry. Let me just show you briefly again for
everybody's benefit what we're talking about. Here's our little yellow
slingshot on the screen. And if you look to the right, you'll see in
white the existing boardwalk circling around the north end of Clam
Bay, and then coming across, and the existing boardwalk, of course,
carries out to that north end, the northwest corner of the screen there,
and what's proposed here in concept would be to extend the boardwalk
south, put a southern fork on it, if you will, coming off the middle of
the boardwalk area and coming off due south from the existing
boardwalk area, and it would go down south half a mile, almost a --
January 23, 2018
Page 42
not quite a half mile. Maybe four-tenths of a mile down, and that
would -- if we constructed that facility, and the concept that was
conceived previously, the previous concept included restrooms, a
picnic and pavilion area, and some observations, some cutouts along
the trail where people could walk and see mangroves more closely. So
that would be included all on that southern extension. That's the basic
concept that we had the last time you considered this.
And then Wiggins Pass. Here's one, a little shot in the dark, a
blast from the past, however you'd like to look at it. Many of you
know that Collier County owned this facility or this property many,
many, many moons ago. And, in I believe 1970 the county sold it to
the state. I don't -- were you on the Board, Commissioner? Okay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Almost.
MR. CARNELL: I mean, you're a teenager, I realize, but, no.
That was almost 50 years ago, and at the time it made sense, I'm sure,
to that governing board, to do that and to work with the state, and the
state's done some good things over the years with that site.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So please explain to the Board
how much Collier County sold the land to the state for.
MR. CARNELL: You know, I don't know; was is $3.81?
MR. OCHS: 275,000, -76,000.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It was 1970.
MR. CARNELL: So we're willing to pay 280- now to get it back.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: After it was gifted; after it was
gifted.
MR. CARNELL: What we've seen over the years has been
challenges that the state has had in supporting this site and dealing with
the growth in this area.
And we have a blueprint and a precedence for this with Barefoot
Beach of a negotiated cooperative agreement where either the county
owns or the county manages state-owned property jointly. And so the
January 23, 2018
Page 43
idea maybe here is to revisit that, re-open it up with some
conversations with the state, possibly through our lobbyist, to try to
connect to the appropriate staff in Tallahassee and see if there's any
interest in the county assuming responsibility as an owner or as a
manager, if you will.
The fundamental opportunities here would be the opportunity to
add beach parking capacity to better manage the traffic, existing or
additional, coming in and out of that facility, and there is already a
dock there. So when we start talking about things like a water taxi
service, we could cost avoid having to build one somewhere else if we
could just use the one that's there, but the wrinkle would be that we
would market that site and we would make it a signature feature, if you
will, of the park, and really try to encourage people to use that rather
than to park in the facility.
So bottom line is, we're bringing to you today recommendations
to re-open the discussion of Clam Pass parking structure and the south
boardwalk expansion. There's a lot of due diligence to come before --
as I said earlier, before that becomes a project, and then to possibly
pursue some kind of agreement with the state on Wiggins Pass.
And then, as I said, we'll be coming back to you, I believe, in
April with an update on our Parks and Rec master plan, and there'll be
some suggestions and ideas regarding beach access included in that
plan at the time.
So I'm trying to give you a place to know going forward where
we can re-discuss this issue again. And with that, I'll take your
questions.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any questions from the Board for Mr.
Carnell?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Looks like you have speakers.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I really didn't have a question.
I just really wanted to talk to my colleagues a little bit to see. I mean,
January 23, 2018
Page 44
this is an issue that we obviously need to address at some particular
point in time, and there is going to be a considerable amount of public
input that comes to us as we move forward with this.
And I wanted to be very clear, because Mr. Carnell added in
things that had to do with Wiggins Pass that weren't part of -- what I
perceived to be part of this agenda item. So I didn't want to jump to
Wiggins Pass when we're talking about boardwalk and a potential
parking lot at Clam Pass.
So I just -- maybe we ought to have a workshop on this in
advance just to try to vet this a little bit further. I mean, there are
things that haven't been suggested. I mean, you did talk a little bit
about the shuttle service that we are currently running, parking
structures in the eastern portion of the community. I mean, further out
around Livingston, partnering with the private sector to facilitate the
shuttle service from the eastern portion of the community, reducing
traffic, reducing congestion inside the -- inside the beach areas and
such. That really wasn't, to me, promoted a lot. You're talking
specifically about access to the beach right where the beaches -- where
the beach accesses are.
And, personally, I'm not in favor of a parking garage in Clam
Pass. I don't think it's such a great idea. The boardwalk to the south
from the existing boardwalk and whether it needs to be extended all
the way south as far as what was proposed, I don't know, but, I mean,
mainly getting Clam Pass itself, I think, would access that cricket
portion that Mr. Carnell talked to us about. So just a couple of
thoughts that I had. They weren't really questions. It was more
comments.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor, did you want to
hear from the speakers first, and, Commissioner Fiala, or do you want
to go ahead and have your --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'm happy to hear from the speakers
January 23, 2018
Page 45
first.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I just have a question, I guess.
When you bring this back -- maybe it's a request -- I think it would be
very good to have a comparison of the cost over, like, a 50-year span
of building structures as versus investing in transportation to take
people to the beach.
The other thing that I needed to -- and I kind of gulped on this,
Steve, Mr. Carnell. The most generous beach accesses in this county is
within the City of Naples, and the idea that you would consider
running a bus to bring more people to those already-crowded beaches
kind of boggles the mind. It seems to me if we do have kind of
transportation and this -- you know, I represent the district but also an
awareness that if we are going to bring folks into the county, to the
beaches, it probably should be at areas that are probably not as
populated and not -- and don't have as much density in terms of traffic.
The other thing I wanted to bring up to everyone is that there is a
current bill in the House right now that is being supported by one of
our local representatives to make it unlawful for the public to be on the
beaches in front of private residences, and so we probably need to take
a look at that or just keep an eye on that. And if you're not aware of it,
I'm sure that we can get that office -- that to you.
And then finally, when you are considering the garage at Clam
Pass, please understand that it's getting to Clam Pass, and if you're
going to build a parking garage, there's a two-lane road that goes -- it
winds through a residential area to where this proposed garage is going
to be, and how are you going to mitigate that traffic also backing up
into -- you know, how are the people going to get in and out on busy
days? So it's the bigger picture to look at. And at that point I don't
have anything else to say.
MR. OCHS: That's not dissimilar to the parking structure at
January 23, 2018
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Vanderbilt Beach. It's a two-lane road as well. There's only a certain
number of spots that are viable along the beach.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But the difference is is that it's
one way out for residential on those streets, and an emergency vehicle
and a backup time would have difficultly, because you have the
community of Seagate right there.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: But where Seagate comes out is where
Seagate turns into four lanes and then goes to 41, right?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes, but --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: The entrance to the park is two lanes.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: But there's -- yes, exactly, but
there's a lot of -- a lot of folks back there in terms of the use of the
Crayton Road entry into their neighborhood. So if it becomes backed
up, then you've got some problems.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I think at this point the request is for staff
to analyze these things, the feasibility, and then we're going to vet
these whether in a workshop -- it probably would be something good
for a workshop because these are important issues, to really vet them in
a environment where we can just talk about them and we can get input
from the public. So if that's the case -- Commissioner Saunders.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Mr. Chairman, if I might --
because I had not seen that particular bill. You had indicated that
there's a bill that one of our delegation members have supported.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I guess two questions: Who in
our delegation is supporting that, and do you have a bill number or just
--
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I do, and I'll get that to you.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: All right. Because, obviously,
anyone that's supporting legislation to prohibit beach access in front of
private property when the beaches are owned by the public would be --
January 23, 2018
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that would be a very strange piece of legislation. Obviously, I don't
think it would go anywhere, but I think we need to have a chat with
our delegation member that's supporting that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Who in our delegation presented
that?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, again, I'll get this to you so
we can get it to you. I'll get the whole --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Well, Mr. Manager, perhaps
James Mullins could, while we're here, just do a quick check.
MR. OCHS: He's already on it, sir. We'll have it at your break.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you.
We have a break scheduled at 10:30. Should we -- does our court
reporter need a break? Or how many registered speakers do we have?
MR. MILLER: I have six registered public speakers for this item,
sir. Make it seven, sir.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. We'll proceed with the public
speakers then.
MR. MILLER: Your first public speaker is Vanessa Booker (sic).
She will be followed by Meredith Bernard.
MR. OCHS: Both podiums are available.
MR. MILLER: Thank you, sir.
MS. BOOHER: Good morning, Commissioners, I'm Vanessa
Booher, a Biologist at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
Today I would like to speak specifically about the reincarnation
of the boardwalk extension and additional facilities that are proposed
within this item. The idea of expanding the Clam Pass boardwalk was
presented back in 2008 and resulted in plans developed by Coastal
Engineering in 2009 for coastal zone management.
As you can see, this is almost identical to what is being reviewed
today. The plans were subsequently rejected due to ecological impact
and damage that would have resulted from the boardwalk expansion
January 23, 2018
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along with negative public opinion.
Prior to spending county funds on a feasibility study, we feel that
the county would be better served by, once again, assessing public
opinion and the ecological impacts that would result from this plan.
We'd like to remind the commissioners that the Clam Pass system
is the only mangrove estuarine system situated in the center of our
urban area and is a remnant of a once extensive coastal mangrove
system. We tend to forget that we have already lost a substantial
amount of mangroves from urban sprawl, and we continue to chip
away at this natural resource that provides recreational opportunities
that is important to our economy.
The Clam Bay system is currently stressed, and the building of a
structure through the system forces additional stressors in an already
susceptible area to die off.
One lesson from Irma is how a healthy mangrove system protects
us from storm surge and wind damage, and coastal infrastructure that
has the potential to negatively impact these natural resources are
compromising the protection offered naturally from the next big storm.
In conclusion, the Conservancy is respectively requesting that the
idea of expanding the boardwalk, along with the associated restrooms
and shade structures, be rejected since this idea has already been fully
analyzed, assessed, and rejected.
Thank you for your attention.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Meredith Barnard. She'll be
followed by Gaylene Vasatoro.
MS. BARNARD: Good morning, Commissioners. For the
record, Meredith Barnard. I'm here on behalf of the Conservancy of
Southwest Florida and our over 7,000 supporting families. I want to
thank you for allowing me to speak on this issue.
We appreciate staff providing you with the compilation of beach
access and capacity calculations in order for you-all to better
January 23, 2018
Page 49
understand the county's existing resources as directed from the
December 12th, 2017, board meeting; however, we're really concerned
about the concepts included in this presentation which are being
identified as possible opportunities to expand or optimize access.
The document is really a great rapid-response evaluation of
existing resources that the county has, but it's not an appropriate
vehicle for proposing concepts aimed at targeting specific parks for
expansion and additional beach access. Not only does it lack
substantive supporting documentation for the proposed
recommendations, but it really ignores the fact that at least one
recommendation, which my colleague just spoke to you about, the
south boardwalk expansion at Clam Pass, was evaluated in great detail
in the past and rejected based primarily on unacceptable ecological
impacts, and nothing has changed since then.
The Conservancy believes that the staff's recommendation to
initiate the feasibility study for a Clam Pass southern boardwalk and
parking structure along with assuming the management of Delnor
Wiggins is really just premature at this point and would not be an
efficient use of staff time or the resources to pursue.
Staff Recommendation 3 states really the most logical path
forward. Your parks department is currently engaged in a five-year
update of the master plan. Ideas for additional beach access
opportunities should be wrapped into this, including additional
meetings for public input before any feasibility study is begun.
So, overall, in line with Commissioner McDaniel's comments
preceding public comment, we hope that you consider really properly
vetting the entire set of proposed projects with the public first before
authorizing staff to move forward with the feasibility study. In doing it
that way, you'll have a better opportunity to hear from the people of
Collier County and will be in a better position to make decisions
regarding the need for the study at all.
January 23, 2018
Page 50
Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Gaylene Vasaturo. She'll be
followed by Peter M. Duggan.
MS. VASATURO: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm a
resident and a long-time visitor at Clam Pass Park. I'm here today; I
want to ask you not to fund a study to design a parking garage and
expansion of the boardwalk until you -- at Clam Pass. First, go to the
public, and I think you'll find a lot of opposition to that. In fact, I'm
joining the chorus here. I can see that.
If you've been to Clam Pass, you know its beauty. There are no
other beaches in the Naples area that provide/offer what Clam Pass
provides. You can walk along the beach. It's a natural area, and there's
wildlife. Clam Beach itself and the pass area provides one of the few
places in Southwest Florida for wintering and migrating shorebirds;
thousands of them spend some time there to refuel and to rest. Some
of these birds travel 10- to 18,000 miles round trip, and they need to
spend several weeks getting fat again to continue on their way, and the
others that winter here go in the summer and breed up north in the
Arctic, Canada, and Northern U.S.
So you're thinking of adding the proposal -- additional -- or
adding 300 parking spaces to the park. That's going to bring in way
too many people for the small area that Clam Pass Beach provides. It's
a narrow beach along the area. The -- and in season, right now, the
Clam Pass Beach is very crowded.
So if you can compare Clam Pass Park, which is -- and beach,
which is 35 acres, to Bonita Beach Preserve, which is another county
beach that has a natural preserve area, that Bonita Beach preserve has
345, 350 acres and 400 parking spaces.
Clam Pass Park only has 35 acres, and the beach area is very
small. Clam Pass Beach would be so crowded that it would destroy
what makes Clam Pass Beach desirable. It would change the character
January 23, 2018
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of the beach, and there would be no place for these shorebirds.
Expansion of the boardwalk south, this would be devastating to
the natural area. It would destroy irreplaceable mangroves, back dunes
and wetlands, and it's unnecessary. As it's already been discussed here,
one important benefit of the mangroves is protection of our coastline
against storm surge and extreme storm events.
So, again, I'm running out of time, but I really hope that if you
provide a public workshop, that you will get the public comment on
this. Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Peter M. Duggan. He will
be followed by Dr. Joseph Doyle.
MR. DUGGAN: Peter Duggan, Pelican Bay, a full-time resident
in Naples.
Four or five years ago many of us spent hours at public sessions
on the subject of a southern boardwalk expansion and a tram and
several other things there. Besides putting the garage in, they were
going to do observation towers, picnic areas, restrooms. And this idea
of going down the beach, as the previous speaker just said, is very
disruptive to the sea grasses, the sea oats, the whole boardwalk
approach. If you want to walk, you go to the beach, you can just walk
down the beach. Yes, there's plenty of room down south of the public
pass, but just walk down there. You don't have to have a boardwalk to
go down there.
The next thing is, the Mangrove Action Group is trying to protect
our 570 acres of mangroves in Clam Pass and, as you know, we're the
only, in Collier County, natural resources protection area in the county,
and that 570 acres of mangroves is already stressed after Irma.
And also, as you may be aware, that whole area has seagrasses
which protect the area and do wonderful things for breeding of fish.
And manatees come in, and in cold weather as we were experiencing a
couple weeks ago, manatees tend to go to warmer water, which is
January 23, 2018
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Clam Pass.
So why would you put another wide section going down to the
beach and disrupt all those mangroves, all those wetlands, and then put
a boardwalk down the beach? It's -- we've also spent -- I don't know
why it's even on the table. We were here four, five years ago and spent
hours in public hearings to discuss this and turned it down, including in
front of this body here.
So I think it's -- the garage is a separate issue; not commenting on
that. But the southern boardwalk and disrupting the mangroves and
going down the beach -- beside the shorebirds, you also have gopher
tortoises and a lot of other animals in the beaches itself -- as you know,
drop down to about 100 feet. You're talking about spending 30 to $35
million on beach renourishment and probably starting in 2019.
So you've got a lot of things on your agenda, and I wouldn't be
worried about this subject which you already looked at five years ago.
Thanks.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Dr. Joseph Doyle. He'll be
followed by Brad Cornell.
DR. DOYLE: Good morning, Commissioners. Dr. Joseph Doyle.
I'm in agreement with much of the comment that has already been
made. My mother is the property owner in Pelican Bay. You know
I've been here several times discussing Pelican Bay issues.
We've spent, over the last 10 to 15 years, hundreds of thousands
of dollars in restoring the mangrove forest. As you know, it almost
died on us, and it's actually still in jeopardy because of Irma, et cetera.
So we don't even know -- and we're going to need another year or two
to find out what the final outcome is on Irma as far as the impact on the
mangrove forest. So I really think it would be ill-conceived to be
building a boardwalk through that part of Clam Bay.
As far as the parking garage goes, I do, you know, understand the
dilemma that we have, and I think that maybe that -- we should
January 23, 2018
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probably go ahead with the feasibility study for the parking garage and
the traffic study to go along with it so we could have more
information.
Let's face it, you know, the county has grown tremendously in the
last 20 years, and people want access to the beach. So we have to do
something. I think it's going to be a give and take.
So, you know, and that, as someone already pointed out, would
parallel what's happened already at Vanderbilt Beach with the
three-story parking garage. But I do believe we still need to have a lot
of public input as far as a lot of these ideas go, but I think the only way
you could have -- at least on the parking garage you need to have the
feasibility study so that we have facts to deal with before we have
those workshops.
And then, of course, as you know, Pelican Bay Foundation does
have input because of the deed restrictions on the mangroves. I don't
know what -- how that affects the parking garage. It may be a separate
ball of wax, but that's how I feel about it. Please take that into
consideration.
Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Brad Cornell. He'll be
followed by David Galloway.
MR. CORNELL: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Brad
Cornell, and I'm here on behalf of the Audubon of the Western
Everglades. Appreciate the opportunity to weigh in here.
I want -- I'm also the facilitator for an Audubon shorebird
stewardship program that's in Lee and Collier County, and we train
dozens of very dedicated volunteers to educate the public about how to
protect shorebirds and seabirds that have been mentioned earlier, and
also to collect data to help us learn more about them.
I also want to echo some of the previous speakers about not
getting ahead of your master planning process for parks and rec. I was
January 23, 2018
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asked to participate in a focus group along with several other
colleagues. I never heard anything about any of these ideas that you're
now discussing this morning. So I'm a little bit taken aback, with all
due respect to staff. And I think staff do a wonderful job with parks
and rec, but beach access is a very, very delicate issue, if I may say it
that way.
And the big issue about beach access and what we're all talking
about is carrying capacity. You don't want to put so many people on
any one particular location that, one, it's not a good visitor experience
because you're all packed in there like sardines, and I think we've all
been on a beach that's like that. Maybe some people like that, but,
frankly, I think that degrades the experience and, two, many of our
beaches, and the ones that we're talking about here, Tigertail and Sand
Dollar down on Marco, Clam Pass, which is one of the only natural
passes in the state of Florida, and Wiggins Pass are all very natural
communities, natural ecosystems that have evolved over thousands of
years, and that -- the nature of those places is part of that experience.
Plus, these shorebirds and seabirds, like you see in this picture --
this was last Saturday. We have thousands of shorebirds and seabirds.
Over a thousand -- two weeks ago we had over 2,000 black skimmers,
which are a threatened species. And many of them have -- some of
them have bands on their legs. So we actually are looking at these
birds to find where they've been in the past to learn more about them.
One of the only places they gather in the wintertime, as you've
already heard, is right at Clam Pass.
Tigertail Beach is active year round, both in winter and in nesting
season for black skimmers and other birds.
So I really ask you to hold back on feasibility studies, fold this
discussion into your master plan parks and rec process, and listen to
what the public is telling you. I think you heard some cautionary
comments this morning, and I'm joining that chorus, so thank you very
January 23, 2018
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much for that consideration.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is David Galloway. He'll be
followed by Dickson Brown.
MR. GALLOWAY: Thank you, Commissioners. And I
appreciate just having the opportunity to speak.
David Galloway. I live in the Vanderbilt Beach area, and I agree
with probably everything these speakers just said.
I do know the feasibility studies are very, very important, and
that's the way we do business. That's the way corporate structures do it.
All businesses do it that way. They look at a long-term plan.
My concern, I guess, is the fact that we do need more beach
access someplace, and we talked about the other beaches; you've got
Barefoot Beach, you've got Tigertail, the other ones; of course,
Vanderbilt Beach. You talk about putting 15 pounds of bananas in a
five-pound bag, well, that's Vanderbilt Beach.
And as you know, there aren't the birds down there anymore
because of the fact that there's too many people there, unless they're
seagulls that are getting a piece of bread or something from somebody.
So my point is that we have to look at this stuff. We have to make
more beach access. Everybody can't come to Wiggins Pass and
Vanderbilt Beach. With the buses going down there now dropping
people off, it's just unbelievable. There's no more parking.
With Naples 1 project going in there, that's going to take away a
lot of for-profit parking there, so we need to make sure we have access,
adequate access across all of Collier County and not just in our Clam
Pass, Vanderbilt Beach area. Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your final public speaker on this item is Dickson
Brown.
MR. BROWN: Good morning. I want to compliment you on
addressing this issue. It's certainly something that we, all who have
lived here for years, have felt needs to be addressed. I also thought
January 23, 2018
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Mr. Cornell's presentation was well thought through. It was very
instructive.
My one comment would be, I think sometimes you don't see the
forest for the trees, and this relates to the proposal for the addition to
the south beach -- the south boardwalk.
Right now -- and I don't know how many of you have gone down
the Clam Pass boardwalk and gone down to the beach. I would
recommend that you all do that. It's a wonderful area.
But when you get down there, if you're just the public or a tourist
and you're not a resident of the expensive hotel there, the Naples
Grande, you have to go right to the part that actually has been eroded
substantially. If you go to the left you face a wall. The wall is a bunch
of platforms that Naples Grande has put down over the last two or
three years. It's impenetrable. You cannot walk to the left.
The reason there isn't anything on the left side, the south side, is
you can't get there because Naples Grande has taken it over. In fact,
many people think Naples Grande owns that property. I do not know
the history of why the -- this beach has been turned over to Naples
Grande, but the easy answer is to tell Naples Grande to get their stuff
off the beach. There is a contract with Naples Grande, which I believe
was renewed just last year. I'm not aware of any public hearing about
it. I'm not aware of any request for public bids. There's something odd
about it.
My recommendation would be that contract should be canceled.
The Board -- the county should seek proposals from people for
providing beach chairs, a proposal for providing equipment down
there, a proposal for operating the restaurant, and a proposal for
running the tram. When you go down there, you'll discover that if
you're the public, you're a second-class citizen. You know, if you're
not in the hotel, they'll pick you up, but I have seen lines that are over a
100 people long. No line at the hotel.
January 23, 2018
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So an important issue here is making the beach available to the
public, to the residents, and to our visitors, not to the people who can
afford to live at the Naples Grande. I really think you need to address
that.
Thank you.
MR. MILLER: That was our final speaker on that item, Mr.
Chairman.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Thank you.
I think -- Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was just going to say -- and I'd love
to speak first, but I think Terri really needs to get a break. She --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I think she does. We promised her a break
after the public speakers. So we'll take a 10-minute break. Is that
enough? Ten or 15?
MR. OCHS: Come back at 11, 11 o'clock?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: 11 o'clock.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thirteen minutes, Terri. Take those
extra three and enjoy.
(A brief recess was had.)
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, you have a live mike.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Well, I think we have an
opportunity -- I think Mr. Mullins is here, our legislative person, and
might shed some light on this bill that we were concerned with?
MR. MULLINS: Yes, sir.
MR. OCHS: For the record?
MR. MULLINS: For the record, I'm John Mullins, government
affairs manager.
In reference to the bills brought up earlier, the one I would
highlight would be House Bill 631. It's a little specific, moving along
in the process, and basically what the bill provides is that a
municipality -- in the section of the bill that you're concerned with, the
January 23, 2018
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bill provides that a municipality, county, district or other local
government entity is prohibited from adopting or keeping in effect an
ordinance determining customary use.
MR. OCHS: John, where is that in the bill?
MR. MULLINS: It's on the last two pages of the bill on 631.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Can you put that up on the
visualizer just so we -- okay. So we're at 14 and 15?
MR. MULLINS: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Mr. Mullins, isn't this -- if you
know, isn't this the type of legislation that Airbnb and other companies
that rent properties out would want so that they can get tenants out of a
building that are staying over? I mean, I don't see where this has
anything to do with beach access.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No.
