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BCC Minutes 09/09/1999 W (Growth Management Issues, Public Services; & Public Works)September 9, 1999 TRANSCRIPT OF THE PELICAN BAY TOWN HALL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Naples, Florida, September 9, 1999 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 7:00 p.m. in SPECIAL SESSION at the Foundation Center, 8962 Hammock Oak Drive, Naples, Florida, with the following members present: CHAIRWOMAN: Pamela S. Mac'Kie Barbara B. Berry John C. Norris Timothy J. Constantine James D. Carter ALSO PRESENT: Robert Fernandez, County Administrator David Weigel, County Attorney Page 1 COLLIER COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS AGENDA Thursday, September 9, 1999 7~00 pm TOWN HALL MEETING DISTRICT 2 8269 HAM/4OCK OAK DRIVE (PELICAN BAY) NAPLES, FLORIDA NOTICE= ALL PERSONS WISHING TO SPEAK ON ANY AGENDA ITEM MUST REGISTER PRIOR TO SPEAKING. SPEAKERS MUST REGISTER WITH THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR PRIOR TO THE PRESENTATION OF THE AGENDA ITEM TO BE ADDRESSED. COLLIER COUNTY ORDINANCE NO. 99-22 REQUIRES THAT ALL LOBBYISTS SHALL, BEFORE ENGAGING IN ANY LOBBYING ACTIVITIES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ADDRESSING THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS), REGISTER WITH THE CLERK TO THE BOARD AT THE BOARD MINUTES AND RECORDS DEPARTMENT. ANY PERSON WHO DECIDES TO APPEAL A DECISION OF THIS BOARD WILL NEED A RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS PERTAINING THERETO, AND THEREFORE MAY NEED TO ENSURE THAT A VERBATIM RECORD OF THE PROCEEDINGS IS MADE, WHICH RECORD INCLUDES THE TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE UPON WHICH THE APPEAL IS TO BE BASED. ALL REGISTERED PUBLIC SPEAKERS WILL BE LIMITED TO FIVE (5) MINUTES UNLESS PERMISSION FOR ADDITIONAL TIME IS GRANTED BY THE CHAIRWOMAN. 1. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 2. ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION A. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES 1) Update on current Growth Management issues. B. PUBLIC SERVICES 1) Connor Park. 2) North Regional Park. 3) Regional Library. 1 September 9, 1999 C. PUBLIC WORKS 1) North Wastewater Treatment Plant Expansion. 2) Current and planned transportation projects. PUBLIC COMMENT ADJOURN 2 September 9, 1999 September 9, 1999 CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Hi. Welcome to everybody. I'm going to call to order this town hall meeting of the Collier County Commission. We're glad to be here in North Naples. And we'd ask you to stand with us for the pledge of allegiance and then we'll start our meeting. (Pledge of allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Thank you. In deference to the district where we are, I'd like to ask Commissioner Carter to get our meeting started. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you very much, Commissioner Mac'Kie. First of all, I would like to introduce to the audience members of our staff. Can you hear us? Okay, that's good. If you can't, wave your arms, throw stuff at us, that's okay. To my right, Bob Fernandez, who is our county administrator. And our county attorney, David Weigel. And over here on my left side, we have Ed Ilschner, public works; we have Leo Ochs, public services; Tom Olliff, community services; and we have Mike McNees, our assistant county manager. I -- Vince Cautero has not arrived yet, but he is community services division and he will be here, I'm sure, or a representative. Also, I'd like to recognize in the audience tonight what I would call our district leadership. There are a number of presidents of associations here. I would like you to stand, identify yourself so the rest of the audience knows the people who spend numerous hours working in these associations to help us do a better job in county government. So if you -- wherever you are, if you would stand and tell us where you are this evening. Sally, you're in the front row. Up on your feet, lady. MS. BARKER: Sally Barker. I'm chairman of the Property Owners Associations of North Collier County/the Second District Association. If you're not familiar with the Property Owners Associations of North Collier County, I've put some brochures out in the hall, so help yourself. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER CARTER: You have to hold your applause or we'll be here all night, folks. Mary? MR. PETERSON: I'm Marvin Peterson. I'm the vice president of the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association. The president's about ready to take a cruise, so I'm here. MS. POTTER: I'm Kay Potter, president of the Mangrove Action Group. Marvin is vice president. And grannie has just come back from babysitting grandchildren. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Al? MR. NEWMAN: A1 Newman, president of Naples Park Area Association. MR. MILLER: Ed Miller, president of Willoughby Acres Homeowners' Association. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Dick? MR. LYDON: Dick Lydon, president of the United LP Homeowners' Association, among other things. COMMISSIONER CARTER: We're not going to talk about those other things, Dick. Okay, Bill? Page 2 September 9, 1999 MR. TURNER: Bill Turner, treasurer of the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Gentleman right behind you. MR. WEIDMAN: Good evening. My name is Richard Weidman, I'm president and chairman of the board of the Bay Forest Homeowners' Association. I have with me tonight Mr. Lupus, who's the vice chairman of the board and Mr. Brian Hampton, who's our manager. We want to thank the chairman and the members of the Collier County Commissioners for having their meeting tonight. Thank you very much. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you. MR. DECKER: Nelson Decker, president of the Greenwood Homeowners' Association. MS. FELT: And I'm Jane Felt, president of the Pond River Homeowners' Association. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you very much. And we have one more. MS. BROOKINS: Marie Brookins, president of the Cjuster Homeowners' Association at Regent Park. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you all. Let's give them a round of applause for all the efforts they do. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER CARTER: What we'd like to do, all of you could pick up an agenda, if you haven't. It tells you the format that we're going to do this evening. What we'd like to do is take each one of these topics, have respective staff present to you the issues that are going on, and then if you have questions, we will deal with those at that time. We ask you to -- if you're going to raise a question on an issue, have it well prepared, tell us what it is, we will address that, and then we go to the next person. We can't let any one person stand up and ask 15 or 20 questions or we will not be out of here till 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. And then at the end we have a public comment section. And that's where you have an opportunity, if you sign up, you can come and address any and all issues with us. And that's the purpose of the town hall. We're here to listen to you, to get your ideas, your thoughts, so that we can do a better job to serve you as County Commissioners. So let's start with the community development environmental services to get an update on the current growth management issues. Mr. Nino, are you going to lead the way for us? MR. NINO: I'm afraid so. Mr. Cautero and Mr. Mulhere, who is responsible for authoring -- CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Ron, was it -- did you expect to be -- MR. NINO: Yes, I did. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay. Because we can take it out of order. MR. NINO: They're not going to be with me. My name is Ron Nino. I'm the current planning manager at the -- for Collier County Development Services Administration. That primarily deals with matters of zoning administration. I believe most of you received -- picked up a copy of this article here that basically explains the agenda that the Board of County -- Collier County Commissioners has before it. As you know, they have a very heavy agenda of decision-making relative to Page 3 September 9, 1999 modifications to the Growth Management Plan and how they will continue in the future to deal with the rural fringe area and the -- or the remaining agricultural area beyond the rural fringe area. I'm going to just touch the highlights of that report that you have in terms of the target dates that Collier County is faced with in terms of having to make a decision which would be conveyed to the Department of Community Affairs. Because as you know at this coming meeting of the board of September 14th, the board will be required to take certain actions. One of which is to rescind the Growth Management Plan amendments found not in compliance by the state to adopt natural resource protection areas. Within your folder, you will see two maps that describe the natural protection resource areas. Those are areas in which no development other than agricultural and related agricultural practices will be permitted. And development of single-family homes on legal lots of record created prior to June the 22nd. So in effect, no owner of land with -- no owner of land within the natural resource protection area will be able to develop that land for purposes other than agricultural. The board is then faced with developing policies to provide for an assessment of the rural and agricultural lands outside the urban area, and prohibit land uses as provided for in the final development order until the study is completed and the comprehensive plan is amended. The board, on September 14th, will be establishing two oversight committees. They'll be establishing a rural lands area assessment oversight committee, and a rural fringe area assessment oversight committee. Again, in your packet, you will see the areas delineated with which these two committees will have responsibility for developing an assessment of what type of development ought to be permitted if any within those areas, and will make recommendations to the board which will subsequently be sent to the Development of Community Affairs. The rural lands area -- the rural land area assessment oversight committee includes all of Collier County lying east of the urban boundary line, with the exception of the lands that are included within the rural fringe area assessment designations. And again, those rural fringe areas lie basically east of Everglades Boulevard in some -- in certain discrete areas defined on the plan that is in the packet that you have. And then the remainder of that land is the rural land area assessment area. The land within the rural fringe area, assessment area, that study needs to be completed by November of this year; whereas, the far greater area, that study will take up to 24 to 30 months to complete. Basically those are the actions that the board will have to take this September -- this coming September 14th in order to provide for that -- for those processes and to achieve -- who are expected then to achieve certain time frames, as outlined in that memorandum -- or that report that I distributed this evening. Are there any questions? I'd be happy to answer them. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay. Are there any speakers registered on that particular topic on our agenda? MR. FERNANDEZ: Yes. We have Nancy Payton, who's registered on Page 4 September 9, 1999 that subject. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay. Anybody else on that topic? MR. FERNANDEZ: We have two others, but one didn't specify the topic and the others are on another topic. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And the unspecified is who? MR. FERNANDEZ: Sally Barker. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Sally, do you want to talk about this? MS. BARKER: No, I put down for public comment. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay, we'll get you then. MS. PAYTON: Good evening, Nancy Payton, representing the Florida MR. FERNANDEZ: You need to be on the mike. MS. PAYTON: How's that? I turned it on. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: What a concept. MS. PAYTON: I'm a quick study. My name is Nancy Payton, I'm representing the Florida Wildlife Federation, and I have one very quick question, request. Is that in the final order it stressed public participation, community planning effort, public participation, public participation. And my request is that the final order agenda items scheduled for September 14th, this Tuesday, be given a time certain. And we request that that time certain either be 9:00 or 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening. We've had a number of communications from members who would like to participate, or at least to attend and possibly participate if they feel so obliged. But to sit for hours and hours with an agenda that has many different items on them, all quite important, really is not, we feel, consistent with the final order, and therefore we request that a time certain be established as quickly as possible so that that can be shared with the public. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I thank you, Nancy. I agree that there's a problem with people taking time off work and coming and sitting, especially with our agenda on the 14th. It looks like there's no way to tell when it might end. So I think a time certain is a good idea. I've asked Mr. Fernandez's office to give me some advice about what that time should be. First thing in the morning makes a lot of sense to me because frankly, it's such a weighty issue and it's such an important one, it might be easier for public participation on the way into work as opposed to having to come and sit for quite a long time. I think it's important enough, despite even the final order's mandate that we shall have public participation. This is such an important issue that it would make sense to open it up and make it as convenient as possible for public participation. Do you have a recommendation yet, Bob, on the -- MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairwoman, I've not been able to discuss that with Vince Cautero yet. He's been out of town. But I think it's just a matter of the board's discretion whichever time you feel more comfortable, whether the early time or the late time. The only problem potentially with the later time is that if for some reason the meeting doesn't go all the way to 5:00. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: By the grace of God. MR. FERNANDEZ: I have no objection to the 9:00 time. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Then if anybody on the board then doesn't object, let's just go ahead and establish now that 9:00 will be a time Page 5 September 9, 1999 certain for those matters. I don't know what the agenda item is, but it's 12 something. It would otherwise be the afternoon agenda. I wouldn't mind facing that first thing in the morning anyway, if that's acceptable to the rest of you. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I would -- personally, I've held this position for quite some time. To give one group a time certain really shortchanges some other group or any other group who might be there on their own issue. Whoever is there on a particular issue, their particular issue is as important to them as anybody else's. And for that reason, I have never supported these time certain type arrangements, and I would prefer not to do that this time as well. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Madam Chair? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: I certainly understand the importance of this item and the attempt to make it as convenient as possible. The difficult thing for this Tuesday's meeting is after the summer budget recess, then it is a long meeting and there are a number of high priority items. And so if we pick this one, then do we try to give a time certain to the two or three other high profile items? If we do, we're going to end up in a mess. And the person who may have a simple petition may end up sitting there until 7:00 at night, whereas, they might otherwise have been done at 10:00. So I think I share Commissioner Norris's concern. I understand the intent there, but I think there are a number of high profile, high important items that we start bumping around, we're going to get into some trouble with. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I agree. I understand that. You know, that is an issue. But I think there are two factors that distinguish this from anything else on the agenda. One is that we are ordered by the Governor and Cabinet to have as broad a public participation as possible, and that distinguishes this from anything else that will be on our agenda on Tuesday. And the other is even though there are high profile items, this is the only item that comes to my mind, anyway, that is as far reaching and as broad in scope and as important to everybody in the county. For that reason, unless you just have an extremely strong objection, I think it serves the public best if we let this item be heard at 9:00 in the morning. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER CARTER: Madam Chair, if -- do we have any idea approximately how long we will spend on that item? Is there any guesstimate yet? Is that a 90-minute, two-minute or two-hour kind of thing? I certainly understand what Commissioner Norris and Constantine are saying. If we're going to do this, I think we have to have some window to figure out it's going to be about a two-hour item, so the other people that are in there on many important items will have some idea when to be there. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: But what I was saying, if we're going to go ahead and do that, it probably ought to be 9:30 as opposed to 9:00, simply -- we've got our awards and standard things, and someone who comes in to get the employee of the month award probably shouldn't sit there till 12:00 noon. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: No, no, no, I guess -- you're right, 9:30 Page 6 September 9, 1999 makes more sense because of the awards section of the agenda. And I guess probably that's what Mr. Fernandez wanted to ask Vince is what amount of time might we expect. But I think it's reasonable to think it's going to be an hour or so. Maybe not. I'm afraid it might be. Commissioner Berry. COMMISSIONER BERRY: My concern about this, this is Thursday night, this meeting is on Tuesday morning starting at 9:00. What is going to be the mode of operation of transmitting this information to everyone concerned? And the second part of my question is, this is merely a transmittal to Tallahassee? What would be -- we don't know what they're going to accept and what they're not going to accept. These things -- the items have been heard, many of these have been heard by the EAC, I believe is their new name, plus the Planning Commission. And then of course we'll be dealing with them at our meeting as well. What -- where do we go here in terms of broad chance of participation? Those have all been duly advertised meetings. People that have been concerned about these issues, I believe from the day that I certainly looked in on the meeting and sat for awhile, there seemed to be quite a number of people there. I'm just looking at this from a practical standpoint of, you know, how do we get the word out. Certain people get the word, others don't get the word and they'll think it's further on down on the agenda or something. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That's a good point. So we need to communicate that 9:30 is when this will be heard. And I'm sure we can get that in the newspaper. It's not -- has the agenda even been published in the newspaper yet? I think that happens -- COMMISSIONER CARTER: Sunday. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: -- later. Sunday. So it's not like anybody's been misled at this point. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Has it been submitted, however? It may be too late to insert that as part of the actual advertisement. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: We don't advertise it anymore, remember? We don't advertise it. They report it as a news story. So I bet this will be a part of the news story. COMMISSIONER CARTER: The county attorney, is there a legal opinion on this that we're not going to get on some slippery slope by changing this? I don't want to have any glitches here in this process. MR. WEIGEL: Thank you. Well, it's not a slippery slope in regard to that. The agenda that appears at one section of the newspaper, it's my understanding that the Naples Daily News still has the practice of a publishing the agenda in full, separate from any other brief or news or common public service item that they could put in there. In regard to requirements of Sunshine Law and notice, we will have met our notice requirements without a problem. Whether there should be an adjustment of timing of this item or any other item on the agenda, I would suggest that just as a courtesy and typical practice, when we do make adjustments to an agenda or create a special meeting, as an analogy, that we would provide the typical fax, transmission/fax as they call it, to call all of the media, the print Page 7 September 9, 1999 media, post notices, et cetera, to a substantial degree to assist the public to have every opportunity to be aware of any change the board is contemplating ahead of time. That's not to say that in fact even in practices of the board in the past even at the day of the meeting the chair and with the assistance of the other commissioners can make adjustments to the timing of particular items. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Frankly, it's anybody who's prudent, anybody who participates in the process knows that you have to watch or be involved at the beginning of the meeting because the agenda may be shuffled. And this actually is just giving more notice to the public that in fact there will be a time certain for that item. So let's set that at 9:30. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Do we have three people that agree to that? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I think that's a discretion of the Chair, am I right, that the Chair can set the time certain? COMMISSIONER CARTER: Commissioner Mac'Kie, whatever it is, I will support you on that issue, because -- and the reason that I want to do this is that this item is so important in its totality that as we build this whole process, I want to do everything to prevent anyone coming back and saying to us we did not do due diligence on this. Because I feel at the end of all of this, probably somebody is going to still slap us. But I want a track record that says we did everything to involve everybody the best that we knew how. And I sat through the EAC, I sat through the planning thing. I've heard it all, I will hear it again, and I'm sure there will be more people coming to the forefront on this. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Is there a question about whether or not I have the authority to set this as a time certain at 9:30? MR. WEIGEL: I believe you do have the authority to set that, as Chair of the board, which is distinguished from the removal or the addition of items which typically takes a vote of the whole board. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay, then we'll do that and -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Can I suggest, it might be better, just for your consideration, 1:30, rather than 9:30? Because we have the morning agenda, normal items. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I think it's just easier for public to be able to come in before they go to work. COMMISSIONER BERRY: What time do you think people go to work? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: What time do they go to work? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Well, let's don't debate this. It's probably not perfect, but 9:30 is what I'm going to set the time for. Okay, the next item on our agenda is -- COMMISSIONER CARTER: You can see, ladies and gentlemen, we have a lot of fun in our commission meetings. If you haven't been down, you ought to come join us. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Next item is public services. Mr. Olliff or Ms. Ramsey? COMMISSIONER CARTER: Marla, before you start, I want to apologize, I believe Sheriff Hunter was here. Is he still here? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes. COMMISSIONER CARTER: I want to recognize the good Sheriff for being here this evening, if he would stand and let everybody know he's here. Page 8 September 9, 1999 (Applause.) COMMISSIONER CARTER: Former board member Don York is also in the audience. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER CARTER: And I believe Karen Strickland is also here, who is the -- our district supervisor. There she is. Thank you, Karen. My apologies. Thank you, Marla. MS. RAMSEY: No problem. Good evening. The first item that I would like to speak just briefly about is a property that has probably been better known as Bluebill Park, which is located at Bluebill Avenue and Vanderbilt Drive. And up until recently, actually August 3rd, the Board of County Commissioners renamed that piece of property to Connor Park at Vanderbilt Beach. If you're familiar with this piece of property, the four and a half acres on the bottom side, on the south side of Bluebill Avenue was donated to the county by the Connor family for a park parcel. We have been to a number of public meetings discussing the plans at this particular location and have reached a consensus that the neighborhood wanted a linear park, which is depicted here as a narrow green space with a pathway, landscape and benches at that location. On the north side of that property, the county owns a right-of-way, which is about 130 feet. And in that piece of property we're looking to put in about 80 parking spaces to be used as overflow parking for beach access. The time line on this particular project, we are currently in the process of finding a design firm that will help us with the master plan. And then from that we'll do the construction and the permitting. And we're looking at probably about a year before this particular location will be completed. The funding source for this is tentatively TDC money, which will be confirmed during the budget process. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Questions? UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Could you point out where the parking area will be on the north side? MS. RAMSEY: Most definitely. If you're familiar with that piece of property where the bridge starts to make its rise up over the canal area there, the base of that bridge area is where the parking area will start and move toward 41. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Any other Connor Park questions? If not, we can talk about the North Regional Park. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Also, I'd mention that some of the folks who are concerned about the dunes across the street, the sand there, that will be preserved. There's fences around it now. It may be disrupted a little bit, but most of that will stay in place. MS. RAMSEY: In June of 1997, the board gave staff approval to go ahead and look for a piece of property on the north side of Collier County that was somewhere around the 200 acre in size to be used for a regional park. After a number of disappointments, the staff was finally able to find a parcel of about 175 acres. And if you look up here, we've got Immokalee Road and the 75 interchange there. One mile south, you'll see the yellow park site outlined. That's approximately 175 acres. And as you can see, there's some out parcels Page 9 September 9, 1999 in that location, and we are going to be looking at pursuing trying to purchase those additional out parcels to bring that property up to 200 acres. The park parcel in and of itself is made up of some upland areas and some wetland areas, which is very conducive to the plans of the park to have both athletic fields and, as you can see, if you received the display in front of you, to have athletic fields for both soccer fields and softball diamonds at that location along 1-75. Then also in the center of that where the wetlands are located, in this area right in here, you will see that that's where we're looking to put our passive walkways, to have interpretive areas to restore the wetlands, hopefully to have some wildlife come back in and allow us to do some interpretive at this location. Up in the far corner where Jim is pointing to is where we're looking to put in our community center. And through the center of that then would be the access for that location. Time line on this particular one is we have currently short-listed a group of firms for the master plan. We did that today. They will be presenting to us in about five weeks their proposals for this location, at which time we will then rank those three firms and present them to the board for approval. Once we've done that, then we're looking at anywhere to probably 18 months for the master plan development and permitting. And then if everything goes well, the Livingston Road, from Vanderbilt to Immokalee, when that particular segment of land is being developed, we will then be able to start the construction of the park. Tentatively we're looking at 2003. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Completion or start? MS. RAMSEY: We're hoping completion, but please don't hold me to that. And then the funding source for this particular park is coming from impact fees. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Any other questions? Yes, sir. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: What we're having here is baseball fields and soccer fields? MS. RAMSEY: No, there's baseball fields, soccer fields and concession on both sides of that, passive pathways, community center, and then what else is involved in that, we're not sure. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: How about bike trails, skateboard area for skateboarders, rollerbladers? These young children are doing all of that right now. MS. RAMSEY: We're looking at asphalt pathways that can be utilized for a number of sources: Walking, jogging, biking, rollerblading, skateboarding, all of the above. I think it's one area that Collier County is missing is a nice safe off-road linear pathways through park locations, so I think that will address that need as well. I should also mention that in the process of doing the master plan, we will be coming out to the communities, talking with the neighbors of that park location and getting input into that master plan when we're doing the preliminary design phase. And if all goes well, we could be looking at somewhere in January, February or March for those meetings. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay, well, one more question. And then if Page 10 September 9, 1999 you have comments on this, we should register to speak on this topic. But go ahead, one more quick one. MS. BARKER: I noticed on the schematic there's a couple of cutouts, one at the top and one at the side. Is the county making any efforts to acquire that property? MS. RAMSEY: Yes, I believe that on the 14th, the next board meeting, that we do have an executive summary going to the board to address that. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay. Let's talk about the regional library and then anybody who wants to comment on any of these public service items, get a slip up here and register. We have to do that. And we'll be glad to hear from you. Now talk about the regional library. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Mr. Jones. MR. JONES: Good evening. My name is John W. Jones and I'm director of the Collier County Collier County Public Library system. And I'm here this evening to talk to you about the new regional library. The physical growth of the Collier County Public Library system is handled in the Growth Management Plan. In the early 1990's when the designers put the plan together, they decided, based on national averages, that Collier County should provide .33 square feet of space for each citizen. At the present time, we have approximately 78,000 square feet of library space in the county, and we're running a small deficit. However, in the planning stages is the development of our new headquarters facility which will be located on the corner of Airport Pulling and Orange Blossom Road. This 35,000 square foot building will replace the need of putting up four neighborhood size libraries, because our communities are just too busy with too many people. I would assume that many of you use our beautiful facility across the lake. I understand how crowded and how bad it can be. However, would you believe it takes as many people to run that facility as it does to run a facility three times the size? The source of funding for all public libraries in the county is impact fees; therefore, it does not impact at all your ad valorem taxes. However, you the taxpayer must foot the bill for the personnel and the operations. So the Commission, in their -- after great study, decided to build one regional center instead of four neighborhood libraries, thus providing only half the staff we would normally need to staff the four facilities, to put this in a central location in the north that is on a major artery that moves traffic back and forth through the county. Hopefully it will relieve some of the pressure on the Vanderbilt Beach branch, because there's no way we can expand it. And we hope to introduce a whole new group of citizens to the library service in Collier County. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: John, quick question. From my understanding, this essentially will be built to the level under the service eventually of the central library? MR. JONES: It will be a duplicate of the central library, sir. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Which I think is important, because particularly as North Naples grows, that seems to be further and further a way for people to go and just -- Page 11 September 9, 1999 MR. JONES: When we looked at the cross-section of people who were using our library card, 60 percent of the county, we have 81 percent of the county registered in the system. 