MR. MULLINS: It could be interpreted that way.
Now, as presented to committee, they talked about this aspect of
the bill and kind of highlighted it. In fact, when the Senate version was
brought up in committee, this was kind of the sole discussion was
beach access.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Would be what?
MR. MULLINS: The beach access component of the bill.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah, look on Page 15 of 15.
Read that. They talk about the beach here.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: So a municipality, county, district or other
local government entity may not adopt or keep in effect an ordinance
or rule that defines, determines, relies on, or is based upon customary
use of any portion of a beach above the mean high-water line as
defined in Section 177.27 unless such ordinance or rule is expressly
authorized by general law or unless a specific portion of a beach above
the mean high-water line has been determined by a court for the
adoption of the ordinance or rule to be accessible to the public under
January 23, 2018
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the document of customary use.
It seems to me that it's trying to codify what the case law says.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Yeah, and that's above the
mean high-later line. We're talking the beach, which is seaward of the
mean high-water line.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Correct.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Right.
MR. OCHS: Well, no, sir. There's dry beach, you know,
landward of that mean high-water line that the public has customarily
used, I believe.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: And I think that the customary-use issues
applies above the mean high-water line as well, right?
MR. OCHS: That's my point.
MR. MULHERE: And one of the topics brought up also during
the discussion of the bill was the fact that due to the storm and beach
erosion, that water line seems to be coming farther and farther up
towards private property areas, and that kind of clouds the issue a little
bit more.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Boy, I don't -- how is this going to
affect us as far as our tourism goes? Will they be able to block people
from coming to the beach? Is this -- is this the motive behind this
whole thing?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Well, it seems to me that what it's saying
is that unless the legislature by general law sets the boundaries for the
public beach or it's established by a court proceeding, that a
municipality, county, district, or other local government cannot enact
any ordinances that relate to that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: That's -- and maybe that made it as clear as
mud, Mr. County Attorney.
MR. KLATZKOW: It's a preemption. We've had an off-and-on
January 23, 2018
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issue with at least one of our properties on the beach of them roping off
the beach, and one of the ways we've ended the issue was saying do
this, and we'll pass an ordinance, an open beach ordinance, which other
counties have.
What this would mean is that if this was to be enacted by the
legislature, you would rope off the beach. At that point in time you
need to bring a legal action against them and get it into the court
system, which could take years. In the meantime, it would be roped
off for years. That's the difference here.
So, in other words, you could pass an ordinance, and the
ordinance can be attacked, in which case you might be in litigation for
years, but there'd be no roped off beach, or they could rope off the
beach, and we can get into court and there'll be a rope there for years.
That's the practical difference.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: That's preemption. Okay. I'm sorry.
We've got some lights on.
Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And, again, I'm not -- I'm not
the legal opinion of all this, but this specifically talks about -- I thought
it talked about governments or local municipalities roping off a beach,
not a discourse between a private property owner and the general
public getting to the beach.
So it really -- as was stated earlier, this has to do with local
municipalities prohibiting customary beach access, and so the real --
it's two different circumstances than what were represented before, my
interpretation of it, and, of course, that's just my interpretation.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: It seems to me that it's -- and maybe I
misunderstood what you're saying. But it seems to me that it's doing
the opposite. It would prevent a local government from establishing --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: -- a beach.
January 23, 2018
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COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's exactly what I was
saying.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: But what was represented
earlier was there was a statute out there or a change in statute to
prohibit public access, and that wasn't the case. So this actually
prohibits municipalities from --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: No, no, no. It is what -- right. This would
prevent the county from adopting an ordinance establishing public
access.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: This empowers the private
property owner to rope off their beaches because it is their beach;
empowers them.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's not the way I -- okay.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I think -- I mean, it relates to a local
government. What a local government can do in terms of adopting an
ordinance that would establish a public beach north -- or landward of
the mean high-water line, right?
Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That language is not in Senator
Passidomo's bill, I don't believe.
MR. MULLINS: The two are very different, yes. Senator
Passidomo's is one sentence. It's very vague. It just kind of defers to
the courts; whereas, the House Bill is more descriptive and also has the
ordinance cutoff date.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So who presented it in the House?
MR. MULLINS: This was a product of Representative Edwards
Walpole.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: From?
MR. MULLINS: That's a good question. I'd have to go look that
up real quick. I'm still getting used to them all.
January 23, 2018
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COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Could we -- could I make a
suggestion? Because this actually is rather -- could be very significant.
And I think we should put this on our agenda for our next meeting for
consideration of adding to our legislative agenda that we oppose very
strongly this type of language. We're not 100 percent sure what it
does, but we do know that it's an infringement on local home rule.
And, secondly, you know, we've gotten a lot of correspondence
over the years, and I know that we've talked to the County Attorney
about this in terms of providing that type of an ordinance. And maybe
this is a signal that we really need to consider an ordinance dealing
with customary use of the beach.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I think we have to.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Because if the legislature's
looking at doing something like this -- and I don't think this type of
language will pass, but you never know for sure -- maybe we need to,
at that same meeting, talk about what we need to do to ensure that
people that are customarily using the upland portions of the beaches
can continue to do that. So I would ask that we put those two items on
the agenda for our next meeting.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: So there's a motion?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, I'm still -- I still was going to
talk about that other --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Oh, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's all right. That's all right.
I was going to talk about what we started out with before this
thing exploded in front of us. And what I was going to say was that the
Vanderbilt -- I'm going back to what their subject was originally, and
that was the Vanderbilt Beach garage has been so successful. We
found that to be a great asset. Everybody fought it, but -- and we kept
telling them, oh, we're going to build it and you will never see it and
they, of course, opposed that. But you can't see it. I actually couldn't
January 23, 2018
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find it to park it in. That's how well masked it is. So that has been
successful.
And the beach people are growing all the time. I think they're
growing more rapidly than the solutions to how to get them there
present themselves.
And our tourism is based mainly on our beaches, and our tourism
is really our funding arm, I think. It keeps our taxes down, and it --
and, yes, it keeps our roads full, too, but it keeps our taxes down and
does other things. I think it's our main source of livelihood. And we
need to find a solution where both sides win. Everybody loses a little
something, but both sides win.
And we've talked about birds continuously over here, but we do
have Ten Thousand Islands over here in this part of the county, and the
Ten Thousand Islands mostly are uninhabited. The visitors can't go
there, the tourists can't go there, but the birds can go there, and that's
about all that can go there. So they do have other places.
Yes, we enjoy watching the birds, but we also have to think about
the people who come here purposely for the beaches, and we have to
come up with a solution, and that's all that I was going to say.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Any other questions for Mr.
Mullins?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'd just like to say --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Thank you. Good work. Thank
you.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, Mr. Mullins. I
misinterpreted my reading on it, and thank you for clarifying it. You
know, as is with a lot of bills that are introduced into -- and we're off
the subject of what you were just talking about, Ms. Fiala, but they're
-- they're aimed at -- they end up being preemptive bills that are aimed
at specific issues that are existent in another part of the state.
There's a circumstance that's happening in another part of the
January 23, 2018
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state that ends up affecting all of us, and I think Commissioner
Saunders' motion and Commissioner Taylor's second is a good idea for
us to bring this up, have a discussion about it so that we're all on the
same page as to how we wish to proceed.
MR. MULLINS: And by the time the next commission meeting
rolls around, we should have a good idea as to what direction this
language is really taking, and I'll also let you know that our state
lobbyist is well aware of this bill, and we're watching it closely. Of the
450 county bills we have on our track, this is, indeed, one of them.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Great. Thank you.
So first there's a motion and a second on adding this particular
issue and this bill to our legislative agenda?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That's correct, and the second
part of it was to have the County Attorney come give us a bit of a
report on what type of an ordinance we can consider for determining
the customary use of the beach.
MR. KLATZKOW: Do you want a draft ordinance? Do you
want me to come back with a draft ordinance at the next meeting?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: If you can do that. If you have
some ideas of how that would be, that would be the second part of the
motion, Mr. Chairman.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And I would agree to the
amendment of the motion.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: There's a motion -- an amendment and a
second to the amendment. All in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any opposed?
January 23, 2018
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(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: No? Okay.
The next item is on the item that we were discussing, and that is
whether or not to give staff direction to at least begin considering
options for beach access that were listed in the report.
MR. OCHS: Two specifically, Commissioners. One to begin
some due diligence and feasibility review on a parking garage at Clam
Pass Park and extension of that southern boardwalk, and the second is
to engage in some dialogue with the state about the potential for a
management contract or a buy-out of that Wiggins Pass state park.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. And, whoop, the lights are going
off. Commissioner Saunders?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: In terms of Clam Pass, I think
we should move forward with evaluating the parking garage. I don't
think we should move forward with the boardwalk. I think those are
really two separate issues. I think the parking is going to continue to
be a problem.
So I'd like to see us move forward with at least either a workshop
or some further consideration of the boardwalk -- I mean, of the
parking facility at Clam Pass as well as the discussions concerning
Wiggins Pass with the state, but to eliminate from that consideration
the boardwalk at Clam Pass. I don't think that that -- I think we can
probably say right now that's been evaluated, and it's -- it was not a
good idea back in 2008, and I don't think it's a idea good in 2018.
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, if I might -- and, again, just from
history or staff observation, when you bring people to a beach end, and
they usually will go maybe, I don't know, a quarter mile max within
the end of that beach because there's amenities there and there's
facilities there. If you expect to spread people out -- I mean, you
know, the whole idea behind Clam Pass was that there's ample unused
beach to the south, but unless you have some way to get people and
January 23, 2018
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families down there and some modest facilities that they can use down
there, they're not going to go. And what's going to happen is they're all
going to congregate, just like they do at Vanderbilt Beach, and we'll
have more people coming, but they'll all just jam in right at the end.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And those that feel like getting
a little extra exercise will walk a little further than the quarter of a mile.
MR. OCHS: That's fine. You know, if that's how it develops,
that's how it develops. We were trying to disperse the population a
little bit more.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: What about using -- having that
as -- pardon me. My light's not on. So I'll put my light on and defer to
other people.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: All right. I think Commissioner Fiala was
next.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I was, but Commissioner Saunders
already spoke of my subject, so you can erase me.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. I basically agree with
what Commissioner Saunders said, but I'm not interested in going out
and doing a feasibility study until we've actually done the public
process. I would rather we engage the public to find out public opinion
before we go out and spend money on a feasibility study for the
parking garage. So if that -- where'd he go? Commissioner Saunders?
MR. OCHS: I'm not sure that's what he said, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: He did say -- well, he did say
something like -- I wanted to clarify what he was saying before we
went forward.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: What I was trying to say -- and
I may not have been very clear on that -- in terms of the parking
garage, I think we should go through some process to evaluate that,
whether it's a workshop -- I'm fine with the workshop on that issue --
January 23, 2018
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as well as the Wiggins Pass issues dealing with the state.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: But I thought it would be
appropriate to take off the table the Clam Pass boardwalk, because I
think that's been evaluated, and I don't think that impact on the
environment is worth just making it easier for people to go a little
further down the beach.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well -- and I agree with you,
but the executive summary is looking to authorize staff to engage into
a feasibility study for these things before we've actually, I feel, vetted
them properly. I'm -- I agree with you with regard to the boardwalk
side. But I would rather we -- and I suggested it early on -- that we do
a workshop if we're going to and/or -- not do a workshop but allow it
to be -- because we have a plan coming up with parks and rec, in -- I
think Steve said in April, and there's going to be an enormous amount
of public vetting. So maybe we don't do a workshop right now, but we
stall, if you will, the feasibility study expense side until the public's
been properly engaged.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'm good with that. There's no
-- it's not like this is an emergency and something has to be done right
away. Let's have the public process that you're discussing. That's fine.
That was the point of what I was saying, though. I think we should
move forward with some evaluation, however that is.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: By the staff.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, don't you need to know if it's
feasible before you talk to the public about it?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Well, let me ask a question of staff, and
that is, when we're saying a feasibility study, are we talking about
hiring consultants or are we talking about staff looking as cost
estimates and things that it would do in-house? I mean, how much
money are we talking about in terms of a feasibility study? Because
January 23, 2018
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there's feasibility studies, and then there's feasibility studies, right?
And some are way more expensive than others -- or are we just
looking -- talking about the staff looking at the options, looking at the
pros and cons, and potentially what it would cost to do different
things?
Because we do have, I think, a chicken and the egg problem. You
know, there may be things that the public would not want us to do but
might be financially feasible, but the converse is true as well; there
might be things that the public would want that are just financially not
feasible, so...
MR. CARNELL: And we're trying to hit the sweet spot here, and
that would be a pre-conceptual feasibility study that I think we would
hire somebody out to look at the permitting issues and to look at the
prospect of what the potential concept and layout would be in the
initial take on the environmental impact and the operational impact.
Ten to $15,000 would be our estimate.
MR. OCHS: And an estimate of probable cost, probably.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You said something, County
Manager, regarding the accessibility issue, which is, you know,
whether people are going to -- how do we condense them in one place;
are they going to walk.
So maybe we could look at this beach access in that way to
disperse -- how are we in, Collier County, going to disperse visitors on
the beach, which takes in a lot more than just a parking garage which
will pretty much condense people. I don't know what it's -- that's
assuming it's three stories. You might triple or double the amount of
cars that can be parked there, right?
MR. OCHS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So why don't we do a feasibility
study on water taxis and in public transportation also equal weighted to
January 23, 2018
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a parking garage and have it as more of a dispersement issue than it is
actual beach access?
MR. CARNELL: And I would say we can do that as part of -- if
you -- specifically if you're mentioning water taxis and some of these
other beach access mode options, I think we can do that, and I think we
can do that with staff in-house internally without any distinct
additional cost, and we can make that part of a future presentation.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: For instance -- and I'm not -- I run
a huge risk right now, but I have to say it. There's a pass that separates
the beaches at Pelican Bay from Clam Pass. Water taxi. Wouldn't that
solve that problem? Where would we put the water taxi? How would
we think -- you know, I mean, there's -- it opens up the world if we
access from the water.
So what I'm just saying is, if we're going to look at the big picture,
let's look at the big picture of all the beaches and how we access them;
that's all. And I don't know if I have consensus from my colleagues.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I did hit my button.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I think we're -- I think we're all
basically saying the same thing. We're really not interested in going
out and hiring a consultant to do a feasibility study at this stage,
specifically for the parking garage. We do want to engage the public
to find out public opinion as to beach access.
An important part to what you were talking about, Commissioner
Taylor, and it's something that no one has actually said, and that's a
discussion of beach capacity. We have a perception that the south
beach at Clam Pass is -- was described as crickets, and there's ants to
the north. But then let's -- and then Mr. Cornell showed us a bunch of
birds. So there's crickets and ants and birds.
So I would like to have a discussion about what beach capacity is.
You brought up an issue with overcrowding on the city's beaches. And
January 23, 2018
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if we can start to ascertain what -- if there is a science or if there is a
capacity that is acceptable -- because some folks may not care so much
about a crowded beach, and some, such as myself, like more open
spaces, and I'll go into the Ten Thousand Islands on my boat because
there's nobody there.
So -- and, there again, water taxi can go into those beaches. They
don't have the facilities and things, but there's -- I think we should
really, really, really engage the public, period. And that's before we go
much further with going outside and spending money on a study.
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yes, sir.
MR. OCHS: This might be helpful. Mr. Carnell mentioned at the
beginning of his presentation that we're currently engaged in public
vetting and stakeholder review --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: April, I think he said.
MR. OCHS: -- on our entire update to the parks master plan,
including elements of beach parks. You know, we brought this
forward because the Board asked us to come back to you quickly after
the agreement with the city to identify some opportunities for
additional beach parking, and that's what we've done, acknowledging,
as Steve said early, that we're still in the process of finalizing the
complete update to the park master plan.
So, you know, we could easily take these items that we're talking
about today and roll them into that ongoing vetting process. And when
we come back in April with the presentation on the master plan update,
we can include these things and hopefully have had them vetted by all
of the stakeholders. We know who they are. And that might be a way
to keep the momentum going but not get ahead of ourselves, as some
of the commissioners are concerned about.
I'd just offer that as, perhaps, a path forward.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I think that would be a good compromise
January 23, 2018
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as well.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I do, too.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: So in April, would that be in
the form of a workshop?
MR. OCHS: It's up to the Board. We can do it in a workshop
setting, if you'd like. We were going to present it as a staff item, but --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Would that satisfy your
concerns there in terms of having public input?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm not suggesting that we have
to have a workshop for this. Staff has -- already has a process for the
update for the beach access that's going to be, as Mr. Carnell said,
heavily vetted in the public, and I'm fine with moving through that
process to hear some alternatives and additional ideas. We've had one
that's been -- we've had two that have been proposed that have met
with serious resistance in the past and no really other suggestions, and
there's a lot of other information with regard to proper dispersal,
moving people around, other alternatives and the like that I think we
all ought to allow to be vetted before we hit the hammer.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Mr. Chairman, could I ask a
question of the board members? Is anyone on the Board interested in
considering the boardwalk at Clam Pass? Have you sort of made up
your minds on that? I mean, I have. I don't see any point --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The picture of the boardwalk
that was delineated to us that went all the way south, no, but is there
another alternative that's shorter that gets people out, that gets across
that pass area that there's an issue? That might -- that might be
something that's there as long as there isn't a lot of environmental
degradation that travels with it. I don't think it needs to be built all the
way down.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I just didn't want staff to spend
a whole lot of time on coming back to us on a boardwalk that we know
January 23, 2018
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we're not going to approve. Do you have an alternative? And that
may work from an environmental standpoint.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Just something to look at. You
know, I'm not thrilled with the one that goes all the way down, but just
a --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: The dispersing of folks on the beach is, I
think, as important as the parking. If there's a way of -- between a
water taxi or even something on the beach to move people up and
down. I think we really need to look into that.
But I like the idea of doing this in the context of the overall
master plan for parks. I mean, these are maybe some of the most
important parks in terms of our tourists, so --
MR. OCHS: We're happy to do that.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: -- and the residents, so...
I guess, so we need a motion to direct staff that this -- these issues
should be brought forward in the -- through the master plan vetting
process?
MR. OCHS: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Is that what we need?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Well, you just made a motion.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I'll make that motion.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'll second it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: When are they supposed to be --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: April.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yeah, April.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You know, I haven't even seen
where the meetings are advertised. I'd love to see them. I'd love to go
to a couple of them myself.
MR. OCHS: We'll get the schedule to all the commissioners.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
January 23, 2018
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CHAIRMAN SOLIS: So there's a motion and a second by
Commissioner Taylor. All in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion carries.
Okay. Moving on.
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
Item #11A
APPROVAL OF THE UPDATED PROJECT LIST FOR A
COUNTY-WIDE INFRASTRUCTURE SALES TAX
REFERENDUM, DIRECT THE COUNTY ATTORNEY TO
PREPARE THE ENABLING ORDINANCE AND DRAFT
BALLOT LANGUAGE FOR BOARD REVIEW AND PROVIDE
GUIDANCE ON THE REQUEST FROM THE NORTH COLLIER
FIRE CONTROL AND RESCUE DISTRICT FOR FUNDING -
MOTION DIRECTING THE COUNTY ATTORNEY TO
PREPARE THE ENABLING ORDINANCE AND DRAFT
BALLOT LANGUAGE FOR BOARD REVIEW – APPROVED
(COMMISSIONER MCDANIEL OPPOSED); BCC DENIES THE
REQUEST FROM THE NORTH COLLIER FIRE CONTROL AND
RESCUE DISTRICT – CONSENSUS
MR. OCHS: That takes us back to 11A. This is a
recommendation to approve the updated project list for a countywide
January 23, 2018
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infrastructure sales tax referendum; direct the County Attorney to
prepare enabling ordinance and draft ballot language for board review,
and provide guidance on the request received from the North Collier
Fire Control and Rescue District for funding.
And Mr. Jeff Willig will make the presentation.
MR. WILLIG: Good morning, Commissioners. Jeff Willig,
Operations Analyst in the County Manager's Office, for the record.
On the screen here is a -- is the table that was attached to your
packet. It reflects the direction that you provided at the December 12th
meeting. We've left it at seven-year funding, and we've also removed
the Conservation Collier aspect that we discussed at that meeting.
Based on some conversation that we've had -- that I've had with
the County Manager and I believe that he's had with you, we made a
couple of adjustments to this bottom line here, strategic land
acquisition and construction. We've changed the name to VA nursing
home, to reflect that, and we've also moved $20 million from that fund
up into transportation to the new bridges in the Golden Gate Estates
area. So that's that.
So based on the executive summary, what we're looking for today
is any direction that you can give us to have the County Attorney draft
some ballot language and also to provide some direction based on the
fire letter that was received after the December 12th meeting.
If you have any questions, I can answer those.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yes. My fist concern is, I
understand North Collier Fire is asking for money to build their station.
I'd always heard that they were a pretty well-funded fire agency, but
my biggest concern is if we take -- we have this money, you're going to
have a lot of fire stations coming up right behind them, before we even
get the money, and saying "me too" or "I need it even more" or "we all
need it," and I think that that's really setting a precedent that we should
January 23, 2018
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be very careful about. That's my first comment there just for the other
commissioners. See what they think about that.
With the workforce housing component as well, are we talking
about workforce housing like John Schmieding has said we need to
have? That would be the middle income or the skilled worker income
or the professional workers, or are we talking about the same thing we
get the grants for all the time? I would like to know that.
MR. OCHS: Commissioner, I can answer that one. In
discussions with the Chamber and our own staff, our recommendation
would be that we use that for a workforce housing land trust to be able
to acquire land that could then be used to construct housing that's
affordable for different segments in different areas of the community.
So it would be a land acquisition trust fund, not building the housing,
per se.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I see.
MR. OCHS: And that's consistent with your recent Community
Housing Plan presentation.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: The reason I asked is because right
now we have a lot of grant dollars that come in, which is great, except
we can't use them, so we have to give them away, and so -- but we
don't use it for land acquisition.
And will we try and position that land acquisition in areas we
have no affordable housing -- or no housing that's affordable right
now, or are we going to try and spread out a little bit and get people
jobs that are -- or workforce housing that is closer to their work?
MR. OCHS: It depends where we can find those opportunities is
the short answer. You know, the concept will be very similar to the
one that you just undertook recently with a couple of county-owned
sites. If you add more sites into your housing trust inventory, you can
go out for proposals, and you're unrestricted in terms of what type of
housing you want to provide in those areas.
January 23, 2018
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COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I was very excited about that --
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- because now we can actually build
some other type of housing which, as the Chamber has pointed out
over and over again, we need, and I'm happy to see that we can
consider that.
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: How -- this is more the
foundation or how this is going to work. A ballot is, what, 65 words?
Ballot language is 65 words? So there has to be supporting
documentation; is that correct? And how is that going to happen? I
mean, someone's looking at Vanderbilt Beach Road extension or Pine
Ridge or Livingston Road. You're going to have to supply that backup
material.
MR. OCHS: Correct.
MR. WILLIG: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. So that's going to be at
each polling site that people can go through, or how's that going to
happen?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, ma'am, we would set up a website
that would be tied to this, and we'd do some outreach to make sure that
the community know that if they want to look at where the funds
would be spent, each one of these projects would have a fact sheet tied
to it, so anybody could watch it. But you're right, the ballot language, I
think, is 75 words, and it's limited. And there's an ordinance that the
County Attorney would draft that would accompany the ballot. That
ordinance was referenced in these projects as well, too.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. And I'm not -- I don't deny
that that's a good way, but what about the people who don't see your
website and come to the polls? How are you going to give them this
January 23, 2018
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information?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ma'am, it would be no different than
any other agenda item that's at the polls. There's no other people other
than folks that were there. So it would be the website and the public
outreach that's done during the summertime ahead of the --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. And, again, I don't know
-- I've been through a few of these. I'm sure you're accurate, but just
double-check that that's -- we can do it like that and it can be that
succinct and it's incumbent upon people to do the research rather than
have it available at the polls. Thank you.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Will do.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Here's another -- you just brought a
thought to my mind. Could we ever, with the wording that we need or
explanations that we want to distribute, could we include that in
something like an electric bill or a water bill or something? Not that
everybody's going to even read that, but maybe they would, especially
an electric bill. It comes to their house. And maybe, just maybe, we
can educate the public a little bit like that.
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am. It's my intention, if the Board
authorizes this next step that's being recommended today, when we
bring back the draft enabling ordinance and the ballot language for
your review, I would also be asking the Board or presenting the Board
some preliminary information on what I'm calling a public information
initiative that would go along with this that would do the kinds of
public information and outreach, not advocating but educating the
public on what exactly is inside of this sales tax referendum.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you.
I've got a couple things. One is, first I'd like to thank
Commissioner Saunders for bringing forward this concept of the VA
nursing home. I do have a couple questions about it, though, in terms
of including it in the referendum, because my experience in
January 23, 2018
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Tallahassee last week was while we came out as far as need as number
one, we ended up not getting the VA nursing home because of some
other issues that were some -- I took as being somewhat surprising.
So my only question is, since that is anything but certain, given
our experience with it, what would we do with those funds if the VA
nursing home wasn't approved within the seven years?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: My understanding is that there
is some flexibility built into this program, not the VA program, but the
sales tax program, so that if there's a project that's listed that for some
reason cannot be constructed or is going to cost less than what's
estimated, as an example, there are mechanisms for money to be
moved around. So it's not -- this is not something that's cast in stone
and can't be changed.
So if the ballot initiative passes and we have that line item there
and for some reason we can't spend it in that category, then it can be
moved.
One of the reasons that we were not able to secure -- there were a
couple reasons, but one of the big reasons was that the site that was
selected was not close enough to a hospital. And so part of this $30
million would be used to acquire a site that would be acceptable to the
Veterans Administration and would be the 35 percent construction
match that's required.
My understanding is that currently there will not be enough
money available for a state local match -- that state match of 35
percent, at least until 2020, if not later, and that we would not likely be
number one for that funding at that time.
So that's the reason for putting this in there. I think you're
absolutely correct that there may be some impediment to doing this
down the road, but if that happens, we do have some flexibility in the
sales tax program. Is that correct, Mr. County Attorney?
MR. KLATZKOW: I'm going to bring you back an ordinance
January 23, 2018
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that contains flexibility.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Well, my only -- and I think the
VA nursing home is something, regardless of the referendum, we need
to pursue anyway. My only concern is that the whole idea, at least
when I'm speaking about this, is that, you know, we're -- I think we're
making the representation that these are the things that will be funded.
And I'm a little concerned that having something in there that
there's at least a 50/50 chance of not actually happening and then using
the money for something else is not -- it's a little different than what
we're saying, and I'm a little concerned with that.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And I think that's a valid
concern. I think that the odds of getting this done are far greater than
50/50, quite frankly.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: The VA nursing home?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: The VA nursing home. I think
that, you know, there's an effort to build more of these nursing homes
in Florida. There's no question that the need is absolutely critical in the
state. There's no -- the Florida Division of Veterans Affairs will tell
you that, at least for some of those folks that are there, their primary
function and objective right now is to get more VA nursing homes. So
they want to see this happen, or see more nursing homes.
This is a way to say to the state and the federal government, we'll
put up the 35 percent match as opposed to waiting for the state to
accumulate those funds, and I think that the odds of getting this done, I
think, are much greater than 50/50 but, obviously, things happen, and
so there is that potential; that's why we need some flexibility in the
ordinance. But every effort would be made to make this become a
reality.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes, a couple of things. I
wondered if the consultant that the Chamber hired is here. No, he's
January 23, 2018
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not. Okay.
In the early meeting with that group to talk about the concept of
this -- and it was last year -- you bring up a very interesting question,
Mr. Chairman, because one of the underlining (sic) positive operating
mechanisms of this 1 percent sales tax is that the people become your
auditor, and if you do not spend the money where you say in this ballot
that it's going to be spent, you're in huge trouble.
So having that gray area for this VA center is -- might be
problematic. Even if you could write the ordinance that way, it doesn't
seem to follow the spirit of the checks and balances incorporated into
this process. And I'm saying, it doesn't seem to. This is not saying that
it does or doesn't, but there is -- I have a concern also.
But my other practical concern is, where is there a property close
to a hospital that would qualify for this VA nursing home?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ma'am, the feedback we received last
time was it needed to be in the urban area, and I think the proximity
was the urban area, not necessarily at Ave Maria, which was --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Correct.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Other services, correct. Yeah, more than --
it was broader.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Right. It wasn't just next to a hospital.
It needed to be in the urban part of Collier County.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: The urban part of Collier County.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: 951 and west, ma'am; approximately
that location.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. So where are we looking
for this? I mean, the public will want to know. They want to know
where this land is, I would think.
MR. OCHS: We haven't begun looking for sites yet, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. Is there land?
(No response.)
January 23, 2018
Page 81
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. That's it.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I would like to echo my
colleagues' concerns with this. Even though -- even though there is
delineation as to -- assuming this referendum passes in the first place,
then there's delineation as to where these potential funds could be spent
if there is deviation from that. We're very -- it could be very suspect,
and I would like to caution our staff as we're moving forward. If we
do have flexibility in maneuvering these funds around, that we
stipulate that very, very clearly, that this, in fact, can be done. It's a
concern that I've had -- I've had quite some -- I've had -- I mean, there's
interpretations.
I mean, the County Manager and I yesterday had a discussion
because my interpretation of some of these expenses were HVAC
replacement, roof repair, so on and so forth, and to me that's a different
category of expenditure than what these revenues are. And so as the
language goes forward and we develop that language for the
referendum, if we are going to have a website, maybe we can even
incorporate that website into the language that the electorate is, in fact,
going to read just to give them another -- I mean, it's only a -- I know
we're limited on the words that we could use, but if we say that in
there, we're at least directing folks over there, unlike other referendums
that have come to us that the electorate voted on and didn't end up
being what we voted on or not, so...
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Very well. So is there a motion? I was --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: We have speakers. Do we have
speakers?
MR. MILLER: I was just going to alert you, Mr. Chairman. We
have six registered speakers for this item. We -- first speaker would be
Richard Hoffman. He will be followed by H. Michael Mogil. I would
remind the speakers we can use both podiums.
January 23, 2018
Page 82
MR. HOFFMAN: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is
Richard Hoffman. I live in the Orangetree section of Collier County.
And from November 2014 to November 2016, I was a fire
commissioner with the North Collier Fire District.
As you know, the North Collier Fire District is an independent
special district chartered by the State of Florida, they are not, and I
repeat, not part of Collier County Government, but they are similar to
other local governments and municipalities and have the power to tax
their own citizens.
So why should citizens who live in Collier County but are not in
the North Collier Fire District's Collier County's municipal fire district
pay for some of their expenses? Citizens send enough tax money out
of the county to the federal government and to the state government.
There's no reason for us to send more money to another district even if
it's a local independent fire district.
It's not Collier County's responsibility to rescue the fire district
from their lack of financial accountability. Everyone, including the
fire district, needs to learn how to properly budget expenses and not to
overspend.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Sir, does --
MR. HOFFMAN: It's going to tie back.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: -- your presentation relate to the sales tax?
MR. HOFFMAN: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I'm sorry.
MR. HOFFMAN: Well, they want money from the sales tax.
MR. OCHS: It's the request from the fire district, sir.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay.
MR. HOFFMAN: I may have used the wrong terminology.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: We haven't discussed that yet, but okay.
MR. OCHS: It is part of this item, though.
MR. HOFFMAN: A more logical approach would be for the
January 23, 2018
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North Collier Fire District to become part of the Collier County
Government. Then they would be eligible to receive additional
funding from the sales tax increase by combining with Collier County
Government, and they could reduce operating costs.
Support services such as payroll, purchasing, and human
resources could be consolidated with Collier County resulting in cost
savings. There would be additional savings by combining the fire
district's medical and dental plans with Collier County's plans. Being
part of a larger plan usually results in cost savings as opposed to
smaller plans. There would be competition for funds between police,
fire, and EMS, benefiting everyone, and there would be full-time
professional managerial oversight as opposed to a mixture of part-time
fire commissioners with varying backgrounds.
Furthermore, there are over 25 independent special districts in
Collier County. Agreeing to subsidize the fire district with funds from
the sales tax increase tells other special districts that they should get on
the gravy train.
In summary, the Collier County Government should not be
subsidizing another state agency or municipality with sales tax funds.
North Collier Fire District should have the responsibility to tax their
own system. I am against the request for funding.
In the eight seconds I have left to me, is it possible to have five
separate referendums for each one of the categories that would make it
easier for the individual citizens to understand what they're voting on?
Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is H. Michael Mogil. He'll be
followed by Louis Piche.
MR. MOGIL: Good morning. My name's H. Michael Mogil. I
live in the Vineyards; been here 13 years.
I'm not here against sales tax and so forth, but what I am against
is a proposal that says I want more money, I want more money, I want
January 23, 2018
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more money. I don't see anything on this budget that says there's any
savings whatsoever within the existing budget structure. All I see is,
we want more.
Why can't we have something in here that says, with this proposal
we found $30 million of savings in existing budget so that we don't
need 671 million; we only need 641 million. That would make some
sense. I have to do it with my budget at home. Everyone up on the
dais has to do the same thing.
The other thing I'm concerned about is infrastructure. I don't
know what the word "infrastructure" means anymore looking at this
budget. I see buildings. I see roofs; I see HVAC systems. It's not
infrastructure as I understand it.
I see sewage pipes, bridges, roads; that's infrastructure. There's a
lot of stuff in here that doesn't classify in my opinion in that category,
and I think we heard some comments about that.
Lastly, I am really concerned that the public input doesn't come
within the process. It comes at the end when there's a proposal that
you get to look at. I would like to propose that when we start putting
forth plans like this, that there be a public group that works along with
staff, which works along with the Chamber of Commerce, which is
business oriented, and get some public input into the process. If we get
that at the end, it's the caboose on the train. It's not there as part of the
process. It doesn't win allies; it doesn't address public concerns.
So I'd like to throw that out on the table. I don't have any time to
do that, but I would make time to do that, and I think other people in
Collier County would as well.
So thank you for your consideration, and please take a long, hard
look at this and see if it really satisfies infrastructure. I'm sorry; I have
46 seconds. I thought of one other thing. I've changed my talk five
times already.
There's one thing that is missing here, and I know we talked about
January 23, 2018
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it before, and that's the environmental issues. All I see here are build
roads, build this, build that, and the environmental issues will go over
here. They'll be addressed in Eastern Collier County. We need
environmental issues addressed in Western Collier County as much as
we need them in Eastern. There should be an environmental
component in here. I'm going to call it environmental infrastructure. I
don't know if that's going to get me into trouble down the road, but
that's what we need. If we're going to put in physical infrastructure,
let's do environmental at the same time. Thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Louis Piche. He'll be
followed by Jennifer Fazio.
MR. PICHE: Hi. Good morning, everybody. For the record, my
name is Louis Piche, Field Director with Americans for Prosperity.
And we are for infrastructure; we're just not for the sales tax increase.
So over the past few months some have suggested that the only
way to fund roads and bridges is through additional tax. The tax
dollars provided by Collier families should only be spent on the
highest and best uses, and we hope you will take another hard look at
priorities before going down this road.
Every time taxes are raised, Collier County families are forced to
sacrifice and live with a little less in their family budgets. Please ask
the same of yourselves. Have you exhausted all means of cutting
spending and going through the budget to find waste?
Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Jennifer Fazio. She will be
followed by Dr. Joseph Doyle.
MS. FAZIO: Hi. Good morning, Commissioners. My name is
Jennifer Fazio. I am currently, for the fourth year, the President of the
Marbella Lakes Homeowners Association. We're located right off of
Livingston Road --
The reason I'm here today on behalf of our community is, I
January 23, 2018
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believe -- if I can see well, it's No. 2 on the list of proposed items that
this sales tax referendum would pay for. One of those items, in
addition to the Pine Ridge and Livingston, is the Whippoorwill Lane
extension project. I know that on Thursday representatives from
Stantec came out to our community and presented not only the
potential of what could be done at the Pine Ridge intersections to
alleviate the congestion, but they also brought to the attention of the
community the potential of the Whippoorwill extension, meaning it
was going to come off of Pine Ridge Road, connect through the one
side of our community and back out to Livingston Road.
-- I ask you to respectfully consider when you're considering a
sales tax increase to pay for something like that that our community
really needs to have a voice, because I would say overwhelmingly the
community was against having that for numerous issues, which I won't
waste your time with, because I'm sure you're going to hear about them
in the future, but your own representatives admitted in front of our
entire community that the benefit of spending that money on
Whippoorwill will only be appreciable to a very small amount of
people. You're not talking about -- anything in that money for that
Whippoorwill extension will have no benefit to the -- to decreasing the
traffic congestion on Pine Ridge, Pine Ridge and Livingston, and that
whole corridor.
So when you're considering increasing the sales tax on people, it's
just -- on the residents of Collier, it's really difficult to understand that
then we would be spending -- I think that they said the last time they
looked at it, it was at least $5 million to do that extension. And to
think that you would spend $5 million on extending Whippoorwill
from Pine Ridge to Livingston -- and to get that money you're going to
have to tax the citizens of Collier -- it just doesn't seem to be
something that's a benefit considering it's only going to be helpful to a
very small margin of people, and then, in addition, you really are -- by
January 23, 2018
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doing that road, it will decrease the property values in our community
as well as some other communities on Whippoorwill, and it will also
really impact the quality of life of our residents. We have 490 homes in
our community.
Putting that road there will impact our ability to be able to utilize
that road. We have a lot of residents that use it for exercising, for bike
riding. It's already in some ways so unsafe to travel on the roads in
that context, to be biking, walking, jogging, to be able to increase -- if
you're going to increase the traffic doing that, it's going to make it
difficult, on top of environmental issues and a whole host of other
things I guarantee you're going to hear from our residents on. But I
wanted to ask you to kindly and respectfully consider that. So thank
you very much.
MR. MILLER: Your next public speaker is Dr. Joseph Doyle.
He's been ceded three additional minutes from Sandra Doyle, who is in
attendance. He will have a total of six minutes, and he will be followed
by Michael Dalby.
DR. DOYLE: Good morning, Commissioners. Dr. Joseph Doyle,
Naples.
I was here at the November workshop as well as at the December
meeting when the project list was revised, and I do agree with some of
the revisions, although I'm still not happy with this project list.
I see that under the Randall intersection, we have added Airport
Road to the Triangle Boulevard, new bridges and sidewalks. The
sidewalks, where is that being driven from? Is that from the Blue
Zones project, I'd like to know?
As far as Randall intersection goes, I saw the North Collier Fire
District's request in the letter at the end of December to all of you, and
I agree with most of former Commissioner Hoffman's comments. I
will say, though, that if you're going to redo Randall intersection, the
North Collier Fire District is asking to relocate that firehouse to
January 23, 2018
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accommodate the expansion of that road. So I think you will probably
have to add that portion, but I would add it into the Randall
intersection line item because it's kind of related to that.
As far as the other two requests from the fire district, I disagree
with. And, you know, as Commissioner Fiala's pointed out, you're
going to have the other districts saying "me too, me too."
So I think, you know, when we discuss that, just put the
relocation of that firehouse in with the Randall intersection project.
I'm still -- like I said, at the other two meetings where I gave
public comment, I'm really looked at essential services. I don't know if
really the DAS shelter is an essential service. It's nice to have. And I
do agree with Commissioner Fiala, when we're looking at some of
these other community priorities, which are not necessarily
infrastructure, as Mr. Mogil has pointed out, tell us a little bit more
about this workforce housing. Do we really need a land trust? Has the
land trust -- has it really been fully vetted? I know we had the
workshop in November, but, again, that's still -- we never really had a
citizen committee. It's still being driven by the Chamber and a couple
other people.
And as the League of Women Voters pointed out to you in
December, we have still not been at the table. And even this lady with
Marbella, they have not been at the table. So I think, still, this needs
more work.
And then, the strategic land acquisition with the VA nursing
home added in, I still think -- it looks like a slush fund to me because
there's no assurance that we're going to get this. And we don't know
what the federal government is going to do over the next couple of
years. I think we would have to find another way to find the money.
And, also, where is the inventory of the land that we already own in
this county? You know, this is kind of like what's going on with the
amateur sports complex; someone trying to sell us land at inflated
January 23, 2018
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prices to the tune of maybe $40 million. Who's going to make the
money off selling that land to set up a nursing home? Just questions
I'd like to put out there, because the taxpayers are not going to want to
pay the sales tax for some of these things that are nebulous. So it looks
like some of this could be pared back.
And as to what Mr. Piche said, if you're going to raise the sales
tax -- I agree that we need to diversify the tax base. Having 60 to 70
percent relying on property taxes is a lot; however, if we're going to
convert some of it to a sales tax, then we need to have a decrease in the
property ad valorem millage. There has to be a two-step approach
here. It can't be all just an increase in sales tax, okay, because -- if you
truly want to diversify the tax base and get rid of some of the property
tax. But we have to reduce those property taxes by what we're
increasing some of the sales tax by.
That being said, I'm still not happy with this workforce training
center issue. The school board --
Leo, I'd like to use the visualizer.
The school board had a work session last night about career and
college readiness, and I think that we already have been spending --
and the school board should be responsible for the workforce training
line item on here to the amount of $10 million.
The school board, as you can see, has the Lorenzo Walker
Technical Institute, the I-tech, and adult education. Okay. And the
school board is already spending over $11 million in workforce
education funding. So we need to piggyback on that. Why should we
create a whole new program, with startup costs and physical plant and
labor, et cetera, et cetera, when the school district already has this stuff
in place? And why should we, the taxpayer, be paying more tax? The
school district already has a billion dollar budget. Let's take that out of
there and take this 10 million that you want in sales tax and just take it
off the table.
January 23, 2018
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So I think that -- you know -- that we need to go back on this
project list, and we need to take that out and also look at some of these
other line items that we've brought to your attention. And we're getting
there. It's a work in progress. You know, this is the third time I've
spoken. I think we're getting there. But also, you know, if we can save
some money here and there, maybe the sales tax only has to be half a
cent for seven years or the one cent for three years, thank you.
MR. MILLER: Your final public speaker on this item is Michael
Dalby.
MR. DALBY: So, for the record, Michael Dalby with the Greater
Naples Chamber of Commerce. And mostly just to stand up to be able
to answer any questions that may be asked. Also, maybe just to
reiterate kind of how we got to this point in terms of the two projects
that are most important on our public policy agenda have been
workforce housing, essential workforce housing, and workforce
training or career and technical education.
The workforce housing issue, there were over, I think, 60 people
who were involved with -- between the citizens committee and the
AHAC that were involved in looking at housing and over a year and a
half, I believe, in terms of study time on that, and you have a lot of
options to look at.
And the land trust is one of those to give you the ability to
negotiate to be able to encourage the development of housing within
certain income bands to be able to address those bands that you feel are
important. And it would not have to be under the rules of use of
federal funds or things like that that you'd be able to -- these would be
in your call, in your ways of how you wanted it done. So the land trust
would enable you to have that flexibility.
The workforce training component here, Dr. Doyle's right, in
terms of -- in Collier County we're one of the counties where career
and technical education is within the public schools, but the ability to
January 23, 2018
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expand Lorenzo Walker or I-tech's really not there right now. They
don't have the ability to expand those facilities. So it would allow you
to have a separate facility that could be used by all the training partners
in our community. So not just the community -- not just the public
schools, but also Florida Southwestern, Hodge's, FGCU, even private
training that could come in and use a multi-institutional training
facility that could be funded through this mechanism. So for us, those
have been those two major drivers of this.
I think the infrastructure concept here is the ability to address
issues. That "infrastructure" word is the state's word to delineate this
type of a sales tax. There are permissible uses within that, and
everything that's on the list from the county's standpoint, to our
knowledge, are permissible uses.
And you can see that a lot of it's in your hands. It's your projects
and the things that you're trying to address in terms of both staff and
you all. I think holding the line on property taxes was something that
the very first time we stood up here it was the idea of, hey, wait a
second. Let's pause before we think about adding more on the
property tax side and look at what we can do to diversify that tax
stream.
So I think if there's any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer
them, too, at this time.
Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. At this point is there a motion to
move this forward?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I do have a question for staff
while everybody's trying to decide whether they want to make a
motion.
The Whippoorwill issue. I've heard some conversation about that
in the past. And certainly the intersection at Pine Ridge Road and
Whippoorwill, I'm assuming that that's part of the improvements, but
January 23, 2018
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the extension of Whippoorwill that was addressed, is that something
that's necessary, and would it make some sense to take that -- at least
that portion out of this?
MR. OCHS: I believe it's necessary. I'll let Nick comment on it.
He's worked on this since he was in transportation planning.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: I think the intersection, you're correct,
Commissioner, is included as part of that improvement. The
connection itself is about $2 million, and we were directed about four
years ago to come back when traffic picked up again. So I think, in
talking to Leo just yesterday, we're going to do a little more public
involvement, maybe peel this out -- it's about $2 million -- and bring it
to the Board and public meeting going forward.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And when you say peel this
out, do you mean for discussion purposes? You want to leave it in the
project list at this point, but you want to do some further evaluation?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: We do the fact sheet that comes in
front of you. I'll peel it out in the fact sheet. So when the Board gets
to look at it in its final form in the ordinance, you guys can make the
call if you'd like to say, hey, do a little more public involvement on this
before we include it in the ordinance. It's only two million. So the
other projects, I think there was a shortfall of 20 million, and
transportation would absorb that if the Board gave us direction to peel
it out. But I'll give you a fact sheet on that.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Okay. Well, I would like,
when this does come back for final consideration, that we evaluate that
$2 million portion, and if you could have some communication with
the folks that are impacted by that, especially at Marbella Lakes.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And we'll see if that needs to
stay in at that time.
MR. OCHS: Nick, just again, in terms of disclosure, the people
January 23, 2018
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that bought property in Marbella --
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yeah, it's a sensitive topic. When
Marbella Lakes was built, the actual road that comes into Marbella was
built by GL Homes, and it was designed as a public road for the
extension to connect to the Green extension. We made them put in the
disclosure statement that you are buying in a community that has a
public road that will connect, ultimately, to Whippoorwill.
Whippoorwill is a dead-end road that serves quite a few thousand
people that live there. And that's -- whenever there's an incident on
Pine Ridge, that road's locked down.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And that road is really on the
northern boundary outside of --
MR. OCHS: Correct.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: -- the community.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, sir. It's not within their
community.
MR. OCHS: And, again, they all bought with knowledge.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: With the disclosure. I wasn't aware of
that.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yeah. So we'll have more facts when
this item comes back so you get a better feel.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: As was said, we're going to get
to hear about that more.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I've got lights here. I'm sorry. Who was
first? We'll start with --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Commissioner Fiala was.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: -- Commissioner Fiala.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Mine was simple, because we
haven't taken the pulse of everybody up here. What do you think about
eliminating the North Naples Fire Department request for money to
build their new facility?
January 23, 2018
Page 94
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I would agree with that.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I would, too.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Where is that -- I'm curious, because
where is that in the breakdown? It's not in there now, right? They
wanted to add it.
MR. OCHS: No, it's not. It came in after you dealt with this at
the December meeting. So we just added it to this item so you had an
opportunity to react to it so we can let them know.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: So approving this the way it is wouldn't
include any money for the new fire station?
MR. OCHS: That's correct, it would not, but we would like to be
able to respond to their letter that's part of your backup, so we'd like
the Board to take a position on that.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I didn't realize that because it's
written about in here, so I didn't realize we didn't have a category.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, I would like my
colleagues to know that my position hasn't changed with regard to the
sales tax from the beginning. Unless there is specific language about
an ad valorem reduction that travels along commensurately with
regards to this tax increase, that combined with the flexibility on the
description of where these monies, in fact, can be spent, I'm not in
support of moving this forward.
Added on the -- and I concur with Commissioner Fiala. I think
you were talking you weren't really happy with having North Naples
Fire District being participatory in it. Along with that all the way
along just adds further to why I'm not in support of this referendum.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I do have another question, but I
think you have Penny Taylor first.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor?
January 23, 2018
Page 95
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: The process now is you're going
to come back to us for a final vetting, is that the process, or is this -- or
is this it? Are we making these very serious decisions right now?
MR. OCHS: Well, at some point if you want to move forward,
you're going to have to look down the project list.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: What's the drop dead date?
MR. OCHS: When we have to get to the election supervisor in
June, I believe, with the final ballot language. And you're going to
have to -- as we said, we wanted to bring the ordinance, the draft
ordinance, and the draft ballot language to you in March so you can
look at that. We were hopeful that we'd have, you know, a final list
associated with that, but it's not mandatory, I don't believe, at that
point. We're just continuing to work to refine this.
But at some point that project list is, I believe, an addendum to
the ordinance itself.
MR. KLATZKOW: The recommendation is that I bring back
ballot language in an ordinance. It would be first reading. At that
point in time you'd have the opportunity to amend the list. Then it will
be brought back for final reading. And, again, you'd have the
opportunity then to also amend the list.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So my thoughts were this. And,
again, we may want to look at this again. But when we have iffy,
maybe, controversial issues that are on this, and specifically it's
Whippoorwill Lane, you're going to have 400-some-odd votes against
this issue right away because of Whippoorwill Lane. Contrary to the --
you know, the reality of the new bridges is a great idea and Vanderbilt
Beach Road extension is a great -- you know, this is controversial.
The strategic land acquisition for the nursing home, there could
be some questions about that. And my thought was, let's make it as
tight as we can. And I'm only one, but maybe we need to look at this
again with these comments and really study this. I don't know anyone
January 23, 2018
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who could argue against bridges that are failing in Golden Gate that
need to be replaced and haven't been replaced because, frankly, we
haven't had the budget to replace them. I don't know who could argue
against that.
We have -- we have serious infrastructure challenges that we will
borrow money. If this fails we will borrow money to get it right. But
the idea is, how do we pay for it? It's not if we need to pay for it. It's
how are we going to pay for it.
So I'm wondering if it would be an opportunity before the --
March to look at this again in February, think about it and really
hammer in really closely, really look at these, to -- and ask staff about
it again to make sure that controversy is left out and solid, solid
reasons are there without controversy.
And that's all I had to say. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Fiala?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
I do have a couple things gnawing at me. One of them is the
stormwater. I've been getting letters -- an abundance of letters right
now from a community who already pays for their own stormwater.
And they're saying, if you collect from us on this tax, then we're going
to be double dipping. So in instances like that, I don't know how we're
going to handle this. It's true we need stormwater but, again, we have
to figure out a way before we go out taxing anybody, how those
communities -- I'm sure I don't have the only one. There are probably
other ones, and they shouldn't have to pay for that either. My second
question is, right now we collect impact fees, and we collect the
highest in the state, and we use them very well. We're very
conscientious about them. They're building all the infrastructure,
which, by the way, keeps the taxes down for other people, and I'm
proud of that.
And we see the advantage we have over say, for instance, Lee
January 23, 2018
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County because now these things are paid for, but how many of these
things will be paid for before we even go to the vote by the impact
fees? And we're going to continue collecting them all along.
So while we're collecting the impact fees, even after it's enacted,
if it is, how do we subtract that from the figure that we said we needed
so that maybe we collected for a year less or something like that?
Those are some of the things gnawing at me.
Say, for instance, Triangle Boulevard, that they really need to fix
because it's a mess over there, but say, for instance, we get money
from the state to do it, how do we deduct that from what we need?
See, I just had those little questions in my mind.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: They need to be answered.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Ma'am, I can maybe answer a couple
of those.
For stormwater you only have 10 million in capital because we
know we're going to be in front of you in February with the utility.
And you're very familiar with LASIP and that project that we've done
that benefited the whole region of your community that was there.
So I think going forward the utility will cover the O&M, and
there is built into the utility a credit process for communities that have
a master plan water system. So if they take care of their own water
internal to the system, they get a credit for that as part of that
evaluation versus someone who doesn't in each level of that. And we'll
cover with that -- both on one-on-one and when we do the public
presentation of the utility.
So a credit is built in to a community that has a master plan water
system.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, good. And is our Water
Department thinking of enacting a user fee on top of whatever they're
doing now, or do we eliminate that entirely?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Well, that's the stormwater utility that's
January 23, 2018
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going to come to you in February.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: So this is paying for stormwater
utility, and that's paying for stormwater utility?
MR. CASALANGUIDA: No, ma'am. Stormwater altogether
had a capital number of about 150 million, in capital, and about 120
million in O&M, and my numbers could be off by about 10 million. In
this, it's a jump start, because the utility takes a year to get funded.
So if you were to adopt the sales tax, there's only 10 million in
here for capital, and that's really just for our team to jump on any
projects that George is doing. But your numbers in stormwater are
closer to 300 million so -- when you start talking about stormwater
utility.
Your transportation question, in this it has the current funding in
the second row that Jeff's pointed out here. That takes into account
impact fees that are going to be collected in the next five-year period.
If a sales tax is applied to a project, it actually has a positive effect on
the impact fee. The impact fee calculation -- and I say positive.
Positive to the payer, not to the county. You have to provide a credit
for any outside sources besides impact fees that you apply towards
transportation.
So it has an effect of reducing the impact fee going out, because
in the calculation you're introducing an alternative source. And as
Commissioner Taylor pointed out, she's correct, if this isn't done, the
shortfall that's in the third column is going to be done by debt service.
In '19 we start issuing debt service for the transportation projects.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And I really needed that cleared up,
because we all know we need roads and we need them badly and we
need them quickly.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I understand that. Same with the
mental health; we need that and we need to fund that now. There are
January 23, 2018
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many things that are just -- same with stormwater. I just wanted to
know what we do. You know, if we find that we've already got the
money coming in so we can deduct it, do we end it a year early, do we
cut the amount in half that we're charging for sales tax? And then
when you cut a penny in half to a half cent, we're still collecting a
penny anyway, because you can't cut that penny in half, so I'm just
wondering that stuff.
You know, I think there's many good things that we can do with
this to help our community and to help us as a county government. I
just want to make sure all these questions are answered.
Thank you.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Got it.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. I would just add that I understand
Commissioner Taylor's concerns. I think I've expressed those myself.
And -- but prior to saying let's revise the list right now, I would like to
see the language and how that -- the flexibility's going to be worked
into that.
But I'm concerned, you know, this is, I think, an important thing,
and the less gray areas we have in it, I think, the better. So let's -- I'd
like to move forward with it, if there's a motion to move forward with
the list as it is and direct the County Attorney to bring back the
proposed language.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: I'll make that motion.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'll second; I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. There's a motion and a second. All
in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Discussion? I'm sorry.
January 23, 2018
Page 100
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's all right. And there is no
language in there with regard to -- we're just moving it forward to
develop the language --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Correct.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- is that correct?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. All opposed?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion carries.
Okay. I think our court reporter needs a break, and we're going to
break for lunch and then come back and announce the shade session
and then go into shade session.
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes. The question is, what time do you
want to come back?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. We'll come back at 1:20.
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, again, I don't want to presuppose. I
believe with regard to this last item and, specifically the question of
funding the request from the fire district, the Board is opposed to that?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes.
MR. OCHS: Okay. We'll communicate that, then, back to the
district. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you. Back at 1:20. Thank you.
(A luncheon recess was had.)
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chair, you have a live mike.
Item #12A
THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS TO CONDUCT A
SHADE SESSION AT 1:00 P.M. TIME CERTAIN TO DISCUSS
THE POTENTIAL SETTLEMENT OF, AND LITIGATION
EXPENDITURES IN, THE CASE OF PAR ONE HOMEOWNERS
January 23, 2018
Page 101
ASSOCIATION, INC. V. ROBERT VOCISANO, ET. AL., CASE
NO. 16-CA-0710, NOW PENDING IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF
THE TWENTIETH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR COLLIER
COUNTY, FLORIDA - CLOSED SESSION
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, we move to Item 12A. This is a 1
p.m. scheduled closed session. I'll turn it to the County Attorney to do
what he needs to do.
MR. KLATZKOW: And the chair has some announcements to
make.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yes. So we're going to begin the shade
session now that we've returned from lunch. It will last about 45
minutes and will be held in the conference room behind us, and in
attendance will be the five commissioners; the County Manager, Leo
Ochs; and the County Attorney, Jeff Klatzkow.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: And Terri, too, right?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: And the court reporter as well.
MR. KLATZKOW: Yes.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And, Mr. Chairman, when we
come back, we'll take up -- 11C would be next.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yes. I was going to request that we could
go -- if we could go ahead and handle 11C, the Golden Gate Master
Plan. I think there were some people that were waiting as well.
MR. OCHS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: There were.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you.
(A recess was had to conduct the shade session, and the
proceedings continued as follows:)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: We are back, and we'll now commence the
regular board agenda again.
January 23, 2018
Page 102
MR. OCHS: Commissioner, I'm sorry. I was a little late on the
uptake there with the microphone, if you want to restate that.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Oh, I'm sorry. I'll just say that we're back
from the shade session, and now we'll recommence the regular board
agenda.
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, I know there was some interest in
moving next to the Golden Gate Area Master Plan item, but I think
there's some participants who were here earlier that aren't quite here
back in the audience, so if you'd like, Mr. Chair, I'll move on to
something else.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Yes.
Item #11E
EVALUATION OF THE EXISTING LANDSCAPE
REGULATIONS AND PROVIDE DIRECTION TO THE COUNTY
MANAGER RELATING TO REDEVELOPMENT OF
LANDSCAPE PLANS FOR EXISTING COMMERCIAL
LOCATIONS - MOTION FOR STAFF TO CREATE STANDARDS
THAT FOLLOW THE AMBIANCE OF OUR COUNTY WITH
INPUT FROM THE COMMUNITY – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Perhaps we could first take up Item 11E. This is a
recommendation to evaluate existing landscape regulations and
provide direction relating to redevelopment of landscape plans for
existing commercial locations. Now, the Board had asked the staff to
bring this back for further deliberation so Mr. Bosi, your Planning and
Zoning Division Director, will make a presentation.
MR. BOSI: Thank you, County Manager.
Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning Director.
You have a short 10-, 11-slide presentation that's going to just
January 23, 2018
Page 103
highlight some of the issues related to the tree removal process
currently adopted by the county. But also the instance of when you
have a wholesale redevelopment of an existing commercial landscape
plan. The instance has been raised to this board by Riverchase back in,
I think, 2013/'14 but also just this past year within Pelican Bay,
basically, has created some concern amongst the citizenry, and we just
wanted to provide the Board an overview of how the process and why
some of these instances may occur.
We've identified a couple reasons why property owners may want
to remove trees: Trees may become overgrown or unmanageable, root
systems may lift the pavement or the sidewalk areas, the root system
may damage utilities and infrastructure, all these things that could
create cost issues; and also there may be issues that the mature trees
could be impacting visibility within the sites for those commercial
end-users.
We have -- as I mentioned, we have a current process for tree
removal, and this is applicable to commercial, residential, and
industrial, the common areas within residential developments. And
within that, you have your cultivated tree removal permit. You can do
it through a Site Development Plan amendment, you can do it through
a Site Development Plan insubstantial change, or you can do it through
an insubstantial change to a construction plan, which is normally the
plats associated with the development.
The cultivated tree removal permit, it's administratively reviewed.
We only allow 10 trees to be removed over a five-year period. The
applicant must demonstrate that the tree can't be maintained properly
by proper canopy pruning and it's not structurally sound, the tree's not
structurally sound and can't be correlated by a cabling or bracing; that
root barriers and pruning have been attempted; and the tree has become
a hazard to pedestrian or vehicle traffic, utilities, or existing structures.
And I highlight this to show that for -- on a limited basis we've
January 23, 2018
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got criteria that has to be satisfied by the applicant for them to go
forward, and we only allow a limited number of trees to be removed
through that removal process.
There's also some other conditions: If the tree's transplanted, the
tree must be moved, established, and maintained using proper arbor --
arbor --
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Try stump.
MR. BOSI: -- icultural and horticultural practices. And if the
tree is removed, it can't be -- the tree has to be substituted with an
equivalent replacement.
Sufficient space has to remain on the site to allow for the
replacement to establish the mature canopy. So we've got some real
type criteria for the tree removal permit on a limited basis.
That's not the case when we've an existing landscape plan that
wants to do an entire redevelopment. That can be done through the
SDPA or the SDPI. It's administratively reviewed. The plans have to
be submitted and signed by a Florida registered landscape architect,
but there's no criteria in which they have to establish to move forward
with it.
The only thing that's required is that the landscape plans that's
replacing the existing landscape plan has to meet the minimum code.
The LDC doesn't place any sort of correlation to changes within the
principal structures or additions. They -- you can basically redevelop
your existing landscape plans as long as you're meeting code.
And the question that -- I think that we have for the Board of
County Commissioners is based upon some of the concerns that have
been expressed by the community, should we go out and try to
establish criteria for how and when a landscape plan can be provided
for a full redevelopment.
Right now there could be an appeal to that SDPI or SDPA, if it's
filed within a 30-day process. One, it would be difficult to know when
January 23, 2018
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that's -- because it's not a notification of when they're approved, but it
can be appealed. The problem with that is there's no criteria, so it's an
appeal to the Board of County Commissioners, and it places the Board
in a tough situation because it's just an evaluation of did it meet code or
did it not meet code. So there's not a lot of deliberation that could be
provided for within that.
There are other options and there are other areas that have
adopted regulations for how you deal with the issue of tree removal but
also for the full-scale redevelopment of landscape plans. You can
establish criteria for landscape plans similar to what we have for the
cultivated tree removal permits, i.e., require justifications related to
health, safety, and welfare.
There's another option: You could create a tree preservation
ordinance and where you define which trees that are preserved; you
create the list of tree removal criteria; allow removal of a percentage of
trees on a yearly basis; and require replacements trees to be like size or
greater.
Other ideas have had a tree protection formula where, if you
remove a tree based upon its caliper and its diameter of its caliper, that
it's replaced with the similar grouping or mathematical equation. You
may require a tree appraisal for the dollar value of the tree being
removed, and it has to be replaced with the similar equivalent.
Whether you can analyze whether the LDC can improve
appropriate areas for tree types. Tree canopies can be allowed in
parking lot islands with a width of more than 10 feet.
So there's criteria for how you could establish a more robust
system for how these landscape redevelopment plans could be
provided for.
A couple other ideas: Evaluate tree replacement is based upon
your existing canopy area, and the replacement would have to be
within a similar capacity.
January 23, 2018
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There's a number of different approaches that have been taken by
other communities, and staff is looking for direction for the Board of
County Commissioners as to whether you would like us to go engage
with the general public and the commercial property owners and see if
there were additional criteria that should be established for when these
landscape redevelopment plans could move forward, or is the
requirement for the replacement with code minimum sufficient to
satisfy the concerns of the Board of County Commissioners?
And with that, it's -- we are seeking direction from the Board
related to the issue because of some of the concerns that were
expressed in prior meetings.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So I'm going to put you on the
spot. Based on the concerns you've heard expressed, the inability for
us to weigh in on major removal of mature trees that we feel define our
community by commercial folks, what do you recommend?
MR. BOSI: It's a policy decision by the Board of County
Commissioners.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: No, no. What -- in all of these
different ways of doing things.
MR. OCHS: Commissioner, I'm sorry. Please speak into your
microphone.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'm sorry. It's here. Of all these
different options you gave us, what do you recommend to not
necessarily automatically prohibit but to weigh in to try to influence?
MR. BOSI: I would probably gravitate to the KISS principle of
"keep it simple," and simply a numeric if you have an existing
landscape, existing commercial center that wants to do a full
redevelopment plan, I would say you've got your code minimum that
they'd have to replace to 25 percent of the code minimum, 35 percent
of the code minimum, 50 percent of the code minimum, the caliper, the
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size of the trunk and the height of the trees. I think those are -- that's a
simple approach where you just -- numerically you say, listen, the
community -- they're familiar with and they associate a level of shade
and quantity in type of landscaping within this commercial plaza.
So because of that expectation and familiarity, just go into your
code minimum is a drastic visual and functional reality. So because of
that, if you require it to be 15 or 25 percent above your code minimum,
then the type of plant, the size of the material that -- and the plants that
would be provided would have more maturity inherent to them, so
maybe it would not be received as poorly and as negative. Because
there's a converse. There's a converse. There's not only the individuals
who experience the shopping centers, but there's the owners of the
shopping centers and the tenants of the shopping centers, and a lot of
time a rebranding or a redevelopment of a commercial center is
because maybe that center is struggling because of visibility, because
of issues that are created. There could be a multitude of reasons why
they feel that they needed to put a different look and feel towards their
environment.
Because, I mean, when it comes down to it, it's a consumer
choice. If they -- an individual felt that it was such a drastic change
that they weren't pleased with that result, they may shop at a different
shopping center. Now, that's -- that's leaving it strictly up to the
marketplace.
But there's a lot of reasons why those commercial property
owners may want to and may need to redevelop. So if you had a
simple -- a regulation that said, if you are -- if you are redeveloping an
existing landscape plan for a commercial center, the plant materials
have to be 25 percent above what code minimum is or whatever the
number that the community could arrive upon. That would probably --
that would be the most straightforward and, I think, easy-to-understand
proposal that wouldn't create or require, you know, a tremendous
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amount of time to bring something like that back to the Board for your
consideration.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And what about replacing like
with like, i.e., shade trees with shade trees, palm trees with palm trees?
What about that aspect of it?
MR. BOSI: That would be a decision that the Board would make.
I wouldn't want to have to tie their hands at the individual commercial
development, because if they wanted to rebrand their center, maybe
they had live oaks that were canopies, and they felt that live oaks didn't
provide because they know in five years that there was going to be
maybe some issues with visibility lines, and they wanted a different
feel.
So I'm not sure that I would necessarily suggest a like for like.
But in terms of specific plant species, but if you -- you're referring to,
say, a canopy tree, as long as it's a canopy tree within a certain
diameter of its spread at planting, you know, could be something that
would be appropriate to suggest.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yeah. I -- when we talked
about this before, I certainly understood the people's concerns about
the trees that were being removed.
But, you know, we were talking earlier about unintended
consequences from a decision that this board makes. We have -- we
have subdivisions in Collier County that are being negatively impacted
by the plantings of our code requisites with regard to trees. Sidewalks
are being ripped up. Subsurface stormwater and wastewater and water
facilities are being moved unintentionally because of this.
And so I would really caution our board to be making any drastic
adjustments in how we're doing what we're doing. I certainly
appreciate everyone's -- or the people's concerns with what they've
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gotten used to seeing and how they've gotten used to see it, but we're
also at the same time potentially putting a large impact on private
property ownership, homeowners associations, not just the commercial
properties. I mean, the commercial properties have that circumstance
as well, but there are private -- there are property rights that are
traveling along with this so that if we start putting so much specificity
on what can and can't be done after the fact, the unintended
consequences could get off the chart.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: And I'll just add that my concern, I think,
like Commissioner McDaniel's, is the uncertainty but also the
uncertainty for the landowner. Now they've gotten to the point where
the trees are of such maturity that we have the issues with the
pavement, the sidewalks, facilities, whatever it is. If we start requiring
them to put back more mature trees, then we're just expediting that
situation to happen again. I think it's a double-edged sword.
I think if most of these situations would happen, I think, in a PUD
setting, which has landscaping requirements within the PUD?
MR. BOSI: Traditionally.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Traditionally?
MR. BOSI: And if they don't specifically address the landscaping
within the PUD, the LDC would default.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: The LDC would. But a lot of times that's
within a PUD ordinance. And so that's what is required for that
property. I mean, I don't know. I just see this as creating more cost
and more regulations when the land has its restrictions. It's got either
the LDC or the requirements of the PUD. And just to add on another
level of complexity and uncertainty for the landowner when, if it's a
commercial property, they want people to like it, they want people to
come there, their tenants are going to require that, and I just don't see
that we need to make it more complicated.
I think Commissioner Taylor was next.
January 23, 2018
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COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Let's hear from Commissioner
Fiala first.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Thank you.
I don't know that sometimes the owners of the shopping centers
know what the people really want. They're usually in another state
anyway, and when they're called upon by, say, some of the shops in the
shopping centers saying people can't see my sign, they -- it was
wholesale rip out all the trees down over there at Riverchase, right?
And the people, oh, my goodness, rose up in anger, and I guess
the developer had to come back and kind of try and make nice-nice
with everybody because they were so upset.
They did the same thing in a couple other shopping centers, one
that was right by me, and the people were very upset about that, too. I
don't think -- I don't think the developers of the shopping centers
realize how important the shade is. Everybody goes for the shady
parking spots in the parking lot. I know I'll travel around, and I'll walk
half across the parking lot in order to find a shady spot just so that the
car doesn't get overheated, especially in the hot summer.
And maybe there's some way that, if they want to remove so and
so number of trees, 10 trees, they can put in the same type of a tree
again except a smaller one so it will grow big again, and maybe that
would work out, so they'd still have what their plan was.
And I was noting also in some of these shopping center, the stores
that are there, everybody knows what stores are there because they've
always been there. And you go to that shopping center just purposely
to find those stores. I don't know that the trees block -- it doesn't make
any difference to me if they block everything in my shopping center.
I'm going there because I know what stores I want to go to.
And other people might just be looking for an address of a store
they'd never been to before, and they're going to find it one way or
January 23, 2018
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another anyway. I don't know. Maybe -- I like the trees. I'm a tree
person.
So anyway, I'd like to see it -- even if they have to reduce the size
every five years or 10 years, or whatever they want to do, and only 10
at a time, well, that might be a way to get around this whole thing. I'm
just weighing in on that.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: There's a solution for tree roots
under sidewalks and on roads, and that's, when you plant them, you
create a barrier. I mean, it's a proven horticultural process. So I don't
see that that is -- if it wasn't done before, then there is a problem. So
when there is a problem, such as the last issue that came before us,
supposedly is a problem, then, you know, 25 percent or 50 percent of
the trees have to be the same size they took out. When they put them
in, there's the root barrier.
So I'm -- I don't see it as a hardship. I see it as maintaining a
standard of this community, for the people of this community.
And I would agree with Commissioner Fiala, a lot of these people
that own these commercial properties, especially, are out-of-town
folks. They just do it easy, like, you know -- I mean, I think the old
adage is, it's a lot easier to raze a lot and build a house than it is to keep
the trees on the house and build within those trees. It's a lot less money
to do it, you know, just plow it down and build it.
And I think we're mature enough as a community, and we have
enough of an awareness of how important medians and landscaping
are, as to keep that mature look throughout our community, and that --
and I think this would do it.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I just have one question. What's the
definition of a cultivated tree?
MR. BOSI: A cultivated tree is a tree that was planted.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: As part of the landscaping.
January 23, 2018
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MR. BOSI: It's part of landscaping.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: It's not something that was there already.
MR. BOSI: Yeah, it wasn't -- it's not natively grown. It's not a
green fill tree. It was part of the landscape plan. It was planted as
such.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: So there's a provision that relates to
cultivated trees but -- and how to replace those, but that doesn't apply if
you're -- if you're making a change to an SDPI or something like that.
MR. BOSI: The cultivated tree removal permit is one aspect of
how you could remove a cultivated tree. Say a commercial shopping
plaza had a couple trees that were creating buckling with their
sidewalks, they didn't need -- they weren't looking to do a full
development of their landscape plan. They would submit for a
cultivated tree removal permit to remove a limited number of trees.
The SDPI/SDPA is done when they're looking for full-scale removal of
the existing landscaping, and it's normally planted back towards what
the code minimum is or, if it's the PUD, what the PUD minimum
would be.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Do we have any public speakers?
MR. MILLER: Yes, sir. I have one registered speaker, Dr.
Joseph Doyle, and he has been ceded time from Sandy Doyle, who is
present, for a total of six minutes.
DR. DOYLE: Hi. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Dr. Joseph
Doyle, Naples.
As you know, I made public comment on July 11th and then
again in December about what happened most recently at the
Marketplace in Pelican Bay, very similar to what happened in
Riverchase in 2012.
And both were wholesale. You don't do the whole parking lot
over again. And if you go to Riverchase, you will see that those trees
are not what they replaced them with. Maybe to code; maybe we need
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to talk about the species. There's no shade at all at the Riverchase now
five years later, okay.
Pelican Bay Marketplace, they put in twigs. Now, as I mentioned,
there were 150 -- 140 mature live oaks in the Marketplace at Pelican
Bay; 139 of them survived Irma, by the way. Fifty-four of those
mature live oaks were replaced with sapling live oaks.
So part of this is, did they really need to be replaced?
And to Commissioner Taylor's point, these are not as big caliper
as they should be. I mean, we have -- there's no canopy, and it's not in
keeping in the character of Pelican Bay. Pelican Bay, as you know, is
a nature preserve. You go down Pelican Bay Boulevard, we have the
mangroves we already talked about this morning. It's not in keeping
with the character.
Now, I believe in property rights; don't get me wrong. The PUD,
which is the Pelican Bay and the Pelican Bay Foundation, I will say,
this was rammed through a Pelican Bay Foundation meeting at the end
of April when no one was around. So our only stopgap after that is the
county.
Now, in looking at Slide 6, if we could turn it back to Slide 6
here, this is obviously an SDPI situation. And it's administratively
reviewed, as Mr. Bosi said, but there's no provision for public input.
And the reason why I bring this up is this: The only people allowed at
Pelican Bay Foundation meetings are owners and members of Pelican
Bay. So don't forget, Marketplace also serves Pelican Marsh, Pine
Ridge, Naples Park. Those county residents and customers of the
Marketplace have no input.
So I'd like to see the SDPI process not only be administratively
reviewed but also require some town halls so that the people can see
what the landscape architect is proposing before they finally sign and
seal it and send it to the county with their, you know, SDPI application
and fees. I'd like to see that step added, and I'd like it to be done in
January 23, 2018
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season when people are around. That's what I'm asking for. I'm not
asking for the cultivated, you know, one or two trees. I'm talking
about this part here, this second part that's on Page 2 of the executive
summary.
So that's what I'm -- now, we can deal with the Pelican Bay
Foundation and their personnel and all that, how that got through, but
I'm looking at the county to be -- number one, a stopgap but, number
two, to give the other public who do not live, for instance, within the
PUD and have no voting rights there, to be able to have some type of
public input, because, Commissioner Solis, while I do agree with
property rights, these customers who have lived in the community for
20 years also have some type of rights because they are living in the
community and for -- you know, if it's a change of ownership with the
commercial and, you know, they might live up -- they might be based
up north and they don't really understand how things are here.
For them to just come in and say they want to have a new look,
sure, that's their right, but I think they need to talk to the community
out of courtesy at the very minimum before they go ahead with their
final plans. And both shopping plazas, but mostly the Marketplace,
were fully leased. So, you know, and -- yeah, they didn't have to
justify a true root -- tree root-maintenance issue. I didn't really see
many, but they said that possibly.
They say there was possibly a public health and safety issue. I
don't know. I don't know how many people tripped over roots. I didn't
see any roots.
Again, I'd like to see that step added to the process, whether you
need a whole new ordinance or just a change to the LDC, but I'd like to
see the public input added to the process, and that's what this is all
about. Because I feel -- because, you know, when you work for a
major corporation, it's at will but, you know what, when they have a
reduction in force, you still have property rights in your job, and they
January 23, 2018
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have to give consideration to that.
So I think, similar to that, the general public who live in the area
should have some type of rights. And I understand they're not paying
for the redevelopment, but maybe something could be done that's even
different than what the owners are being told, because in this particular
case it's my contention that the property manager here did not really --
did not take any input in, and the owners mostly up north were the
ones listening to what he wanted, but it's fully leased property. I don't
know what the refresh was needed, especially when you come back to
the fact that 54 are the same live oaks except now the canopy is gone
and we have seedlings. So I'd like to see the public input part of this
process.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'd like to see if there's consensus
that we follow the recommendations in the executive summary which
are basically to ask staff to review existing regulations, consider the
alternatives present, and provide guidance, and to ask the County
Manager's staff to enhance the standards and come back to us, but also
to vet this with stakeholders involved in this, including property
owners.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You made a good point.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. I think they need to have --
we need to get the property owners involved.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll second your motion.
MR. OCHS: Could we have a little bit more specificity if
possible? Is there a preference in terms of what -- what among those
options you'd like us to pursue?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I knew you'd ask that.
MR. OCHS: Do you want a tree preservation ordinance, or do
you want some thoughtful suggestions on Land Development Code
January 23, 2018
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changes or -- I mean, otherwise, we're just going to keep bringing you
a rock, and you're going to tell us if it's the right color and the right
size.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: So what is -- if we have public
input with stakeholders as well as the public, what is -- which way do
we go, LDC amendment, or which is the best way to create this
system?
MR. BOSI: Any one of these recommended changes would
required an amendment to your Land Development Code.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay.
MR. BOSI: Because the Land Development Code expresses the
process currently, that is provided for.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Maybe going along with what
the motion and the second is, perhaps you could have a meeting with
folks that -- and I think you mentioned this, but have a meeting with
folks that are -- that have an interest in this issue, whether they be
landscape architects in the community, representatives of some
developers, and come back with us with a recommendation.
But, I mean, I think for us to, at this point, tell you specifically
what we're looking for, I don't think we know that, and perhaps the
community can help us put -- help you put something together.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I think what we're looking for is
an ability for a landowner to change the landscaping but to do it in a
way that maintains a look to this community that we like, which is a
canopy, tree-friendly community, and -- but at the -- and I think that's
-- am I speaking out of turn here?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: No, I don't think so. I think you're
speaking what the public, the general public wants to see. We could
even tell when we took a survey about median landscaping, everybody
wanted it --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes.
January 23, 2018
Page 117
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- and they wholeheartedly sent us
letters and everything to verify that. So we know that it's loved in our
community. We know that it gives us an ambiance and, in my opinion,
we're one of the leading communities in the country for beauty just
because of that. Well, I think the same holds true with the canopy
trees, just as you're mentioning. The same with the shopping centers,
you know. It gives the shopping centers a more warm and friendly
look, welcoming just because they're so beautiful and the trees make
everything -- you go to a shopping center where there's no trees at all
in other little counties, and you don't even want to park there.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Is that enough?
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: That's all you're going to get.
MR. OCHS: I know.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: You can't get any more from us.
MR. BOSI: We're going to keep it simple.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: All right. Well --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: So there's a motion and a second.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Repeat the motion, because
there's been a lot of discussion on an evolution of a motion as to what,
in fact, was suggested and where, I think, we're at right now, if you
don't mind me. I'm not being short. I just would like to --
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: We'd ask staff to go and create
standards that follow the ambiance of this community but, at the same
time, are fair and protect property rights and that they vet these with
interested stakeholders including property owners, landscape
architects, and certainly associations, neighborhood associations, and
then to bring it back in terms of developing an amendment for us for
our consideration.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You did say vet the public, right?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yes, yes. Does that sound right?
January 23, 2018
Page 118
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: That's perfect.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay. All right.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: So that's the motion that was seconded?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I got it was perfect from my
colleague to the left, so I'm going to take that one.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. All in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: All opposed?
Aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye. 3-2.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: 3-2. Motion carries.
MR. BOSI: And just to remind the Board of County Comm --
that the adoption of this standard would be through the Land
Development Code process amendment. So we will take it through the
general public but also would have the advisory boards as well.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, good. The more the merrier.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do you think -- we've got that town
hall meeting coming up, what, Friday, right? The 30th. Do you think
you could mention it at the town hall meeting and see what the public
says? Now, I realize that's on Marco Island, but we'll have some
places off the island. Maybe people could weigh in on that as well and
-- I mean, if we're looking for that.
MR. OCHS: Commissioner, I'd prefer to develop a little bit of an
outline for the process first.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay, all right. Maybe beautify it a
little bit more so that it's understood.
MR. OCHS: Yes, ma'am.
MR. CASALANGUIDA: Good point.
MR. OCHS: Thank you.
January 23, 2018
Page 119
Thank you, Mike.
Item #11C
DIRECTING STAFF TO INITIATE THE GROWTH
MANAGEMENT PLAN (GMP) AMENDMENT PROCESS FOR
THE PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE GOLDEN GATE AREA
MASTER PLAN (GGAMP) AND APPROVE THE APPLICATION
OF THE UPDATED COLLIER INTERACTIVE GROWTH
MODEL (CIGM) TO ASSIST IN PLAN IMPLEMENTATION -
MOTION TO ACCEPT REPORT REGARDING GOLDEN GATE
CITY – APPROVED; MOTION TO ACCEPT REPORT
REGARDING URBAN & RURAL GOLDEN GATE ESTATES –
APPROVED; CIGM MODEL PRESENTED BY MR. VAN
BUSKIRK
MR. OCHS: Commissioners, now that takes us to Item 11C, and
this is a recommendation to direct the staff to initiate the Growth
Management Plan amendment process for the proposed changes to the
Golden Gate Area Master Plan and approve the application of the
updated Collier Interactive Growth Model to assist in the plan
implementation.
Mike, are you kicking this off, or is Kris handling this one?
MR. BOSI: Leo -- or Commissioner -- County Manager, I will
start the presentation, and then Anita Jenkins and Kris van Lengen, the
two primary leads, will be up providing updates.
As the County Manager had indicated, we're going to go over the
public process that we established and some of the results that we were
provided from our conversation with the community in terms of
moving forward on the Golden Gate Area Master Plan, the three
subareas, which is Golden Gate City, the rural estates, and the urban
January 23, 2018
Page 120
estates, some of the high-level recommendations that we're going to
suggest, and then request a direction from the Board of County
Commissioners to initiate the transmittal process of the Growth
Management Plan which would be initiated with a conversation with
the Planning Commission, detailed review, and bringing back those
recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners.
Before we get into the specifics of the process and what we
learned in speaking to the community, I wanted just to remind the
general public and also the Board what the Comprehensive Plan is and
what their Comprehensive Plan is designed to do.
It's -- really, it's a high-level concept document. It provides the
Board's adopted values. It provides the vision that the Board of County
Commissioners has for any one individual area for the community and
what you would like to see from the community, not just from a land
use perspective, but from a holistic perspective of all the systems that
make up the built environment.
It provides the direction and the foundation for your Land
Development Code, your budget, your capital improvement
programming. And related to the Land Development Code -- and it's a
legal term -- is the Growth Management Plan is the rational nexus for
the specific standards that are developed within your Land
Development Code to be able to defend why those regulations exist.
They have to take heart or take root within the concepts and the
principles and the values that are contained within your Growth
Management Plan.
A number of different characteristics within the Growth
Management Plan in how it expresses what it would like to see. Some
are aspirational, meaning that maintaining the rural character is an
aspect that's contained within the Golden Gate Area Master Plan when
it refers to the rural estates. That's a concept that's expressed within the
Golden Gate Area Master Plan, and we develop regulations within our
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Land Development Code to further advance that concept of
maintaining a rural character.
Some were measurable. Some of the objectives, goals, and
policies are measurable, meaning adopt implementing code standards
within a specific period of time, and they're based upon
complementary studies, and it's made up of series of elements at your
public -- your Transportation Element, your land use element, your
capital improvement element, your public schools facility element, a
number of different subset areas that integrate with each other that
dictates the overall goal and values that we have for the community.
And as I said, the GMP is your top level. It's your highest level of
regulatory document. It sets your priorities, and it provides for your
underlying concepts and strategies. And there's five individual
underlying concepts that are at the very beginning of your Growth
Management Plan. The first is protection of natural resources. Second
is coordination of land uses and your public facilities, meaning that
your land uses and your public facilities are in alignment so there's not
an imbalance between the two.
Management of coastal development, provision of adequate and
affordable housing, and attainment of high-quality urban design.
Those are your five individual concepts that underline your Growth
Management Plan, and then you have your elements that are
comprised within your Growth Management Plan with specific goals,
objectives, and policies. And those formulate the basis for how we
develop our Land Development Code.
The Land Development Code are those regulations that promote
those priorities, concepts, and strategies in the GMP such as specifics
for setbacks uses, dimensional requirements, design criteria. Those are
-- those are things that are contained in your LDC. That level of
specificity is not suggested to be in your Growth Management Plan.
To change your Growth Management Plan it's a much higher bar. It
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normally takes two rounds of hearings, so because of that, you want to
have the concepts, your 10- and 50,000-foot level attainment goals,
and then how you get there is contained within your Land
Development Code.
And, specifically, as an example of how that's expressed, within
your Future Land Use Element, Objective 2, it says, coordinate land
uses with the availability of public facilities accomplished through the
concurrency management system of the Capital Improvement Element.
Well, how do we provide for that? That's implemented through the
adequate public facilities ordinance of the Land Development Code,
meaning every development order that is approved by growth
management has to satisfy your concurrency management system.
That system, that design of the system, the specifics, are contained in
your LDC, but the higher goal of making sure that there's available
capacity to handle your land uses, that's expressed in your Growth
Management Plan.
So you see how the higher concept is narrowed down to specific
implementing language with specificity, and that's where the
specificity is contained within your Land Development Code.
A second would be your Housing Element. Objective 1, provide
new affordable housing units in order to meet the current and future
needs of legal residents with very low, low, moderate and affordable
workforce incomes, including households with special needs, such as
rural and farmworkers in rural Collier County.
That's implemented in one provision through your affordable
housing density bonus. That program is with a commitment of 15
years to provide for affordable housing through specific income gaps.
That affordable housing bonus program allows for more density to be
requested than what normally could be. And that is an implementation
strategy that's provided for because the rational nexus is connected to
that goal, that objective within your Growth Management Plan.
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So when we were talking about the rural fringe mixed use district
and some of the changes that we were proposing, I think it was -- it
was on staff that we weren't doing an adequate job of expressing how
those concepts could be manifested in the built environment, and one
of the things you're going to see as Anita takes over the second part of
this presentation and talks about Golden Gate City and some of the
mixed-use opportunities that we're looking to promote, we've provided
some design sketches for how those concepts may physically take form
so you can take those higher concepts and see how that would
materialize within the built environmental; therefore, it's a little bit
easier and understandable to say, all right, if I'm accepting that -- I'm
accepting this concept, I'm accepting this goal, what's it going to look
like when it ultimately potentially would be designed or built. So we
provided a little more specificity to what those possible outcomes
could be, and I think that will gain a little bit more of a footing to
understanding what we're trying to promote within any one of our
individual programs, but specifically for the mixed-use component of
Golden Gate City.
And with that, I will turn it over to Anita Jenkins.
MS. JENKINS: Thanks, Mike.
Good afternoon, Commissioners. Anita Jenkins. I'm an Urban
Planner with the Community Planning Section, and today I'm going to
focus on Golden Gate City and the primary recommendations that are
found in your white paper that was distributed to you. There are many
other recommendations in that white paper, but we're going to hit the
highlights for you today. I'm going to talk about Golden Gate City.
Kris is going to follow up with Golden Gate Estates. And in this
restudy, like the other restudies, our focus areas are land use,
transportation, economic vitality, and the environment.
The public outreach that was done for the Golden Gate Area
Master Plan, we included no less than 10 public workshops. Two of
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those were right here on Collier County campuses. You have over 700
employees that live in the Golden Gate area. So we thought it was
important to give them an opportunity at lunchtime to provide their
input as well.
We have a dedicated website where all materials are posted and
available to the public. We did surveys at both the workshops and that
were online. We did instant polling at the workshops, and instant
polling is where you're asking questions to try to determine values and
priorities from the community. They have a little clicker in their hand,
and they can click the answer, and it shows up, everyone's preference,
on the screen. So you can see consensus building right in the room as
you're doing these public workshops with that technology. We also
have a dedicated email, so all electronic correspondence is collected on
one email site.
So the public participation process was well attended, and in part
of that public participation process we establish vision statements. It's
been some time since the Golden Gate Area Master Plan was updated,
so we wanted to ensure that the vision that was designed into the last
master plan was still the vision for the community.
So you'll see here that Golden Gate City has a specific vision for
their city. They want it to be family oriented, diverse, they want access
to schools and parks and retail, and they want this all happening in a
vibrant, walkable community.
So we all know that Golden Gate City is a well-established
neighborhood and community in Collier County. And the area is four
square miles. And you can see on this graphic it's representing really
the residential portion of Golden Gate City.
In the lighter yellow area all single-family. The darker yellow
areas are multifamily. So you can see this almost 50/50 balance that
Golden Gate City has in offering both multifamily and single-family.
So to reach that vision of being family oriented and diverse, the
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land use of residential units in Golden Gate City is fairly well
balanced.
So what do we then look at to focus on the vision for vibrant and
walkable? Well, we're looking at commercial areas in Golden Gate
City, and you'll notice that Golden Gate City has five distinct
commercial areas. One commercial area is out on 951. It goes up to
C5. So very intense commercial uses. It's appropriately located, and
we're not making any major recommendation for changes to that area.
The other area is Santa Barbara. It's more neighborhood
commercial oriented. No major recommendations for changes to that
area. A few little tweaks to make it easier for those property owners to
redevelop, but nothing major.
The areas that we do want to focus on for the vibrant walkable
community that is desired is Golden Gate Parkway in the activity
center. And the top slide, what you see is what's adopted now. The
bottom slide is what we're proposing. And the differences are -- and
along the Parkway right now you have three designations, and these
designations have different land uses available, they have different
development standards, and by that I mean, for instance, on the
western area of Golden Gate Parkway, those development standards
require a 40-foot setback. On the eastern side of Golden Gate
Parkway, you have a 15-foot setback. So there's no consistency in this
corridor to develop this walkable place.
So what we would recommend to you is let's make the land uses
along Golden Gate Parkway along with the development standards
consistent so we're creating a real place that is dynamic for people to
visit and to stop as they're driving through.
The other thing we would recommend is to add a couple of
outliers along the Parkway here. You'll see three additions to the
Golden Gate Parkway designated areas. One is an existing
multifamily complex. We would suggest that as that matures and is
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ready and ripe for redevelopment, we want to make sure that they are
using the same development standards as other uses along the
Parkway.
And, likewise, the little pharmacy down at the corner of Santa
Barbara and Golden Gate Parkway; let's make that part of the same
district.
We would also add in just a little piece of the park into the
activity center so that flexibility could be built in for that civic use as
well.
Secondly, we will recommend adding specific land uses to the
activity center. And the specific land uses are outlined in the white
paper, but these are land uses that are to implement our target
industries, and all of the pad-ready sites that the Chamber of
Commerce says we need, we want to make sure that these are available
here.
So those target entries are things like advanced manufacturing,
data development, call centers, things like that. So by adding these
land uses into the activity center and perhaps putting, you know,
workforce training there as well -- you're very close to I-75 here. It's
very easy access for job creation and training facilities -- that you can
really start to activate this activity center.
And by adding these land uses, that will promote job creation,
that gives you the ability to consider an innovation zone for Golden
Gate Parkway in the activity center. And an innovation zone, you have
one out in Ave Maria, and basically it allows you to do redevelopment
and use TIF financing for infrastructure improvements in this area. So
it's a mechanism to spur redevelopment without doing a Community
Redevelopment Agency. It's totally a local program that you have
control over. But it is focused on job creation, so we want to make
sure that you have that ability through adding these job land uses to the
activity center.
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COMMISSIONER FIALA: What is that program called again,
please?
MS. JENKINS: An innovation zone, and those are created
generally just by resolution.
So you define the area and would approve the area by resolution,
and you have to have an economic development plan to go along with
that.
So in thinking about the activity center and how these regulations
and policies will help to drive the vision, this is an aerial view of the
activity center and Golden Gate Parkway, the other side of Golden
Gate Parkway running through. So you'll see on the east side all the
civic uses, the park, the community facility, the library; in the middle
there you have the Winn-Dixie, and on the eastern side you have two
vacant big boxes. One a K-Mart and one was, I think, a grocery store
in the past, but they're both vacant. So we know that these are ripe for
redevelopment and potentially reuse of those buildings.
But as we talk about redevelopment and help drive policies to get
there, what are we thinking about and how might that look? Well,
you're going to see some change to the screen, so I'd ask you to watch
the screen here, because it's going to build. And what you see there is
the existing buildings in the dark orange, but we can infill this activity
center using those job creation uses and job training uses to really infill
this activity center and along the Parkway, and this would go all the
way along the Parkway. We're just showing you a symbol of it right
now.
But you have the opportunity to add mixed use in here,
employment, entertainment, retail, and all very strongly connected
through a pedestrian system.
So that's -- that is the idea of allowing these uses to occur, and
what we see and what you might have noticed in the aerial is this is --
it's very underused, this activity center. There's just a sea of parking
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that's really over-parked, and there's good opportunity to do infill and
allow these uses to occur where there are people in very close
proximity to this activity center.
So how might this look? And this is where we're trying to create
more of that dynamic, urban form, with pedestrian connections and
covered walkways, and you'll see the pathway system that's here, and
the buildings that are built to the sidewalk, and we don't have to worry
about the landscaping blocking the signs of the businesses when
they're built to that line where people are actually passing by the
business. So this is the type of character we're looking at.
And this is something that you've heard many times, or the Board,
the county, the community has heard many times before. This is an
idea of how we create the world-class streets in Collier County. And
you'll -- the one on the upper left is one that we see that's very
auto-oriented. It doesn't have the great landscaping that we do, but you
can see how that's less than memorable. It's pretty forgettable streets
and intersection. But when you start infilling that and bringing the
buildings up to the street to focus on the pedestrian activity, you start
creating memorable streets. And I'm sure that the streets that you
probably remember are the ones you walk down and were active in and
shopping and dining and things like that.
So that's what we want to honor Golden Gate Parkway as and
create land-use policies to help them get there and development
standards which would come later in the development.
So finally on Golden Gate City, just on our primary
recommendations, we come to transportation. And I am followed right
behind with another study the MPO authorized, and that's the Golden
Gate City Walkability Study, and I participated in their public
workshops last week, and we anticipate really implementing the
walkability vision through that plan as well. So we would recommend
that we emphasize walkability through the MPO's plan, and we can
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adopt that plan by reference at the MPO's direction.
And also there are many alleys in Golden Gate City, and
sometimes these alleys are vacated and creating -- or losing
opportunities where you could have opportunities for corridors for
pedestrians and bicycles. If we protect those from being vacated, then
you'd have other opportunities for not only pedestrians and bicycles
but also for service behind using those alleyways.
So that's pretty much it on the Golden Gate City primary
recommendations. It's really the focus on the redevelopment area of
Golden Gate Parkway and the activity center. I'll be happy to answer
any questions you may have; otherwise, Kris is going to go through the
Estates with you.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Did you hit your light?
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Oh, I didn't hit my button.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I hit my light first, but he can
go first.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Somebody go first.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: We could do rock, paper,
scissors, but that will take forever.
I want to thank staff. One of the things that I campaigned on
when I was running for the County Commission was the need to have
some real attention to Golden Gate City, that if the Commission didn't
take steps to start turning around certain areas of that community, that
we would see degradation in the community over time.
The activity center where you mentioned that there are vacant
buildings, I think that's an excellent opportunity to encourage, through
tax incentives, through -- you mentioned the Enterprise Zone or the
commercial zone that's going to be imposed there to provide some
incentives for property owners to acquire property, build two-,
three-level buildings -- story buildings as opposed to just one-story
buildings multi-use, turn that into what could really be a nice city
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center. And so I really want to thank staff for that. This is a step in the
right direction.
And I don't know what action you need from the Board today
other than to, I guess, accept the proposal at this point.
MS. JENKINS: Right. So we're asking for direction to begin
preparing these for transmittal. So we'll prepare the full Golden Gate
Master Plan strikethrough and underline document for you, and then
that will go through the Planning Commission and then back to you to
ask for transmittal, approval to transmit to the state.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And perhaps we could take
these up one at a time. We'll do the Golden Gate City issue, if you
don't mind, in terms of a motion, in terms of dealing with that.
But, again, I think this is an area that is ripe for a lot of
improvement. The county is involved in doing a study of
street-lighting. Obviously, there's been talk about sidewalks and
walkability. And so I think this is a really great opportunity.
So, Mr. Chairman, I don't know if this would be appropriate to
make a motion to accept this and direct staff to move forward with it,
but I'll make that motion if it's appropriate.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: There's a motion.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I second.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second -- third it.
And then I'll go under discussion with my light up. I have two
questions, Ms. Anita.
Number one, you showed the activity center delineated in one
picture, and then it looked to me like it expanded further from where
it's currently located to the east. Is there an expansion of that area?
MS. JENKINS: Let me get back to that slide, Commissioner, and
I'll show you. It's a slight expansion.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That's the one right there.
MS. JENKINS: So that expansion, the little red to the north, is
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the park.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, yeah. And then there's
another black line to the east off of the red that goes over to the blue
that's now included in blue, light blue.
MS. JENKINS: Yeah. So the blue -- the intent here is the
activity -- land-use designation for the activity center will stay that
land-use designation. We'll add those specific land uses there. The
intent for the blue areas is to create kind of that Main Street district for
them. So by adding that -- that is a multifamily complex right now,
that blue area; that you can see up on the top it's kind of left out.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's yellow.
MS. JENKINS: Right. It's yellow.
So because it is between these two important land uses and
abutting Golden Gate Parkway, we want to make sure that at the time
that they are ready to redevelop or reuse that property, that they have
the same incentives and opportunities for redevelopment along this
corridor.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I'm not in -- I'm not in
objection to that. It's just it was rather unique that we went off and
actually did a map change color, because that's something that I've
talked about quite regularly through the GMP process, on a
site-specific piece of property, and we have been resistant to doing that
in other areas within the RFMUD and in Golden Gate Estates at the
same time. I just found that unique.
And I don't -- again, we've had similar conversations about
unintended consequences. And I just -- I can understand including the
park, that facility and behind, but a specific map change -- because you
made several. You went from pink to blue and included the Eckerd's --
or the CVS store that's on the corner as well as. I just was wondering
--
MS. JENKINS: Right. So the idea -- it wasn't necessarily site
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specific more than corridor specific, so --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So there's more than --
MS. JENKINS: -- that's the reason, because it's along the
corridor.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- more than one piece of
property there that's impacted by this.
MS. JENKINS: Right.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay. And I'm good with that.
I just -- that was new. That popped up when I was reading through the
material.
And, Commissioner Saunders, if you would consider -- and,
again, I wouldn't mind hearing the presentation on Golden Gate
Estates, but one of the things that was a portion of the white paper and
that I've been very much an advocate for is the segregation of the three
areas of Golden Gate. They currently are all encompassed in the
Golden Gate Master Plan: Golden Gate City, urban Golden Gate
Estates, and rural Golden Gate Estates.
And there is going to be, my understanding from the white paper,
is that there's going to be a segregation. We're going to deal with all
three of those areas independent, almost as if they all have their own
master plan that they have a say-so over as opposed to being lumped
in. So --
MS. JENKINS: Right.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: -- I'd be -- I'm in favor of
moving forward -- because we're going to get to see this again when
the specific languages and the strikethroughs and the underlines, in
fact, come back to us on the actual GMP side. I'd be happy with
approving -- moving forward on it all.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: This is a wonderful plan, and I'm
very supportive of it, but I am also very aware that this is an area that
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has workforce/affordable housing. And gentrification oftentimes
displaces this, these people. How are we going to moderate the effect
of gentrification in this area to ensure that it remains an area where
people can afford to live?
MS. JENKINS: Right. So I think that one of the things that we
talked about in the master plan that is important particularly to Golden
Gate City is protecting these residential neighbors, right? So you can
see that we're not making changes.
The density is there for this community, and it is underbuilt right
now. And I could go back, but I think you remember I showed you the
multifamily and the single-family. Well, the multifamily, there are
some apartment complexes, and then there's quite a few duplexes and
triplexes. Well, those duplexes are able to rebuild to a higher density
that's already allowed under this plan.
So as the market changes, the housing stock can change as well,
and so we want to make sure that we're protecting in this -- that in the
plan.
What we can do to protect the housing values, I think we're all
trying to figure that out through the affordable housing plan that we're
all looking at, and we'll certainly incorporate those ideas into this plan
as well.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah. I think -- I just -- if there's
consensus up here among my colleagues -- and certainly,
Commissioner Saunders, this is your district, but I'm not suggesting
that everything stays frozen in time, but I am suggesting that going
forward there is a -- there is an awareness that this is a very important
centrally located area for people who want to work in this community.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: And that's not going to change.
What we're trying to change is -- you talk about the area where the two
big boxes are vacant. There's nothing there to attract people. There's
no city center there. And this will help develop a city center where
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people who live there will have a place to go or people who, perhaps,
want to go there from other areas of the county will have an area to
visit in Golden Gate City. I think it will give the area character. I
think it will give the area a sense of community, but it's not going to
impact in a negative way the fact that this is a residential community
and there are a lot of workforce -- there's a lot of workforce housing
there. That's not going to change. But I think this can give the
community a real sense of community, and I think that's important.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah, and no question about that.
It's displacement. It's as property values rise, which they will with this
redevelopment, how do we maintain a balance?
MS. JENKINS: Right. And I think that is getting -- looking at
that housing balance and making sure that we have the full range of
housing available in Golden Gate City as it matures.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I have an idea on that, just
since you asked the question. One suggestion is, when we're talking
about affordable housing density bonus, adjust the limits on the term
for that qualification to actually be utilized. Right now we're rolling
them out on a term, 15 years, 25 years, 40 years, depending on what
we do. We're awarding additional density, and then we're putting
ourselves 15, 20, 40 years down the road with higher land costs, higher
construction costs, higher impact fees, and causing greater in-
affordability along the way. So that's just one answer.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Mr. Miller, do we have any public
speakers?
MR. MILLER: Yes, we do, Mr. Chairman. We have three
speakers. Your first speaker is Tom Collins.
MS. JENKINS: You have a -- the Estates left.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Oh, I'm sorry.
MR. OCHS: We still have the Estates, if you'd like to hear that.
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COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: We did have, I think, a motion
and second on the issue of just the Golden Gate City.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And that's fine.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I thought we were going to --
MR. OCHS: Are you going to take a separate motion on the two
different elements of the plan is the question.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I think that's what the motion was.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Because I may have to leave
before you get to the vote on the second part.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Well, what's the Board's pleasure?
We can continue or we -- if these --
MR. MILLER: And, frankly, Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure which
part of this presentation these folks want to speak on, frankly.
MR. OCHS: I would say call on them, sir, and if they want to
make a comment on this element, they can. If they want to come back
up, we'll call them again when we go through the second phase.
MR. MILLER: Tom Collins.
MR. COLLINS: My comment is on the second element.
MR. MILLER: Second phase.
Bob Mulhere?
MR. MULHERE: Pass.
MR. MILLER: I am so sorry. I cannot make -- William -- or W.
Confoy --
MR. CONFOY: Yeah, second phase.
MR. MILLER: Second phase, sir.
MR. OCHS: So we have a motion and --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Very well. So we've got a motion and a
second on the first portion. All in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
January 23, 2018
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COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
COMMISSIONER SAUNDERS: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: The motion carries. We'll proceed to the
next part.
MS. JENKINS: Kris will introduce the Golden Gate Estates.
MR. van LENGEN: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Kris Van
Lengen, Community Planning Manager.
Glad to address you again in this time for community character of
a very different kind of community; quite different than Golden Gate
City is Golden Gate Estates. And it's been such a pleasure to work
with the folks out there and their civic association both in the rural area
and in the urban area.
I think what you'll find -- and I'm just going through a very few
PowerPoints to give you an idea of some of the elements that we're
discussing. I had not planned to discuss all 35 recommendations that
we're making. There tend to be very incremental. We're not making
any major changes to the very solid foundation that was provided in
the 2002 restudy of Golden Gate area.
So we started with the idea of rural character and, interestingly,
both the urban and rural estates areas kind of ascribe to the same large
lot, low density, natural surroundings, quiet neighborhoods. And that's
part of a vision statement. It's also part of the goal statement for both
areas, and so for that reason, Commissioner McDaniel, we decided,
even though we went out separately to three different areas, we're
actually bringing back two different sets of master plans because we
think that the Golden Gate Estates can speak as one.
We don't find tremendous differences in the types of policies that
are involved between the two. Land use designations, absolutely, and
those are separate.
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So we have two different parts of our comp plan: Future land use
designations; those are completely separate. Goals, objectives, and
policies within the Estates area, we've combined the rural and urban
areas.
Underlying that rural character, so to speak, is the notion that
came up from the community which was about a low-density overlay.
And we looked at that, and how do you do a low-density overlay. And
I think what we came up with really was a recommendation simply to
look with great skepticism to individual Growth Management Plan
changes as they come through. There will be some that will be
certainly viable, and every individual has the right to petition their
government for a change, but a Growth Management Plan should be a
Growth Management Plan and, by and large, these very small, tiny
five-acre sub-districts within the Growth Management Plan maybe
could be avoided to some extent in the future.
What the community wants is limited goods and services,
particularly in the rural estates. We have partly in the -- there's one
neighborhood center in the urban -- in the urban estates. In the rural
estates there are three neighborhood centers. They don't want
anymore. They don't all exist today, but the entitlements are there for
four total neighborhood centers, fairly small. So the focus there on
limited goods and services is unlimited.
And that they made very clear. There is, however, a -- kind of
since 2002, there's been a growing awareness of a functionality
problem so that to the extent that individuals can come in and petition
through the -- through the rezone process for additional acreage for
purposes of buffer, septic, parking, water retention, right-of-way, those
types of things, they would need those -- to show those aspects to the
Board in order to improve their footprint, so to speak, or enlarge their
footprint to make those areas more functional.
Rural fringe coordination. There was a lot of support across the
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board in the Estates for coordination with rural fringe activities
particularly their villages, particularly including rural lands, towns. A
lot of things had corresponded to your master mobility plan that
suggests that reverse commutes and shorter commutes all were down
to a lower capital cost for the county, make people healthier and
happier and reduce their commute times.
Another land-use issue was conditional uses. We observed in the
rural estates in particular that there was a lack of opportunity for
certain conditional uses, things like assisted living or adult daycare,
child daycare, schools, communication towers, and so forth. And so
the idea was at least to open that door just a little. Right now those are
allowed as conditional uses in the Estates, but they're allowed only in
very, very limited locations. So you can only ask to have them in very
limited locations.
We just want to open that "ask" door just a little bit so they can be
asked about at major intersections, and that's one of the
recommendations we're making. It doesn't entitle anyone to a
conditional use in a major intersection. They still have to go through
the public-hearing process, but it eliminated the Comprehensive Plan
level when that situation arises.
Notice requirements, whether it's a neighborhood information
meeting or a zoning action, there is a notice requirement of a thousand
feet in the Estates. We think that that should be increased at least
along -- if there is an immediate effect to a street or an avenue in the
Estates, certainly the entire length, which is typically a mile, should be
subject to written notice.
Corridor for future study, we look at the Immokalee corridor and
the intersection of Collier County with Randall. The Randall/Oil Well
Road study is underway and will be coming back to you at some point
soon. We suggest following the completion of that study that there be
an area study around what we call the Immokalee curve, generally
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clustered around Randall, but maybe going all the way from Wilson up
to Oil Well Road.
It could be anything from status quo all the way up to an activity
center, depending on the character and the nature of how people react
to it, but we couldn't get to that level of specificity in this plan to
determine what was appropriate. There are a lot of different
possibilities including, as you well know, the county-owned property
along there.
In the transportation area, I think you talked about it this morning,
that the bridge study is so important. And I don't really need to dwell
on it because it's a matter of dollars. It's also a matter of health and
safety for the folks who live out there, and that was a big theme for
everyone who spoke to us, and so we're glad that the bridge study is
already being updated and that you're finding funding for that in
various ways.
The I-75 connection, we explained to citizens what we meant by
in the vicinity of Everglades Boulevard, and that was anywhere east of
the intersection of I-75 and Everglades to a point about three miles
farther east, and they were very supportive of that idea that they would
have an I-75 connection. They very desperately want an I-75
connection. At the same time -- and they are happen to have the
emergency evacuation from Everglades Boulevard, but a key theme
was also to protect Everglades Boulevard from overexpansion in the
future. And so to resist anything beyond four-laning ever of
Everglades Boulevard was something they wanted to put in the Comp
Plan.
Future study area, a lot of interest in trying to head out of the
Estates heading southwest into the urban area. No ability to do that at
this point. Vanderbilt Beach Road extension certainly will help relieve
some of the congestion on the more northern side. But south of
Golden Gate Boulevard there is no such reliever and, obviously, that's
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an important long-range transportation initiative that has lots and lot of
repercussions.
But what we're suggesting is that to the extent it's feasible, sooner
than later we'd like to see the MPO do a study on the North Belle
Meade area. It's so important for people to know that they can have a
Wilson Boulevard extension, that's something east/west to get into the
urban area and certainly, as far as the rural fringe goes, it will help
planning initiatives undergoing there significantly.
Probably most importantly, I'm just indicating two environmental
issues here, but certainly the watershed issues and the fire-wise issues
are the greatest, I think, of the environmental issues and the most
important to move forward, we think. You have a Watershed
Management Plan that was adopted in 2011. It prioritized itself quite a
number of water planning initiatives across the county.
(Commissioner Saunders left the boardroom for the remainder of
the meeting.)
What we're suggesting is that the North Golden Gate City flow-
way, which is -- excuse me -- all of the project within Golden Gate,
and there are about eight of them among the various lists in the water
management plan. About eight of them probably should be prioritized
and determined in terms of the funding, and I think that will be part of
your ongoing efforts with or without a stormwater utility.
But that's clearly what we think, environmentally, is one of the
most important projects is the North Golden Gate Estates flow-way for
connectivity, improvement of hydrology in the Corkscrew area, the
wetland acquisition in various areas in various forms that that takes
place, and then level-of-service modeling, which Big Cypress Basin is
and South Florida Water Management District has begun.
Among non-county projects, things that could be implemented
more on the individual homeowner, and perhaps to their benefit, would
be things like lot combinations. This is a new idea that came up from
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Estates residents, and we think it's a great idea. Our thought was it's
complicated because there are a lot of different ways to incentivize lot
combinations. The idea would be here to Band-Aid lots, the 75-foot
frontage lots. There are quite a few that are undeveloped at this point,
and those that are undeveloped could be married back to a larger parcel
adjoining it and that, in effect, creates that DRGR effect, the
lower-density effect so important for groundwater. But the incentives
are complicated, whether it's a tax incentive requiring a referendum,
whether it's an impact fee incentive requiring further impact fee
studies, it could be a credit for your stormwater utility, it could be an
easement of an environmental nature.
So all those things are possible. We think that that needs to be a
very directed study, and something that we're suggesting through our
recommendations is to come back to you within two years for specific
lot combination incentives.
Similarly, dispersed water management. The idea being, if each
homeowner holds just a little bit of retained water during a storm event
on those estates lots, the multiplying effect really creates a better
outcome in the long run.
So it's -- a little bit over a lot of lots, as former Commissioner
Nance once described, can do a great deal.
So, again, complicated because of engineering issues, because of
elevations. Engineers -- we had some really great discussions with
different groups not all of one mind at this point. So it has to come
back to you at some point in time and, at your direction, that study
would also come back to you to determine how that might work and
whether it's strictly incentive based or whether it might be regulatory in
its nature.
And then, of course, keeping our mind on other long-term ideas,
whether it's aquifer storage and recovery type of program, which at this
point in time, may not be economically feasible, but it may be some
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day, keep our finger on that pulse, as well as what we call the C1 canal
connector, which is a equalizer between Golden Gate Canal and the
Miller Canal.
So those -- possibly an expensive project, but it could be cost
effective; something to keep an eye for the long run.
Finally, wildfire protection; nothing more important, and we
certainly learned that last year. We keep our fingers crossed for this
year with the debris that we have on the ground.
I think Director Summers has really kept moving vigorously on
this topic, and he's had meetings and -- even as far as when you say
updated agreements, the agreements, I think, recently, as recent as
December, were completed with the Forestry. So that's great. That
just has to be on our radar, so it needs to be a vision in the Comp Plan
so that we look at it periodically and make sure agreements are in
place.
Provide staging areas. That may be less important now than we
once thought.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Why?
MR. VanLENGEN: Well, they had determined that some of the
equipment that needed staging needs to be on solid enough ground, but
they can find that without having the county go in and actually
purchase or lease properties; that that can be done on or near the
right-of-way in a way that's effective for them. So that's good news.
And so funding is something that I know you've all talked about.
Commissioner Saunders had certainly championed the idea that
general funds be used. One advantage of an MSTU that might still be
considered is that as part of an educational program, the idea that a
couple dollars for every landowner pays a fee for an MSTU that goes
to wildlife protection keeps that idea on their mind, and it can become
an educational tool some ways.
So education critically important for residents out there,
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particularly new residents; everything from clear spaces to how to
contact others. That's something that's ongoing. I know that Troy's
been involved in that, and we have both our emergency management
people and Forestry and the fire districts all working vigorously on the
educational component.
So those are just some comments I wanted to make about some of
the many different ideas we have about Estates improvement. Again,
all of them incremental. None of them too radical. And we're simply
looking for a way to move forward to transmittal so that we can flesh
out and vet all of those ideas with the Planning Commission and bring
that back to you.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Public speakers?
MR. MILLER: Yes, sir. Your first public speaker is Tom
Collins. He will be followed by Bob Mulhere.
MR. COLLINS: Good afternoon. Tom Collins. Pleasure to get
the opportunity to speak to you.
I live in the community around -- on Golden Gate Parkway
around the I-75 interchange. I've lived there for about -- a little over
20 years. It's a very cohesive community. It's kind of a rural feel to it.
A lot of people move in there and they never move out. As I say, I've
been there 20 years, and I'm still considered by some to be a
newcomer.
But I've been very interested in the master plan of this area since
the interchange was announced, and I did participate to some extent
with the 2002 committee that put the current plan in place. And that
evolved out of a concern for the impacts of the interchange on my
community.
That interchange literally went right smack dab into the middle of
what was a residential neighborhood. There are even a few homes that
are taken in the process.
And the Commission and the people on that committee, who I
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commend tremendously, recognized what the impacts of that would be
to the community, and they recognized that there would be huge
pressure for commercialization of that area. Typical interstate
commercialization. And they wanted to minimize the impacts to our
community and to Naples as a whole because, I'll tell you, a lot of
people use that as a corridor to get in and get home and to get to work.
And you're talking about the bridges in Golden Gate Estates. I
would submit that keeping that Golden Gate corridor open or at least
moving most of the time helps those people more than anything to get
to and from work.
But for our community, they put this master plan in place, and it's
really fairly simple. It basically says this area is residential and it's
going to stay residential, and -- unless you change the master plan.
Now, you all are confronted with the opportunity to make changes to
the master plan, and my message is pretty simple, that sometimes the
best thing to do is to not change things.
This is really working nicely for our community, and it's
protecting us from the impacts in this community. So I don't want to
go into all the details of it; there will be other forums for that. But as
you proceed, just keep in mind sometimes the best thing to do is leave
something alone if it's working.
Incidentally, that first slide that was up, all the people with their
hands up --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You were in it.
MR. COLLINS: -- those are people from my community
responding to the question of whether or not they wanted to keep it the
way it was.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I was at that neighborhood
information meeting. It was Unit 28. That was the only one we had an
organized group of residents, and I remember you were there.
MR. COLLINS: Thank you very much.
January 23, 2018
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COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And, sir, I don't think we're
changing it.
MR. COLLINS: Oh, well, I understand. The white paper
recommends that it stay the way it is, and I'm very hopeful that it
proceeds along that course. But I also am realistic enough to
understand along the road there's going to be some pressure to make
some changes.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Somebody might ask.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Belt and suspenders.
MR. MILLER: Your next speaker is Bob Mulhere. He will be
followed by Mr. Confoy.
MR. MULHERE: Good afternoon. Bob Mulhere, for the record.
Here actually representing myself at this point in time.
In the immortal words of Jim Mudd, I'll try to be brilliant, brief,
and gone.
I think staff's done an exceptionally good job. Of course, the
devil's in the details. We'll see that when you get your transmittal
language. But I've worked on many of these studies for the last almost
30 years, including the watershed management plan and the Golden
Gate Area Master Plan. Some great recommendations. I'm glad to see
some of those being carried forward. So I think an excellent job, and I
would recommend that you support staff's recommendations. Thank
you.
MR. MILLER: Your final speaker on this item is Mr. Confoy.
MR. CONFOY: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Thank you for
letting me speak for a few minutes. I'm representing the 600-plus
homeowners at Wyndemere, and Wyndemere abuts the people to our
south that just spoke to you, Mr. Collins, and their entire community
abuts the wall at Wyndemere, and we have always been in his corner,
because we would like that to remain a residential area because that's
the way it looks.
January 23, 2018
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I didn't read the 220-page report that I got, but I did read
everything that had to do with the western urban estates, which is that
section, and we were very pleased with what we saw; they were going
to keep things the same. I wanted to thank Mr. Van Lengen for doing
an excellent job, and that's all I can say.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: And can you state your name for the
record, please.
MR. CONFOY: Bill Confoy, C-o-n-f-o-y. He can spell it now.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you.
Any other speakers?
MR. MILLER: That was your final speaker on this item.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes. I had a question for Kris,
and it's more of -- it's a please. I did read the 220-page white paper,
and I was under the impression we were going to move to three
separate GMP processes or land-use plans for the urban Golden Gate
Estates, Golden Gate City, and rural. And I can understand the
rationale for only going to two, but there's also a rationale for giving
consideration to three. So that we aren't really in -- I mean, the folks
that live in rural Golden Gate Estates aren't really involved in what's
going on in the urbanized estates and the like.
And if it -- I'm okay with just two because there are similar
aspects to both. Promise me that you won't commingle when you're
talking about it. There was multiple times in the white paper where I
perceived us to jump from one to the other, maybe in an example
process. I just would like specific delineation or segregation of the
urbanized Golden Gate Estates and the rural Golden Gate Estates and
the commonalties and then the differences at the same time.
So if it is staff's choice and it does go through that way, please
separate them so that it's easily follow-able.
One of the issues that the layperson regularly has in reading these
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GMP amendments is it references statute and LDC and pages and
verses and chapters, and it makes it very difficult for the uninitiated to
follow what you live, breathe, and eat every single day. So that's my --
please, that's my request.
As a suggestion, I read the notice provision. That was something
that we -- when Commissioner Nance was here, you were here, I was
-- and, Commissioner Taylor, you were here as well when that
Community School came in the eastern Golden Gate Estates, and the
notice provision only necessitated -- do you need to go? You keep
looking at the clock.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Well, I think we're on -- bordering on
mistreating our court reporter.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm in the middle of my spiel.
I'll make a motion and get done.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. I'm just worried about our court
reporter.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Okay.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: We could take a break and come back and
--
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You're the chair.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: What's your motion?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I would make a motion that we
approve staff's recommendations and move it forward for the hearing.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I'll second that and with some
comments.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I got more comments.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You're the chair. Call it.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: I just --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: You want to take a break?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Let's just move it along.
January 23, 2018
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CHAIRMAN SOLIS: You want to move it along? Okay.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Let's move this along.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: All right. So there's a motion and a
second. Comments from Commissioner Taylor?
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Yeah, just a couple of things. It's
my understanding that we had the Golden Gate Civic Committee come
in here and say that they would agree and support an MSTU for
wildfire protection. Am I delusionary? I think they were here at this
meeting and had testimony as such. How do we start this? Why do we
have to wait? I mean, we had the civic group representative saying,
tax us. We're fine with it. We just need to be protected from wildfire,
and I think it was last year. I think, Commissioner McDaniel, you
were here.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, I certainly was, and I don't
recall that ever, in fact, transpiring.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Oh, yeah, it did.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Oh, no, it didn't. There were
people here that were in favor of the MSTU. There were a lot of
people who are not here that were not in favor of the MSTU.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: I know, but the process could
have started. I don't understand why the process hasn't started.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Well, I hate to interrupt, but that's in
a separate subject, right? Maybe we should finish this one so we can
get the --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, that was my third point
that I was going to make. As I was -- and I don't know -- I didn't mean
to be too longwinded, Mr. Chair. I had two more points to make, one
of which was the notice process, which was short, and I would suggest
that we do a radius around a use change that's greater than just one
mile; draw a circle of some sort so that we have an opportunity to
touch more people that are impacted by a use change when that, in
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fact, comes forward.
And then the other statement that I made -- because I see it up
there and I read it in the white paper as well -- is the -- are you
proposing that we implement the MSTU within the GMP language?
MR. VanLENGEN: No. I'm really suggesting that as an option.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I got it.
MR. VanLENGEN: And to my understanding, it had not been
determined, so we haven't gone in that direction.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: We haven't. Correct. It hadn't.
MR. VanLENGEN: I wasn't sure.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Right.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: And in relation to that, do we
have to implement it in the Growth Management Plan, or can we
initiate?
MR. VanLENGEN: No, absolutely not. You can initiate it
outside the Growth Management Plan.
MR. KLATZKOW: It should not be in your GMP.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Correct.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Then perhaps, if there's consensus
here, that we could request the Golden Gate Civic Association to come
in and to, again, reiterate to us about wildfire protection, and about
taxing themselves in order to facilitate that. I think it -- and there's --
it's booming out there. There's so many homes, people moving out
there. It's so important, and there's not enough funding.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Well, there's a motion and a second
on moving this forward. All in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
COMMISSIONER TAYLOR: Aye.
January 23, 2018
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CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion carries, and we'll take a 10 --
15-minute break? 10-minute break, okay.
(A brief recess was had.)
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chair, you have a live mike. We're continuing
with the staff presentation on Item 11C.
MR. VanLENGEN: Part of Item 11C is the Collier Integrated
Growth Model, and we do have Metro Forecasting here. And before
we get to that, I just want to very briefly indicate our time frames on
the various restudies, because we haven't gotten back to you on that
lately. And so we've talked about the Golden Gate Area Master Plan
going to transmittal fairly soon.
Next in line are both Immokalee and Rural Lands, so the
Immokalee plan, we've been -- our team's been meeting for over a year
with the CRA and MSTU in Immokalee, and now we're at the point of
getting out into the public, so we've got meetings scheduled now for
February and March, a total of six meetings, different locations,
different times, translators, so that we can get into the community
itself, as many people as we possibly can and get their opinions on
things.
Rural Lands kicks off this Thursday with an introductory meeting
at the North Collier Regional Park. We'll have monthly meetings
thereafter and expect to -- well, hope to wrap up to the point of getting
into a white paper by fourth quarter of 2018. It really depends on what
kind of progress we can make with the stakeholders involved there.
The rural fringe is now kind of last on the list for a number of
reasons. It just simply -- because we're more involved now with the
other plans, it makes a certain amount of sense, and also because it can
be informed by other process. We're at the point of working with a
consultant to get more transportation information, but we also think
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that the CIGM in particular, that is the interactive growth model, can
certainly lend a lot of information to our efforts.
And so with that, I'd like to hand it over to Dr. Paul van Buskirk
of Metro Forecasting, who's going to go through his new Version 3
and just give you an insight on all the things it can do, not only for our
land-use planning, but also for capital planning.
MR. van BUSKIRK: I'm Dr. Paul van Buskirk. With me is David
Farmer with Forecasting -- Metro Forecasting Models.
I'd like to take this time to thank you for providing us with the
opportunity to talk about Collier County's growth model.
The basic question is, is what is the Collier Interactive Growth
Model, which you have as -- and called Version 3. The growth model
is a very powerful proactive planning and growth management tools
that forecasts when and where development will take place in each of
every 783 zones. The county's divided up into 783 zones, and it will
forecast that data in five-year increments to buildout.
So the beauty of it is that we're not just forecasting population;
we're forecasting the allocation of that population in space over time as
well.
And we did that forecast based upon what your current policies
are, your development policies, be it the Future Land Use Element, be
it zoning or any other policies that are development policies that the
county has; therefore, you know, what we can do is the model can
determine deficiencies in your land-use regulations.
And I'll give you a little example of that. It may determine if you
have too much land allocated in your zoning for commercial or not
enough. It's that kind of deficiencies that it can identify. And it can
forecast economic trends, which is very important in terms of planning
particularly for the future.
They can be programmed to predict the need and timing of
commercial centers. This could be neighborhood commercial centers,
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community commercial centers, or regional commercial centers.
Schools; it could be elementary, middle or high school. Parks; it could
be your neighborhood, you community parks, your regional park. And
the parks will be based upon your service levels. You know, the
county established service levels. We use those service levels to
determine the needs for current and future populations as well.
(Commissioner Taylor left the boardroom for the remainder of the
meeting.)
Utility expansions in order to optimize the return on capital
investments. I'll talk a little bit more why the data's necessary to
optimize your return on your capacity investments on infrastructure as
well.
It can demonstrate alternative growth scenarios and their impacts.
Particularly, we were looking at the rural fringe mixed-use district or
we were looking at the other districts, or we can be looking at the land
in terms of your Ave Maria and the west, which used to be Cypress,
which is the west lands in that particular area.
We were going to run that -- the model using your current
regulations for those areas. Even if it's Golden Gate as well, Golden
Gate City. And then as you -- as your master plans change those
development scenarios, the development regulations, the model can
run that and determine what the impacts are or what the differentials
are between those different scenarios so that you can pick those that
are in the best interest of the county as well.
The model has several sub-models: Housing and population. The
housing model and the population model not only shows the
single-family and multifamily units in five-year increments to buildout
for each one of those 783 zones, but also the vacancy rates, the change
in vacancy rates over time, and the change in household size over time
as well.
The commercial, we talked about it; what's the need for
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commercial space to serve current and future residents, and what's
going to be the need for neighborhood commercial centers, regional
commercial centers, or community commercial centers.
Parks, we're talking again about neighborhood, community, or
regional parks. We're looking at your service standards, level of
service for your standards in terms of using the model.
Fire stations, we look at the ISO standards for insurance rating for
a Class 1. You know, when there is a need for a pumper station, where
should that pumper station be located in order to get your Class 1
rating as well.
Sheriff's substations, that's one we'd like to spend some time with
the Sheriff's Department on. Traditionally, communities base -- their
substations are based upon what are going to be the forecasted service
calls. If we get a lot of service calls in this area, then that's where we
need to allocate those resources. We don't get too many service calls
here. It's a different service call. And they look at the correlation
between what is the demographics of the population versus the number
of service calls that are going to be generated.
One police department I worked with said the most service calls
came from Walmart, so that was kind of a strange, I thought, so -- do
you remember that one? That was kind of a strange one anyway.
We're looking at libraries and, again, what the service area
standards are here for Collier County, and then hotel/motels, because
your traffic engineers need that data for their traffic models. In fact, all
our data that we're generating -- we generate 90 percent of the data for
your traffic models, and the cost for data for traffic models can be
extremely high. Some counties it runs around 200- or $300,000 to
generate that kind of data.
Industrial development, I'll talk a little bit about that in the next
slide. And then the demand for potable water and then the effluent of
sewage and the requirements for sewage treatment plants and what
January 23, 2018
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have you.
Your stormwater and the creation of new pervious areas, the
acreage of new pervious areas.
Schools, it will generate the needs for elementary schools, middle
schools, and high schools as well.
This graphic demonstrates your Future Land Use Plan, and all the
different colors represent different districts or sub-districts in your
Future Land Use Plan. Each one of them have different development
regulations. And the model has to incorporate all those different
development regulations in them for each one of those different sub-
districts. And it's overlaid with the -- with those 383 (sic) zones that I
talked about in terms of the model generates (sic).
This shows kind of a blowup. That orange is Ave Maria, and you
can see there that we would probably have somewhere in the order of
seven zones. What the model can do, too, it can create clusters so that
the staff can download all the datas in a cluster rather than have to
figure out each zone that's in the cluster.
So for Ave Maria, if they want to know the data, say, in the Year
2030, they can download, they get a report, it tells them all the datas in
2030, be it population, housing, the need for schools, need for
commercial space, and et cetera.
This is kind of a unique graphic, and I just want to spend a minute
on it because it tells a lot of stories about economic trends. If you see
that curved line, that curved line is the population forecast. It's called a
logistic curve. And we found that this is the most accurate method of
forecasting population.
And we have a track record of it, and you can demonstrate that.
In 1982 when the City of North Port was 6,000 people, we forecasted
in the Year 20'7 it would have 57,000 people and change, and the
census in 2010 was 57,000 people and change. And we have a pretty
accurate record, too, as we forecast for the City of Cape Coral and
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others.
But in any event, that curve is the one -- we get the coefficients
for -- it's got a mathematical expression, and we can determine and
forecast accurately your population.
One of the key things is where that arrow is pointing is the
midpoint of that curve. From the beginning of development in Collier
County, up to that midpoint your population is increasing at an
increasing rate. After that inflection point, it's increasing at a
decreasing rate, and to buildout.
Now, your buildout is roughly going to be somewhere around
800,000 people. So the population -- that inflection point is about
400,000 people. That inflection point's going to take place here in
Collier County in approximately the Year 2020, so you've only got a
few years before you hit that flection (sic) point; you're halfway
through the development for the county.
It tells us some other things as well is why that -- in the early part
of that development up to the inflection point your construction trades
and related industries are growing and are a major component of your
economy. After that inflection point, they start to diminish over time,
and they're generally replaced with industrial development. In this
case, it would be high tech -- you know, it would be like medical
devices, electronics, R&D, and things of that nature. But you need to
start planning for that, and I can see in the Golden Gate City they were
planning for sites or industrial development, because there is a
deficiency at this time in the county. So it does tell us a lot about
economic trends over time as well.
If you look at that red line, that red line is what we call linear
extrapolation. That's what most people do when they forecast. That's
what BEBR does, by the way, and that's why they're traditionally --
they're low in their forecast over time.
This is a pretty busy one. This graph was done by your planning
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staff. What this graph represented is that a developer came in for a
submission for a commercial development, and the planning staff took
the data from the model, and they could demonstrate from the market
area how many people were in the market area for that -- for that
neighborhood commercial development, and they told the developer
that there won't be enough people there to support his project for
another 15 to 20 years, and it was pre -- you know, it was a premature
submission in respect to that commercial development.
So that's one of the many applications of the model, but it also
shows that you can take that data and do a lot of other applications
besides the one the model does, and that's the one that the planning
staff had used, one of the many.
We talked about, you know, what are the consequences of
inaccurate forecasts? Well, if your -- if you under-forecast population
and you're designing your infrastructure based on that, you can see
what happens, and this is particularly -- and your road network system
becomes overcrowded, that infrastructure wears out before its use of
life, it has to be replaced, and you get a negative return on your
investment.
The opposite can happen. If you had overestimated, you're going
to underutilize that infrastructure and, here again, you're going to get a
negative return on your investment.
So accurate forecasting is very important into the returns on
capital investments, which is really a lot of money when you talk about
all the capital investments that take place over time.
The private sector, you know, does a lot of that type of analysis to
assure they get an optimal return on their capital investments.
This is just an example of the many reports that are generated
from the model. Here your staff and other agencies, as well, they can
get on the Internet, have their password, get in there, they can
download any reports they want. This happens to be a report on the
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number of housing units, single-family, multifamily, for each one of
those 783 zones for each of the five-year increments to buildout. But
they could download for commercial, for schools, for parks, and for all
the different sub-models as well.
So they can be at a conference somewhere, and they can get right
on their Android and they can get on the Internet and start looking at
downloading some of those and start doing some homework.
The other thing is that it's a common data bank for all agencies
and departments. We're going through a series of workshops now with
your department heads and your agencies that are being involved in the
growth model, and traditionally one agency has their own method, and
they'll overestimate and another underestimates, and coordinating
those different activities and infrastructure don't coordinate too well.
Well, the model provides a database, a single database that they all can
use, and the coordination will be there so, again, that we can
effectively use our investments over time.
We did a model on east of 951 back in 2007, and we got written
up in Planning Magazine. It's a national magazine. It gets a lot of
coverage nationally and some internationally, but there was an article
on it on Collier County and the model and Collier County's planning.
And I'd suggest you get a copy of it from Mike if you haven't read it.
And it's three pages, so they did a very good job in terms of giving us a
lot of space.
The co-authors were myself and Mike Bosi and my former
partner who, unfortunately, passed away a few years ago. But it got a
lot of publicity and a lot of interest from different communities. And
we hope to get another one, by the way.
This is just our future workshops we're laying out for the five
workshops we're having with your department heads and with your
different agencies as well; you know, it would be like the school
district and the fire districts and the sheriff. All those folks are
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attending and participating, and we hope to be completed by July. And
by July we'll have processed all our data and have all our results, and at
that time we'll be very happy to come back to the Board and show you
what the results are from the model.
So if you have any questions, you know, we're here, and we're
free to answer them.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: What's TAZ stand for, Doc?
MR. van BUSKIRK: That's the traffic analysis zones. You
know, we had to divide the county into zones in order to get the
granularity we wanted to get. Well, you could use census block
groups, but census block groups are too big. We can't get the
granularity. And the -- there's probably five or six traffic analysis
zones to a block group.
But they're generated by your MPO, and every MPO through the
United States have to generate TAZs, and they have to do their traffic
analysis and forecasts in order to get federal funds. They do it every
five years.
Your MPO has used our data when we did East of 951. Lee
County uses our data from Cape Coral, and in Auburn, Alabama, their
MPO uses our data, and they say our data is the most accurate data. So
we certainly suspect that your MPO will be using our data as well and
has in the past.
But the traffic analysis zones are for a population of 3,000 people.
We actually inventory every parcel, we analyze every parcel in that
TAZ, and then we aggregate it for the TAZ, and then we can aggregate
TAZs for a cluster, if you want to do a cluster. If you want to look at
Ave Maria, you want to look at the Estates or Marco Island, for
example, or Naples, or whatever, so...
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Very good. And then just a
little -- if you wouldn't mind -- and the modeling component. The
flexibility that the CIGM allows us to move land uses around within a
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GMP and LDC and show the implications of those use changes.
MR. van BUSKIRK: Yeah. And that's what we're going to be
doing, you know, with your stewardship area, your rural fringe mixed
areas, and any other areas you want to do. We're going to be running
scenarios based upon what your master plans are or whatever changes
you take place in the Future Land Use Element in the stewardship area,
and the model we're running will develop all that output data and then
compare it to what it is with your current regulations and then we can
determine what are the impacts and you can determine what's in the
best interest of the county. So it has a lot of flexibility to run all these
scenarios all the time, any time you want to run scenarios.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The rationale, there is -- I was
aware of that. I was asking the question just because -- I mean, the
model's going to be run based upon the GMP and the LDC as it
currently exists, and then as we're providing for some flexibility within
the GMP and then ultimately LDC to allow property owners to come
and ask for use changes, they can -- as I was speaking with Anita
earlier about changing the color from yellow to blue, we can talk about
the implications of that and how that will flow out throughout the
balance of the entire Collier County, if I'm not mistaken.
MR. van BUSKIRK: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Is that a fair analysis?
MR. van BUSKIRK: It kind of reminds me of a story, you know.
I was giving a presentation in Auburn, Alabama, to their city council,
and the councilman asked me, can you explain to us how this model
works? I said, sure. He says, how long would it take? I said about
two hours. And you could hear everybody groan. And he looked at
me and he said, you got 15 minutes. That's what I had today.
So it's kind of difficult to really explain the power of this -- but
just think of all this data that's generated for all these 783 zones for
every five years to buildout. It's a lot of powerful data to be very
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efficient in your planning and to be very proactive in your planning as
well.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, sir. And do we need a
motion on this?
MR. OCHS: No.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: No, no, no. Okay. And I just
want to say out loud I'd like to thank my colleagues, two of which are
not here any longer. But this is something that we've been coming
forward with. I was quite intimate with this model back in the East of
951 horizon days, and I really think it's going to be a huge benefit for
us as a community going forward in planning what we just got done
discussing. So thank you for your support.
MR. van BUSKIRK: And Collier County has really been a great
challenge for us intellectually, because we have to transform all those
environmental credits to acres of development and Transfer of
Development Rights and determine the yield from them. You know,
they're not going to get 100 percent, you know. What percent yield are
they actually going to get out of it? And then you have all of these
different development regulations. But we really enjoy that challenge
very much.
MR. OCHS: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Nice to see both of you again.
MR. van BUSKIRK: Good to see you.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you for the presentation.
Item #11D
DIRECTING STAFF TO ADVERTISE, AND BRING BACK FOR
A PUBLIC HEARING, AN ORDINANCE AMENDING THE
LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE AMENDMENT RELATING TO
OFF-SITE NATIVE VEGETATION PRESERVATION, AT THE
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MARCH 13, 2018, BOARD MEETING - MOTION TO CONTINUE
TO THE NEXT BOARD MEETING – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, that takes us to Item 11D, and this is
a recommendation to allow staff to advertise an ordinance amending
the Land Development Code relating to offsite native vegetation
preservation, and Mr. Bosi will present.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Before we start with this, I wasn't aware
that two of the board members were going to be absent, and --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I think it would be prudent to
continue.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: -- I would like to continue this. This is a
complicated issue that I think we need to have everybody here to
discuss.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'll make a motion to continue.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Which one is this?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: The landscaping.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: The offsite mitigation vegetation
preservation, 11D.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That's fine with me.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Is there an urgency to do this
with -- although we can get a lot more done with just three of us.
MR. OCHS: Mike?
MR. BOSI: Commissioner McDaniel, as you can see by the
screen, this has been going on since 2015.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Another couple weeks --
MR. BOSI: Another week or a couple weeks --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Isn't going to hurt anything.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Motion to continue, sir.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: If we can just continue that to the next
meeting, I think it would be worth having everyone here to discuss it.
January 23, 2018
Page 162
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I'll second the motion.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: All in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
Any opposed?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: You're right. This is pretty nice.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Do you feel like you're talking
to yourself?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Anything else you want us to work
on?
Item #11G
AWARD INVITATION TO BID NO. 18-7239 TO FERREIRA
CONSTRUCTION SOUTHERN DIVISION COMPANY, INC. IN
THE AMOUNT OF $2,098,980 FOR THE 2018 WIGGINS PASS
AND DOCTORS PASS DREDGING PROJECTS, AUTHORIZE
NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENTS, AUTHORIZE THE
CHAIRMAN TO EXECUTE THE AGREEMENT, AND MAKE A
FINDING THAT THIS ITEM PROMOTES TOURISM (PROJECT
NO. 80288 AND 90549) - MOTION TO CONTINUE THIS ITEM
TO THE NEXT BOARD MEETING – APPROVED
MR. OCHS: Well, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, I think I
can help you with the continuing trend, because your next item is 11G.
And I found out after you set the meeting agenda today that this item
did not find its way on this past Monday's TDC agenda, and it needs to
be vetted with the TDC before we can bring it to you for action.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Move to continue then.
MR. OCHS: So we'll have to continue this, please, until we can
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Page 163
get it through the next TDC meeting and then onto the Board agenda.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay.
MR. OCHS: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion?
MR. OCHS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Motion to continue.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Second.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: And a second.
All in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
Any opposed?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I like this.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion carries.
MR. OCHS: Thank you, Commissioners.
Item #11H
RESOLUTION 2018-20/CWS RESOLUTION 2018-01:
AUTHORIZING THE ISSUANCE OF THE COLLIER COUNTY
WATER-SEWER DISTRICT WATER AND SEWER REVENUE
BOND, SERIES 2018 IN AN AMOUNT NOT TO EXCEED
$43,000,000 TO FUND THE ACQUISITION OF THE GOLDEN
GATE SYSTEM FROM THE FLORIDA GOVERNMENTAL
UTILITY AUTHORITY; ACCEPTING THE PROPOSAL OF STI
INSTITUTIONAL & GOVERNMENT, INC. TO PURCHASE
SUCH SERIES 2018 BOND; DELEGATING CERTAIN
AUTHORITY TO THE BOARD CHAIRMAN AND OTHER
APPROPRIATE OFFICERS OF THE COUNTY FOR THE
EXECUTION AND DELIVERY OF THE SERIES 2018 BOND
January 23, 2018
Page 164
AND RELATED DOCUMENTS; AND AUTHORIZING ALL
NECESSARY BUDGET AMENDMENTS – ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: This next item is 11H, and this is a
recommendation to adopt a resolution authorizing the issuance of
Collier County Water/Sewer District water and sewer revenue bonds
necessary to fund the acquisition of the Golden Gate Utility System
from the Florida Governmental Utility Authority.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And I'll move for approval.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I will second it. Do you need to put
anything on the record, Mark?
MR. ISACKSON: I do not, ma'am, other than if we can just
make sure that the Board approves the recommendation as written into
the executive summary.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: So moved.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: That was your motion, wasn't it?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Mine, too.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: And a second.
All in favor?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion carries.
MR. ISACKSON: Thank you, Commissioners.
Item #12B
RESOLUTION 2018-21: APPOINTING SHERYL SOUKUP TO
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Page 165
THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING ADVISORY COMMITTEE –
ADOPTED
MR. OCHS: Mr. Chairman, that takes us to Item 12B, which was
moved to the regular agenda this morning at Commissioner Fiala's
request. This is a recommendation to appoint a member to the
Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah. And I'll just skip right to the
-- wait a minute. Let me just find it first. 16K6. Yes. There were
three suggestions here on the first one, and the Board then -- whoever
checked these out, also brought in three past people who had applied
but not in this time at all; at another time. One of them was two years
ago and so forth.
Now, they chose one of those that had applied previously. And,
my goodness, she had a power-packed agenda. She served on all kinds
of committees and everything in Lee and Collier County. But there
were two other people that were here that I felt were great. One of
them that's two years past and hasn't applied since then, but they
hauled it back out. Her name is Barbara Melvin. And she's worked
with the low-income affordable housing people for a while, and she
works with First National, what's -- what's Gary Price --
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: First Integrity?
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah, First Federal. Is that --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I think it is First Integrity.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: First Integrity.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, First Integrity. She works for
First Integrity. And the other one is Jacob Winge, and he wanted to
work with, and he is one of, low-income persons. And so these were
two people that applied for, and I was just curious -- not that I'm going
to stop it or anything, but I was curious to see why they would go to a
person who is on overload for business participations when there's two
January 23, 2018
Page 166
great candidates right there.
Anybody know?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Well, I have a comment on it.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I mean, I know all three of
them. They're all really, really nice people. They're all advocates for
the category that we're looking to fill, and I don't --
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Do you think this lady -- being that
you know all three, and she's got so many, does she really have time to
do this, too?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I think she does. I think she
does. I'm not -- again, it's the committee's recommendation. They're
the ones that went through the list and chose Cheryl, and I think she'll
do -- and I know both Ms. Barbara and I know Jacob. They're both, I
consider, my friends.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And so I don't think Ms. Cheryl
will do us a disservice. I don't -- it's up to you. I mean, I don't have a
--
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Okay.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I don't have a -- you're the one
that pulled the agenda item. If you'd like to suggest something
different.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Oh, I just was wondering why we
went back to that when we had -- well, anyway, okay. As long as -- I
hope that the next time they consider somebody else that hasn't served
on it before, but anyway.
Okay, fine. So I make a motion to approve. I just wanted to
bring that to everybody's attention.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: And just as a point of
clarification, I don't think Cheryl is -- she is new. She does a lot of
January 23, 2018
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other things, but I think she is new to the committee.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: If she's new to the community. It
says --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Not community, committee.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: -- that she applied for -- oh,
committee. Oh, I don't know that. Yeah. She applied just before. I
don't know if she's new or not. Okay. All righty. I was just
disappointed to see that one of these didn't, but that's okay. So I've
made a motion, and you seconded it?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Yes, I'll second it.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: All in favor, say aye.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: Aye.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: Aye.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Aye.
Any opposed?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Motion carries.
Item #15
STAFF AND COMMISSION GENERAL COMMUNICATIONS
MR. OCHS: That takes us to staff and commission general
communications, Item 15. I have no general communications.
MR. KLATZKOW: Nor do I.
MS. KINZEL: Nor do I. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. Very good.
Commissioner McDaniel?
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: I'm good. Nor do I, seems to
be the consensus.
COMMISSIONER FIALA: I think I've said all I have to say.
January 23, 2018
Page 168
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Okay. I don't have anything either other
than to say if I somehow offended in trying to get the message across
that our court reporter needed a break, it wasn't my intention to cut you
off. I really want you to know that.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: If I seemed offended, forgive
me. I have a perception of a lot of what's going on around me, and I
saw you looking away, and I knew I only had a couple points that I
needed to make and so -- thank you. I'm sorry.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: My point would have been we'll just take a
break and come back and finish, just because --
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: That would have been fine.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: -- she looked like she needed a break. So
anyway, having said that, I don't think there's anything else.
COMMISSIONER McDANIEL: It's all good.
MR. OCHS: That's it, sir.
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: Thank you.
MR. OCHS: We're adjourned?
CHAIRMAN SOLIS: We're adjourned.
**** Commissioner Solis moved, seconded by Commissioner Taylor
and carried that the following items under the Consent and Summary
Agendas be approved and/or adopted (Commissioner Solis abstained
from voting on Item #17B) ****
Item #16A1
THE 2018 SCHEDULE FOR THE TRI-ANNUAL COLLIER
COUNTY GROWTH MANAGEMENT PLAN (GMP)
AMENDMENT CYCLE, TO RECEIVE APPLICATIONS AND
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS BY 5:00 P.M. ON THE LAST
FRIDAY IN FEBRUARY, JUNE AND OCTOBER, WITH THE
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Page 169
EXEMPTION FROM THE CYCLE LIMITATIONS FOR DRI’S,
AREAS DESIGNATED RURAL AREA OF CRITICAL
ECONOMIC CONCERN (RACEC) AND SMALL-SCALE
AMENDMENTS
Item #16A2
FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE POTABLE WATER AND
SEWER FACILITIES FOR RESIDENCES AT MERCATO,
PL20150002137, ACCEPT UNCONDITIONAL CONVEYANCE
OF A PORTION OF THE POTABLE WATER AND SEWER
FACILITIES, AND TO AUTHORIZE THE COUNTY MANAGER,
OR HIS DESIGNEE, TO RELEASE THE FINAL OBLIGATION
BOND IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF $4,000 TO THE PROJECT
ENGINEER OR THE DEVELOPER’S DESIGNATED AGENT –
FINAL INSPECTION BY STAFF IN COORDINATION WITH
PUBLIC UTILITIES AND FOUND THESE FACILITIES TO BE
SATISFACTORY AND ACCEPTABLE ON DECEMBER 4, 2017
Item #16A3
FINAL ACCEPTANCE OF THE POTABLE WATER AND
SEWER FACILITIES FOR MEMORY CARE FACILITY AT
CREEKSIDE EAST, PL20150001743, ACCEPT
UNCONDITIONAL CONVEYANCE OF A PORTION OF THE
POTABLE WATER FACILITIES, AND TO AUTHORIZE THE
COUNTY MANAGER, OR HIS DESIGNEE, TO RELEASE THE
UTILITIES PERFORMANCE SECURITY (UPS) AND FINAL
OBLIGATION BOND IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF $16,503.68
TO THE PROJECT ENGINEER OR THE DEVELOPER’S
DESIGNATED AGENT – FINAL INSPECTION BY STAFF IN
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COORDINATION WITH PUBLIC UTILITIES AND FOUND
THESE FACILITIES TO BE SATISFACTORY AND
ACCEPTABLE ON APRIL 6, 2017
Item #16A4
FINAL ACCEPTANCE AND UNCONDITIONAL CONVEYANCE
OF THE POTABLE WATER AND SEWER UTILITY FACILITIES
FOR ESPLANADE GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB OF NAPLES,
PARCEL H1, PL20160000601 AND TO AUTHORIZE THE
COUNTY MANAGER, OR HIS DESIGNEE, TO RELEASE THE
FINAL OBLIGATION BOND IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF
$4,000 TO THE PROJECT ENGINEER OR THE DEVELOPER’S
DESIGNATED AGENT – FINAL INSPECTION BY STAFF IN
COORDINATION WITH PUBLIC UTILITIES AND FOUND
THESE FACILITIES TO BE SATISFACTORY AND
ACCEPTABLE ON DECEMBER 15, 2017
Item #16A5
FINAL ACCEPTANCE AND UNCONDITIONAL CONVEYANCE
OF THE POTABLE WATER AND SEWER UTILITY FACILITIES
FOR ESPLANADE GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB OF NAPLES,
PARCEL H2, PL20160000738 AND TO AUTHORIZE THE
COUNTY MANAGER, OR HIS DESIGNEE, TO RELEASE THE
FINAL OBLIGATION BOND IN THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF
$4,000 TO THE PROJECT ENGINEER OR THE DEVELOPER’S
DESIGNATED AGENT – FINAL INSPECTION BY STAFF IN
COORDINATION WITH PUBLIC UTILITIES AND FOUND
THESE FACILITIES TO BE SATISFACTORY AND
ACCEPTABLE ON DECEMBER 15, 2017
January 23, 2018
Page 171
Item #16A6
RECORDING THE MINOR FINAL PLAT OF GASPAR STATION
- PHASE 4, APPLICATION NUMBER PL20170003469 –
LOCATED IN SECTION 30, TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE 26
EAST
Item #16A7
RESOLUTION 2018-10: A RESOLUTION FOR FINAL
ACCEPTANCE OF THE PRIVATE ROADWAY AND
DRAINAGE IMPROVEMENTS, AND ACCEPTANCE OF THE
PLAT DEDICATIONS, FOR THE FINAL PLAT OF WINDING
CYPRESS PHASE ONE, APPLICATION NUMBER
PL20140001143; AND AUTHORIZE THE RELEASE OF THE
MAINTENANCE SECURITY
Item #16A8
THE CLERK OF COURTS TO RELEASE A PERFORMANCE
BOND IN THE AMOUNT OF $71,020 WHICH WAS POSTED AS
A DEVELOPMENT GUARANTY FOR AN EARLY WORK
AUTHORIZATION (EWA) (PL20170002278) FOR WORK
ASSOCIATED WITH MARQUESA ISLES OF NAPLES – THE
CONSTRUCTION PLANS AND PLAT WERE APPROVED BY
THE BOARD ON SEPTEMBER 26, 2017
Item #16A9
RESOLUTION 2018-11: A RESOLUTION AMENDING
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Page 172
RESOLUTION 2010-29, AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE
STEWARDSHIP SENDING AREA WITH A DESIGNATION AS
“SUNNILAND FAMILY SSA 12”; APPROVING THE
EXTENSION OF CERTAIN DATES TO FEBRUARY 9, 2023 IN
THE STEWARDSHIP SENDING AREA CREDIT AGREEMENT
FOR SUNNILAND FAMILY SSA 12 AND THE ESCROW
AGREEMENT FOR SUNNILAND FAMILY SSA 12
Item #16A10
A WAIVER OF DESIGN STANDARDS SET FORTH IN
ORDINANCE 2017-27 REQUESTED BY MOBILITIE, INC. FOR
THE INSTALLATION OF BACKHAUL AND ANTENNAE
EQUIPMENT ON ONE PROPOSED SMALL WIRELESS
FACILITY WITHIN COUNTY ROAD RIGHT-OF-WAY – THIS
WIRELESS EQUIPMENT HAS NO FIBER CONNECTION AND
WILL BE PLACED ON A BLACK GALVANIZED STEEL POLE
17 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND
Item #16A11
THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO BUREAU OF OCEAN ENERGY
MANAGEMENT (BOEM) LEASE NEGOTIATED AGREEMENT
NO. OCS-G35160 FOR THE USE OF UP TO 1.7 MILLION CUBIC
YARDS OF OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF SAND SOURCES
FROM BORROW AREA T-1 FOR BEACH RENOURISHMENT
IN COLLIER COUNTY, AUTHORIZE THE CHAIRMAN TO
EXECUTE AGREEMENT, AND MAKE A FINDING THAT THIS
ITEM PROMOTES TOURISM – AS DETAILED IN THE
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
January 23, 2018
Page 173
Item #16A12
THE SUBMISSION OF SAFE ROUTES TO SCHOOL
APPLICATION WITH THE FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION TO FUND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A
SIDEWALK ALONG LINWOOD AVENUE TO SHADOWLAWN
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN THE AMOUNT OF $681,413 –
LOCATED ALONG LINWOOD AVENUE FROM AIRPORT -
PULLING ROAD TO LINWOOD WAY IN EAST NAPLES
Item #16C1
RESOLUTION 2018-12: A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE
CHAIRPERSON TO EXECUTE DEED CERTIFICATES FOR THE
SALE OF BURIAL PLOTS AT LAKE TRAFFORD MEMORIAL
GARDENS CEMETERY DURING THE 2018 CALENDAR YEAR,
ON BEHALF OF THE COUNTY MANAGER
Item #16C2
THE EASEMENT AGREEMENT WITH ROYAL WOOD
MASTER ASSOCIATION, INC., A FLORIDA NOT-FOR-PROFIT
CORPORATION AT A COST NOT TO EXCEED $45,000 FOR
THE ACQUISITION OF AN ADDITIONAL COUNTY UTILITY
EASEMENT FOR MASTER PUMP STATION 302.00 (PROJECT
NUMBER 70223) – FOR A PORTION OF FOLIO #71705025555
Item #16D1
A TEMPORARY CONSTRUCTION EASEMENT AGREEMENT,
TEMPORARY CONSTRUCTION EASEMENT, AND A UTILITY
January 23, 2018
Page 174
EASEMENT FOR A PROPOSED WATER MAIN AT NO COST
TO THE COUNTY – LOCATED WHERE THE DOMESTIC
ANIMAL SERVICES DIVISION IS LOCATED, AT 7610 DAVIS
BOULEVARD, FOLIO #00406680008
Item #16D2
AWARD CONTRACT NO. 17-7182, NORTH COLLIER
REGIONAL PARK ARTIFICIAL TURF DESIGN, TO AGNOLI
BARBER & BRUNDAGE, INC., FOR PROFESSIONAL
ENGINEERING SERVICES IN THE AMOUNT OF $172,783.50,
AND AUTHORIZE THE CHAIR TO EXECUTE THE ATTACHED
CONTRACT – FOR FOUR SOCCER FIELDS AT THE NORTH
COLLIER REGIONAL PARK
Item #16D3
A PRODUCT STANDARDIZATION WITH ASTROTURF, INC.,
AS THE PRODUCT PROVIDER FOR ARTIFICIAL TURF, AND
AWARD A STANDARDIZATION ON THIS PRODUCT(S) FOR
TEN (10) YEARS UNDER REQUEST FOR INFORMATION,
SOLICITATION NO. 17-7163, “ARTIFICIAL TURF
STANDARDIZATION”
Item #16D4
(1) SUBSTANTIAL AMENDMENTS TO COLLIER COUNTY'S
U.S DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN
DEVELOPMENT (HUD) ANNUAL ACTION PLAN FOR FY2017-
2018 AND FY2016-2017 THAT REALLOCATES FUNDS FROM
BAYSHORE CRA SUGDEN PATHWAY TO IMMOKALEE FIRE
January 23, 2018
Page 175
DISTRICT LAND ACQUISITION FOR NEW STATION, ADDS A
NEW DISASTER REPLACEMENT HOUSING PROGRAM, AND
INCREASES FUNDING TO THE COLLIER COUNTY HOUSING
AUTHORITY; (2) ACTIONS IMPLEMENTING THE ACTION
PLAN (ACCEPT A TERMINATION OF THE COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT (CDBG) ACTIVITY WITH
BAYSHORE COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY AND
APPROVE A CONTRACT AMENDMENT WITH IMMOKALEE
FIRE DISTRICT) – AS DETAILED IN THE EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Item #16D5
A ONE-TIME INCREASE OF THE $250,000 PROJECT VALUE
QUOTE CAP UP TO $400,000 UNDER AGREEMENT #16-6618,
“ANNUAL CONTRACT FOR GENERAL CONTRACTOR
SERVICES,” DIRECT STAFF TO OBTAIN QUOTES FOR THE
CONSTRUCTION OF TEN (10) PICKLEBALL COURTS,
APPROVE THE ISSUANCE OF A PURCHASE ORDER TO THE
LOWEST QUOTE, AUTHORIZE BUDGET AMENDMENTS AND
MAKE A FINDING THAT THIS ACTION PROMOTES
TOURISM – FOR THE TOURNAMENT THAT IS SCHEDULED
TO COMMENCE ON APRIL 21, 2018
Item #16E1
NAPLES NEWS MEDIA GROUP AS THE SOLE SOURCE FOR
LEGAL AND NON-LEGAL ADVERTISEMENTS AS
EXEMPTED PROCUREMENTS AND AUTHORIZE THE CHAIR
TO SIGN THE ATTACHED NON-STANDARD AGREEMENT –
FOR WHICH THE CURRENT CONTRACT EXPIRES ON
January 23, 2018
Page 176
FEBRUARY 28, 2018
Item #16E2
THE COUNTY MANAGER’S APPROVAL OF A FEDERALLY
FUNDED SUBAWARD AND GRANT AGREEMENT THROUGH
THE FLORIDA DIVISION OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
FOR REIMBURSEMENT OF EXPENDITURES ASSOCIATED
WITH PREPARATION FOR AND RECOVERY FROM
HURRICANE IRMA
Item #16F1
AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE BOARD, THE PROPERTY
APPRAISER AND THE TAX COLLECTOR FOR SERVICES
RENDERED IN CONNECTION WITH THE IMMOKALEE
IMPACT FEE INSTALLMENT PAYMENT PILOT PROGRAM
ADOPTED BY THE BOARD ON JULY 11, 2017, ALLOWING
FOR IMPACT FEE INSTALLMENT PAYMENTS BY SPECIAL
ASSESSMENTS LEVIED AS NON-AD VALOREM
ASSESSMENTS AGAINST THE SUBJECT PROPERTY
Item #16F2
AWARD INVITATION TO BID #17-7214 FOR "PELICAN BAY
AERATION SYSTEMS" TO TSI DISASTER LLC, IN THE
AMOUNT OF $104,588, AND AUTHORIZE THE CHAIR TO
EXECUTE THE ATTACHED AGREEMENT – FOR ELEVEN
NEW LAKE AERATION SYSTEMS
Item #16F3
January 23, 2018
Page 177
AWARD ITB #18-7247 “PRINTING OF VISITOR GUIDES” TO
PUBLICATION PRINTERS CORPORATION FOR THE
TOURISM DIVISION TO PRINT 75,000 COPIES OF THE 2018
COLLIER COUNTY VISITOR GUIDES FOR A NOT TO EXCEED
AMOUNT OF $31,236 AND MAKE A FINDING THAT THIS
ACTION PROMOTES TOURISM
Item #16F4
RESOLUTION 2018-13: A RESOLUTION APPROVING
AMENDMENTS (APPROPRIATING GRANTS, DONATIONS,
CONTRIBUTIONS OR INSURANCE PROCEEDS) TO THE
FISCAL YEAR 2017-18 ADOPTED BUDGET
Item #16F5
ADDITIONAL FY 2018 BUDGET AMENDMENTS COVERING
POST HURRICANE IRMA CLEAN UP AND RECOVERY FOR
REPAIRS TO THE 800 MHZ PUBLIC SAFETY
COMMUNICATION SYSTEM AND THE STORM-WATER
NETWORK – FOR NUMEROUS CANALS THAT REQUIRED
CLEARING
Item #16F6
FOUR TERMINATION OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
IMPACT FEE PAYMENT ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
AGREEMENTS AND RELEASE OF LIENS FOR COMPANIES
THAT HAVE MET OR EXCEEDED THEIR JOB- CREATION
REQUIREMENTS (THREE OF THE FOUR TERMINATIONS
January 23, 2018
Page 178
WILL BE EARLY) – ARTHREX, INC. & ARTHREX
MANUFACTURING, INC; ANCHOR HEALTH CENTER, P.A.
AND NAPLES INVESTMENT GROUP, LLC; GUADALUPE
CENTER, INC. AND STAFFORDSHIRE PROPERTIES, INC.
Item #16J1
AUTHORIZING A BUDGET AMENDMENT IN THE AMOUNT
OF $250,000 FROM THE CLERK’S COURT AGENCY FUND 651
TO THE SHERIFF FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE TRAINING AND
EDUCATIONAL EXPENSES IN ACCORDANCE WITH
SECTION 938.15, FLORIDA STATUTES – TRAINING FOR
OFFICERS THAT INCLUDE WORKSHOPS, MEETINGS,
CONFERENCES OR CONVENTIONS
Item #16J2
TO RECORD IN THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY
COMMISSIONERS, THE CHECK NUMBER (OR OTHER
PAYMENT METHOD), AMOUNT, PAYEE, AND PURPOSE FOR
WHICH THE REFERENCED DISBURSEMENTS WERE DRAWN
FOR THE PERIODS BETWEEN DECEMBER 28, 2017 AND
JANUARY 10, 2018 PURSUANT TO FLORIDA STATUTE 136.06
Item #16J3
REQUEST THAT THE BOARD APPROVE AND DETERMINE
VALID PUBLIC PURPOSE FOR INVOICES PAYABLE AND
PURCHASING CARD TRANSACTIONS AS OF JANUARY 17,
2018
January 23, 2018
Page 179
Item #16K1
RESOLUTION 2018-14: REAPPOINT ONE MEMBER TO THE
HISTORIC/ARCHAEOLOGICAL PRESERVATION BOARD –
REAPPOINTING STEWART MILLER FOR THE REAL ESTATE
CATEGORY, WITH TERM EXPIRING ON OCTOBER 1, 2020
Item #16K2
RESOLUTION 2018-15: REAPPOINTING TWO MEMBER(S) TO
THE PARKS AND RECREATION ADVISORY BOARD –
REAPPOINTING DAVID SALETKO AND MCMURDO SMITH;
BOTH WITH TERMS EXPIRING ON DECEMBER 21, 2021
Item #16K3
RESOLUTION 2018-16: REAPPOINTING THREE MEMBERS
TO THE COLLIER COUNTY CODE ENFORCEMENT BOARD,
AND RECLASSIFY AN ALTERNATE MEMBER AS A
REGULAR MEMBER – REAPPOINTING GERALD LEFEBVRE,
RONALD J. DONINO, JR. AND ROBERK KAUFMAN; ALL
WITH TERMS EXPIRING ON FEBRUARY 14, 2021
Item #16K4
RESOLUTION 2018-17: APPOINT A MEMBER TO THE
EMERGENCY MEDICAL AUTHORITY – APPOINTING
ROBERT H. CHALHOUB WITH TERM EXPIRING ON
DECEMBER 31, 2019
Item #16K5
January 23, 2018
Page 180
RESOLUTION 2018-18: APPOINTING TWO MEMBERS TO
CONSERVATION COLLIER LAND ACQUISITION ADVISORY
COMMITTEE – REAPPOINTING PATRICIA SHERRY AND
APPOINTING GARY BROMLEY; BOTH WITH TERMS
EXPIRING ON FEBRUARY 11, 2021
Item #16K6 – Moved to Item #12B (Per Agenda Change Sheet)
Item #16K7 – Withdrawn (Per Agenda Change Sheet)
REQUEST THAT THE BOARD SET THE BALLOTING DATE
FOR THE RECOMMENDATION OF MEMBERS TO THE
PELICAN BAY SERVICES DIVISION BOARD BY RECORD
TITLE OWNERS OF PROPERTY WITHIN PELICAN BAY, AND
ADOPT THE RECOMMENDATIONS SET FORTH IN THE
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AS TO THE FILLING OF THESE
SEATS
Item #16K8
A STIPULATED FINAL JUDGMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF
$10,000 AS FULL COMPENSATION FOR THE TAKING OF
PARCEL 357RDUE IN THE CASE STYLED COLLIER COUNTY
V. BONNIE L. FALCON, ET AL., CASE NO. 16-CA- 1317,
REQUIRED FOR IMPROVEMENTS TO GOLDEN GATE
BOULEVARD (PROJECT NO. 60145) (FISCAL IMPACT: $5,200)
– LOCATED IN SECTION 6, TOWNSHIP 49 SOUTH, RANGE 28
EAST
Item #16K9
January 23, 2018
Page 181
A MEDIATED SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT IN THE AMOUNT
OF $58,250 FOR FULL COMPENSATION FOR THE TAKING OF
PARCEL 364RDUE AND $10,529.50 FOR STATUTORY
ATTORNEY FEES, EXPERT FEES AND COSTS, IN THE CASE
STYLED COLLIER COUNTY V. STEVEN A. EDWARDS, ET
AL., CASE NO. 16-CA-1327 REQUIRED FOR IMPROVEMENTS
TO GOLDEN GATE BOULEVARD (PROJECT NO. 60145)
[FISCAL IMPACT: $31,749.50]
Item #17A – Moved to Item #9A (Per Agenda Change Sheet)
Item #17B – Commissioner Solis abstained from voting
ORDINANCE 2018-01: AN ORDINANCE REGULATING THE
HARVESTING OF PALMETTO BERRIES AND OTHER
NATURAL RESOURCES
Item #17C
RESOLUTION 2018-19: A RESOLUTION APPROVING
AMENDMENTS (APPROPRIATING CARRY FORWARD,
TRANSFERS AND SUPPLEMENTAL REVENUE) TO THE
FISCAL YEAR 2017-18 ADOPTED BUDGET
Item #17D
CONTINUED TO THE FEBRUARY 13, 2018 BCC HEARING.
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. 93-31, THE
FOXFIRE PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD), TO
APPROVE AN INSUBSTANTIAL CHANGE TO THE PUD, TO
January 23, 2018
Page 182
SHOW ON THE MASTER PLAN THE PARCEL LINES TO THE
MAINTENANCE BUILDING PARCEL KNOWN AS PLATTED
TRACT 9 OF THE FOXFIRE UNIT THREE SUBDIVISION AT
THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF THE PROJECT IN TRACT B
LOW INTENSITY MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL
DEVELOPMENT AND ESTABLISH SETBACKS AND CLARIFY
THE HEIGHT LIMITATIONS FOR THE MAINTENANCE
BUILDING, AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE.
THE SUBJECT PROPERTY IS LOCATED BETWEEN RADIO
ROAD (CR-856) AND DAVIS BOULEVARD (CR-83)
APPROXIMATELY ONE MILE EAST OF AIRPORT-PULLING
ROAD (CR-31), IN SECTION 1, RANGE 25 EAST, AND
SECTION 6, RANGE 26 EAST, BOTH IN TOWNSHIP 50 SOUTH,
COLLIER COUNTY, FLORIDA, CONSISTING OF 385+/- ACRES
[PL20160003062]
Item #17E
CONTINUED TO THE FEBRUARY 27, 2018 BCC HEARING.
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING ORDINANCE NO. 03-40, AS
AMENDED, THE HERITAGE BAY PLANNED UNIT
DEVELOPMENT TO APPROVE AN INSUBSTANTIAL
CHANGE TO THE PUD, TO ADD A DEVIATION FROM LDC
SECTION 4.06.02.C.7.A, TO REMOVE THE REQUIREMENT
FOR A LANDSCAPE BUFFER ALONG AN INTERNAL SIDE
SHARED PROPERTY LINE BETWEEN LOT 1A, LOT 2A, AND
LOT 3A OF THE HERITAGE BAY COMMONS – TRACT D
SECOND REPLAT SUBDIVISION, AND PROVIDING FOR AN
EFFECT DATE. THE PUD IS LOCATED ON THE NORTHEAST
CORNER OF IMMOKALEE ROAD AND COLLIER
BOULEVARD (CR 951) IN SECTIONS 13, 14, 23 AND 24,
January 23, 2018
Page 183
TOWNSHIP 48 SOUTH, RANGE 26 EAST, COLLIER COUNTY,
FLORIDA, CONSISTING OF 2,562± ACRES [PL20170001859]
*****
There being no further business for the good of the County, the
meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 4:00 p.m.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX
OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF
SPECIAL DISTRICTS UNDER ITS CONTROL
___________________________________
ANDY SOLIS, CHAIRMAN
ATTEST
DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK
___________________________
These minutes approved by the Board on ________________, as
presented ______________ or as corrected _____________.
TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF U.S. LEGAL
SUPPORT, INC., BY TERRI LEWIS, COURT REPORTER AND
NOTARY PUBLIC.