60 percent of that 81 percent use their cards six or more times per year. And all you have to do is look at what's happening at Vanderbilt Beach, where they're averaging 28 to 30,000 circulations a month. And I go up there and actually feel sorry for my staff to know that right now at this particular moment in history for Collier County, the pressure is north. Rather than go out and build four facilities, we're going to build one and be done with it, and then we'll be covered under the impact fees -- our impact fees will cover it. Your ad valorem taxes in the long run, you'll be saving money and providing a better quality of service. COMMISSIONER CARTER: John, what is the timetable? Maybe you mentioned that, but again, I think it's good for everybody to know. MR. JONES: Okay, this particular building is being built on the property that is now occupied by the Animal Control Department. It is my understanding that they will begin construction on their new facility possibly as early as next month. We will -- if that is an ll-month program, we will begin building 11 months from whatever month they start building from. To give you a realistic figure, we'll open in the fall of 2001. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Instead of hearing barking dogs in the background if you live near there, you'll here people saying shh. MR. JONES: This one features a bell tower with chimes. So the complaints won't be about dogs. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes, sir, real quick. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Will it have meeting rooms available for use of nonprofit organizations? MR. JONES: There is an auditorium, fixed seating auditorium design similar to the Sugden Theatre, except smaller; will seat 100 people; will be available to anyone who's in there not trying to turn a dollar. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay. So if anybody else wants to comment on any of the -- either library or public service parks issues, come on up and speak in the microphones. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: You scared them off. CHAIRWOM3LN MAC'KIE: I scared you. I didn't mean to. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Public works. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Anybody registered to speak on this item? Are you coming to speak? No, I guess you wouldn't, you work for the county. Sorry. Okay, then we'll move on to public works. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Before Mr. Ilschner starts, I also want to recognize that vice chair Bonnie MacKenzie is with us from the City of Naples tonight, so Bonnie? (Applause.) COMMISSIONER CARTER: If I've forgotten anybody else here, I'm going to get fired, so -- go ahead. MR. ILSCHNER: Good evening, Madam Chairwoman, commissioners, ladies and gentlemen. For the record, my name is Ed Ilschner, public works administrator for Collier County. And the public works division is pleased to be here tonight to present a number of projects, brief you on those projects that you Page 12 September 9, 1999 would have an interest in here in District 2, the north end area of Naples. And with me tonight to present this information is Mr. Joe Cheatam. He will present information concerning the north wastewater treatment plant expansion. And also with me this evening is Mr. Edward J. Kant, our transportation services director, who will brief you on a number of transportation projects in this area. So let me call now on Joe Cheatam. Joe? MR. CHEATAM: Good evening. My name is Joe Cheatam. I'm a new face here in Collier County, I've been here now four months, but an old face in the business of wastewater treatment. I came here from Gainesville Florida, which had a lot of first-class wastewater facilities, as well as a great football team. And I'm here -- I'm here to talk tonight about the latest facility upgrade for Collier County, the north county regional water reclamation facility, which has a site plan here to my left. We're expanding this facility to increase capacity about five million gallons per day. Presently the wastewater capacity is eight and a half million gallons per day. And we'll have a total capacity of this facility of 13 and a half million gallons, which will take us out to the year 2010 as far as we keep on growing the way we're growing. It may be a little bit sooner than that, but we're projecting around 2010. And I just wanted to just take a minute to tell you about the upgrade facility itself. We're expanding the aeration basin to a state-of-the-art fine quality diffuse system located in this area right here. We'll have additional secondary clarification and filters, and also additional sludge handling equipment. And the effluent disposal will be as it is now, with reclaimed water to irrigation sites located all across Collier County. We're pleased to be one of the few plants in the state that disposes 100 percent of its effluent to reclaim water systems, which is a great benefit to the community, and we're quite proud of that. This facility is going to cost 18 and a half million dollars. It came under the engineer's estimate of 20 million dollars, which we're real proud of. The consultant was Hazen & Sawyer, and Hole-Montes. And the construction's contract will be project integration. And this groundbreaking will start October of this year. And we're scheduled to go on line September of the year 2001, which kind of coincides with our capacity for this facility. So it's just in time. So any questions? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Then we'll talk about funding. MR. CHEATAM: The project is a combination of funds from the -- from Collier County and also from the state resolving fund loans. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: In other words, it's utility users, not property taxes. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Thank you. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: You're welcome. Other questions about this item? Yes, sir? UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Would you give me those figures again, sir, on the current capacity and the extended capacity you have in mind? MR. CHEATAM: Current capacity is 8.5 million gallons per day. Page 13 September 9, 1999 We're expanding by another five million gallons per day, which we have total capacity of 13.5 million gallons per day. Currently we're treating anywhere from six and a half to seven million gallons per day at present. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Thank you. MR. CHEATAM: I have the honor to have the plant supervisor here, Dennis Barnard, in the back of the room back here. Dennis, will you stand? He's the plant supervisor in charge of the facility. If anybody has a question, you can either ask myself or Dennis. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: After you get the -- after this plant is on stream, what about the distribution system for the water that you're generating that you aren't generating per day? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: You're talking about the effluent? UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: The effluent. Where is it going, the piping -- MR. CHEATAM: Okay. We have in place reclaimed water facilities we have all over the north part of Collier County, mainly going to irrigation of home sites and golf courses. We have enough customers in the future to handle this additional five million gallons on the books, so we have plenty of capacity to handle the additional flow with the reclaimed water as our means of disposal. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: We basically have a waiting list of people who would like to purchase that effluent water and have the facilities to -- either have or are willing to pay for or build their own facilities to get the water to their site. So we have kind of the opposite problem that most areas have, and that is we have more demand for the effluent than we produce. So that's not going to be a problem for us. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Well, I was just asking, how are you going to get the water from there to where it's going to be used? MR. CHEATAM: That's a good question. We have reclaimed water pumping stations and a series of force mains that transfer the water from the treatment facility to the irrigation sites located all over the north part of the county. It's a pressure system with pumps and forced main piping. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Is it in place now? MR. CHEATAM: It's in place, yes, sir. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: What's your expectation of a cost per gallon? MR. CHEATAM: Cost per gallon for reclaimed water? UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Yes. MR. CHEATAM: Okay, presently we're charging 13 cents per thousand gallons. That price may stay that way or may go up. We're not really sure. We're having a study now with a consultant to look at a reclaimed water master plan to see exactly what we should be charging for reclaimed water. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes, ma'am. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Is there any forecast as to when you may run the effluent lines west of 41, say out to where Vanderbilt Drive area is? MR. CHEATAM: Okay, I'll have to defer that question to -- Jeff, do you have any idea about that? CHAIRWOFIkN MAC'KIE: I don't think that that is anywhere in the Page 14 September 9, 1999 planning process; is that right, Mr. Ilschner? MR. ILSCHNER: That's correct, Madam Chairwoman. We do not have any plans currently to extend the line system out to individual residential type property developments. We're primarily in the mode of bulk water distribution to major users of that water. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: How about the Collier golf courses? I understand that's been put on hold because they haven't got enough water coming from there. MR. ILSCHNER: We're working with the Collier company to pursue options to develop that water supply and are getting very close to a solution to their problem. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: When is the study you just mentioned about the cost to be completed, and who's doing the study? MR. CHEATAM: Okay, we've hired a consultant firm. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: What's their name, please? MR. CHEATAM: CDM, Camp, Dresser, McKee. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I've got a feeling we've got a lot of retired engineers in the room. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: And when is it to be completed? MR. CHEATAM: The study should be completed -- MR. ILSCHNER: That study should be completed in approximately three months. We have a preliminary technical report which does not include the recommendations with respect to rates. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay. Let's move to transportation issues then. Mr. Kant will take us through those. And anybody who wants to comment or has questions on this item can certainly come forward at the end of Mr. Kant's presentation. MR. KANT: Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, my name's Edward Kant, I'm the transportation services director, and I have no fancy exhibits. I want to the give you a very brief update on five areas of endeavor that we're working on. That would be roadway capital projects, traffic signals, intersection improvements, some traffic calming and some landscape projects. Roadway projects would be the -- as you've heard earlier, the Livingston Road corridor. The first segment from Radio Road north of the county line will be going out for bid very shortly. What did I say, the county line? I'm sorry, I meant Golden Gate Parkway. It will go all the way to the county line, but there are four more segments to go. The other segments are either under design or in the planning stages. The -- another project would be Radio Road from Cougar Lane to Vanderbilt Beach Road, which will be a bit later in the year 2000 fiscal year. Goodlette-Frank Road from Pine Ridge Road to Vanderbilt Beach Road is under design and construction is expected in fiscal year 2002. Keeping in mind our fiscal year predates the calendar by three months. So that's really about October, November of 2001. And then there's another project, which I know you're all interested in, but it's not ours, and that's the FDOT projects which have just started on North 41 starting about right out front here, as a matter of fact, out in front of Gulf Park Drive and going all the way up to where old 41 and new 41 split. Page 15 September 9, 1999 They had a public information meeting last night up at the Naples Park Elementary School. Their contractor is under way. You've seen the signs. The actual work will start this coming week. We have some traffic signals that we're going to be putting up. Vanderbilt Drive and lllth, Vanderbilt and Wiggins Pass, Immokalee and the Commerce Creekside Park, Collier's Reserve, which is up in flash right now, so we hope to get that fully on line within the next week. We've got a problem controller we have to get worked out. And the other major project, which is our county-wide computerized signal system, the first phase is in design. That design will be complete in about four or five months. That is -- again, that's being done under the auspices of FDOT, so we don't have a lot of control over that. And their construction schedule has that set for bidding and construction starts next summer. That's one you won't see quite the flurry of activity, because the activity will take place in individual intersections. We will be changing out a number of the string pole and wire assemblies for the mast arm assemblies as part of that project. We have some other intersection improvements either underway or scheduled. We're going to be putting a southbound right turn lane in on Shirley Street at Pine Ridge Road. A lot of people and trucks are voting with their tires on that one. Pine Ridge Road and Naples Boulevard, we're going to be extending an eastbound left turn lane. You know when you're headed east and you want to turn left into Home Depot there? Many times traffic tends to back out into the main line. We're going to extend that turn lane to try to alleviate that. Immokalee Road and River Chase Shopping Center, we're going to be doing some median modifications. Golden Gate Parkway and Airport Road is already underway. Those of you that come up that way, you'll notice that they've started to take out some guardrail. We're going to be moving the curbs and extending the dual northbound left turn lanes to help alleviate some of that traffic. Interestingly, rush hour in that section of the road starts at about 10:00 in the morning and doesn't stop again until about 7:00 at night. We have several neighborhood traffic management projects currently active; one of which is the closure of 107th, 108th Avenues in Naples Park, just west of U.S. 41. We just got the layout of the -- the engineering layout for that. We're going to be marking that up and sending it back for final designs. We probably -- before we do finalize that, and I haven't really discussed it with anyone, but we may want to have it under public workshop. And we'll finalize that and let you know. We have a couple of inquiries on some traffic calming. One is in the North Gate Village area, and the other is in the Pine Ridge subdivision. Those have just come in, so I don't really have a lot of information on those yet. And then finally, two landscaping projects, one of which I know you're very interested. Out front here from U.S. 41 -- on U.S. 41 just north of Seagate to about the Gulf Park area, that is -- the preliminary concept design on that is done. We're looking at that. And that may very well be put out to bid sometime between now and the Page 16 September 9, 1999 first of the year. Then the other piece is on Goodlette Road from Solano Drive to Pine Ridge Road, which is in front of the car dealership up to the corner there. That's a public/private partnership. We have been negotiating with several of the adjacent property owners, DeVoe Buick for one, and The Moorings Park development for another, to participate in that. Those negotiations aren't final. As soon as they are, we want to get under way with that. Those are the major issues. Obviously there's a lot of other things, a lot of neighborhood things and a lot of individual issues. One thing that I do want to tell you, and I may get myself in trouble for this, but it's the easiest way to get information back and forth, and that is that my e-mail address is Ed Kant at CollierGov. Net. And if anybody wants to get ahold of me, that's the most efficient way to do it. It sometimes takes two or three days to get a phone call back, as some of you know, but e-mail is almost daily. So again, if you have any questions, I'll try to answer them. Thank you. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes, sir. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Did I understand you correctly, you're going to be either widening or extending Goodlette-Frank Road? MR. KANT: Goodlette-Frank from Pine Ridge Road to Vanderbilt Drive is under design for four-laning, yes, sir. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Only to Vanderbilt? MR. KANT: The segment from Pine Ridge to Vanderbilt Beach is under design, that's correct. The segment from Vanderbilt Beach to Immokalee Road is not yet in the work plan, because it does not yet show deficiency status. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Well, then it might be good to put in a right turn lane where Goodlette-Frank Road comes into Immokalee Road. There's a curve there that keeps -- MR. KANT: Yes, sir, I'm very familiar with that. And that's not the first request we've had to look at that. And as soon as we can get that in the program, we will. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Thank you. MR. KANT: Yes, sir. MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairwoman, we've had a couple of people sign up to speak to the subject. We might want to call on them at this time. THE COURT REPORTER: Also, do you want them to identify themselves for the record? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: We should have, but obviously we haven't done that. And it seems to be that we get more participation if we just have people rising and asking questions, so we'll just do that and call -- UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: When there's new construction, like on 41, who is responsible for trying to maintain an orderly flow of traffic? MR. KANT: That's an excellent question. And in the case of 41, the Florida Department of Transportation has -- and I might add, when we the county do projects, we also include a traffic control plan as part of the contractor's responsibility. That traffic control plan has to be designed as part of the project so that they can move Page 17 September 9, 1999 traffic and phase in the new construction and the old construction. On the U.S. 41 project, they'll be required to maintain a minimum of two lanes of traffic in both directions, north and south, for the entire construction project. That's just what you have out there now. If you're familiar at all with what took place on the East Trail from the courthouse to Rattlesnake, which was basically a widening and drainage project, this project, at least from Gulf Park to Immokalee Road will be very similar. North of Immokalee Road is a little different. They have a bridge to rebuild and to add onto. But this particular project, which is under FDOT control, has a very stringent traffic control plan because they do have to keep four lanes open. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Real quickly, and then we'll call on the registered speakers. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: I'd like to comment that I'm truly impressed with all of the median beautification that's taken place, but I'm considerably less than impressed with the maintenance required to keep it pretty. And the -- for instance, I travel on Golden Gate Parkway between my home and the courthouse, and always during rush hour the maintenance crew has shut off the left most eastbound lane so that they can cue up their equipment in that lane and cut the grass and weed whack or whatever it is they're going to do. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Respectfully, I may -- UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: And it is always during rush hour. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: It's fun to get to punt, and this one I think you would need to talk to the vice mayor about. I think that's a city maintenance project. Sorry, Bonnie, but -- MR. KANT: Thank you, ma'am. I was going to say that I'm glad you specified which roadway, because that's -- even though it's a county owned roadway, that maintenance is the responsibility of the City of Naples. It's inside the city limits. And we've had some interesting discussions with Mr. Fidelum (phonetic) and his staff. They've just recently planted some new trees. And we're finally beginning to get the maintenance responsibilities on that particular roadway straightened out. So you picked a good one. UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF AUDIENCE: Well, regardless of which roadway we're talking about, could the maintenance not be scheduled for the middle of the night or the middle of the afternoon or sometime other than rush hour? MR. KANT: I can't speak for the City of Naples, but in Collier County we have a restriction on closing any lanes between -- before 9:00 a.m. and after 3:30 p.m. Occasionally somebody will do that, we find out about it and we shut them down. But again, you'd have to see whether or not they have that freedom in the city. No, typically we do not allow that kind of construction. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay. So let's go to registered speakers and then we can get you to come up and identify yourself for the record. MR. FERNANDEZ: We have two, Madam Chairman, that have identified this area of interest. The first is Dwight Richardson and the second is Edward Miller. Page 18 September 9, 1999 MR. RICHARDSON: You see what you get when you try to follow the rules. Dwight Richardson, Naples Park. Really, this is for you, Ed. When we had our previous meeting concerning some of these transportation projects in North Collier County, we recognized that the FDOT, with the new signs now that are up on Highway 41, being under considerable pressure, that we're probably going to have some overflow traffic into the Naples Park area. And one of the suggestions that your folks came up with, and I wanted to hear a report on, was the possibility of one way making the 8th -- 6th, 7th and 8th Avenues one way in order to discourage the use of those in both directions. Do you recall that? MR. KANT: Vividly. On -- that came up at the meeting we had on the evening of June 4th at the North Naples Community -- Veterans Community Park. And we had a great deal of discussion about the 107th, 108th. And then right toward the end of the meeting, the issue of the one-way streets came up. And I believe that a straw -- based on our notes here and my recollection and my staff's recollection, there was a straw vote taken, there was not a lot of consensus. Some people wanted one way north, one way south, split it in the middle. And the final determination was that we were going to take that back and take another look at it and see if we could come up with something that maybe we could gain consensus on. Frankly, we've not had that on the front burner, but if we do determine that we're going to do a workshop to finish off the 107th and 108th, I'm sure that will come up and maybe we can pick up some kind of consensus on how to handle it. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: I agree. COMMISSIONER CARTER: And Ed, I've also asked the property owners associations in Naples Park at their upcoming meeting to put that on their agenda for discussion and come back to us with some recommendations as how they feel about that proposal. MR. KANT: I would look forward to that. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes, sir. MR. MILLER: Hi, Madam Chairperson and commissioners. Thank you. I'm Ed Miller, Willoughby Acres Homeowners' Association president. And we've been trying for a few years to get lights on Euclid and Parkland. And they did have a petition a year or so ago, and they lost it. Now, I did contact Ms. King. I think she worked for you. MR. KANT: Yes, sir. MR. MILLER: And she was very helpful. But what I'd like to do is see if we can really move this forward, because it's getting to the time of year, it's getting darker quicker. We do enjoy walking because we've got a beautiful walking path around there. And I'd like to know if we can help. And what do we have to do to get this going? MR. KANT: If I may just bring you a little bit up to date on that. First of all, sir, we did not lose it. MR. MILLER: No, I understand that now. MR. KANT: Thank you. The petition that was presented, we were unable to verify 50 percent plus one of the signatures. In the interim, we've had some discussions with the attorney's office, with -- I know with at least Commissioner Berry, and we may have a mechanism whereby the board can Page 19 September 9, 1999 take it upon themselves to help initiate this. And so we're going to be in the process of preparing something to present something to the board, and hopefully we'll get the neighborhood support. We have some, but in order to follow through with requirements of the statute, we would have to have the 50 percent plus one. We think that we can do this through an alternate route. If we can and if we can do this in the next month to six weeks, even then it will take at minimum six months to -- six to nine months for FP&L to -- you know, they have to do the design drawings and everything and we have to kind of defer to them, so you're looking about at a year, give or make. MR. MILLER: Okay. But if there's anything we can do. I even have people that are committed to go out and get new petitions, you know, so please, if you'd get back to me, I would appreciate it. Thank you. MR. KANT: Thank you. We will keep you in the loop. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Anybody else want to speak on this particular topic? If you do, come forward, if you would, please, to the microphone. MR. LYDON: I don't feel the need to come forward. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: But for the record you are? MR. LYDON: I'm Dick Lydon. And I like Ed, since you have decided without anybody knowing anything about it, putting the light up at Vanderbilt -- or at Immokalee Road and Vanderbilt Drive at lllth, you're going to put a light up there, is that what I -- MR. KANT: At Vanderbilt Drive and lllth, that's correct. MR. LYDON: Would you be kind enough to speak with Mr. Hunter and the good lieutenant and see if we can't get some police. Because once that green light is green coming south, we're going to have a lot of trouble getting them slowed down to 25 miles an hour. We can't get them to stop at the stop signs, I don't know how we're going to do that. And we've kicked this stoplight around 19 times from Sunday, and I thought we'd agreed that it wasn't going to help. MR. KANT: It's not -- MR. LYDON: It's not going to help. MR. KANT: Mr. Lydon, I know we've had some conversations along these lines. If I may, Madam Chairwoman? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Please. MR. KANT: Traffic signals are not done on a whim. We have a rather intensive engineering effort that has to go into determining whether and where traffic signals will be appropriate traffic control devices. We have approximately 30 or 40 intersections, and the list varies from year to year that we study, either because of citizen inquiries or because we look at the traffic numbers and they begin to tell us stories. And every year we study, as I say, a number of intersections, and some years they get to the point where these engineering criteria called warrants are met, and when a signal is warranted, we then put it in the program, present it to the board for funding and we move forward with it. Sometimes your favorite intersection where you think the only thing that's going to solve the problem is a traffic signal doesn't get warranted. Sometimes it takes two or three years to get to that level of traffic. There are a number of different factors, and I'm not going to Page 20 September 9, 1999 bore you with them this evening, but I just want to reassure you that when we make the decision to recommend a traffic signal, it is not done lightly. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Other registered -- other speakers? Come forward, if you would please, ma'am. MS. RAND: I just wanted to add something to Mr. Lydon's statement. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And your name, please? MS. RAND: Pardon? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Would you mind giving us your name? MS. RAND: My name's Mary Ellen Rand. And I live a couple of blocks from that intersection. I can understand and anticipate problems with people continuing on that green light. And I wonder if there's any other measures that might be added in addition to the design of the light or signaling or signing that could slow people down. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Typically on a new traffic signal installation, we will put some additional advanced warnings. One of the things that we can't control, and the Sheriff and his staff don't always have the best control over, is driver behavior. And unfortunately, we can engineer only so much into or so much out of a particular location. And they can only enforce based on manpower and other constraints. So everybody sitting in this room that's got a driver's license has got a certain duty. And without getting into that, we're going to do our best to make sure that you get a reasonably pleasant and comfortable driving experience, but, you know, it's a two-way -- pardon the play on words, a two-way street. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes, sir, your name? MR. YARUSEVICH: A1 Yarusevich, Vanderbilt Beach. On the traffic light, I want to know how we came about to say that we need a light there. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Thank you, Ed, that's a great idea. MR. KANT: Sorry, Ed. Which location, sir? MR. YARUSEVICH: A1 Yarusevich from Vanderbilt Beach. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Isn't that the question he just answered, though, about the -- MR. YARUSEVICH: No, he didn't answer it. He talked around it, but he never answered it. MR. KANT: It met the traffic signal warrants and the result findings of the engineering study. That's the answer. MR. YARUSEVICH: Well, has any of your people been there to see what this traffic does during the day? MR. KANT: Yes, sir, and that's why we've made that recommendation. MR. YARUSEVICH: Well, I live there and I go through that intersection at least a half a dozen times a day, and the only time I have a problem getting through 'there is the three months when everybody's down here. And I think what we're doing is catering to the people that come down here for three months out of the year and totally disregarding the people that live here 12 months of the year. Because there is no problems there other than during the three months, Sundays and Saturdays. Page 21 September 9, 1999 COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: May I ask a question? Usually the objection we get from the public is why aren't you putting up a traffic signal. MR. YARUSEVICH: We don't need one. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: So can someone explain to me what the concern is -- maybe you can -- what the concern is, what is the problem you are afraid of if the traffic signal goes up? MR. YARUSEVICH: Okay, number one, traffic signals do not control traffic to the degree that it helps it flow. It only controls it to back it up, to make sure that the light is green in two ways, one way at a time. The second thing is, if people are coming down Vanderbilt Drive and they see that stop sign, they're all stopping. If there's a traffic signal there, if the guy is in the front and the light turns red, he stops, he may make a left to go on lllth. If it is green, he is not slowing down and he's not going to turn. He's going straight through, right through the residential area. And that's the problem. You're going to go put more traffic in that area than there is right now. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes, sir. If you would identify yourself for the record. MR. LILLY: Yes, Richard Lilly. I'm a Naples Park resident and I'm building on Vanderbilt Drive. Ed and I know each other. Ed, and you're doing a great job, and I know it. It's a harassment, but you guys do a real good job. When we look at the width of that corner, you're going to have to put an awful long left turn lane going south, because that of course is a lot of the traffic that comes down, especially during the rush hours, and we know that. Then you're going to have the traffic coming north. With Route 41 being under construction, you're going to get a lot of people going down Vanderbilt Beach Road, making a right turn and coming up Vanderbilt Drive. What are you planning on the right turns and the left turns? I mean, how much room do you have to put extra lanes in and how far back would you do it? MR. KANT: We have sufficient right-of-way, we have not gone into design, and I can't answer the question tonight, but you and I will talk. MR. LILLY: Thank you very much. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Other comments on the transportation matters? Yes, sir? MR. PETERSON: My name is Marvin Peterson. I'm the property owner -- Pelican Bay Property Owners Association. I actually signed the sheet for the public comment. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Well, we're going there next. MR. PETERSON: Okay. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: You can kick us off. MR. PETERSON: The only comment I have is that with regard to the Highway 41 widening, the property owners, we initiated the beautification, the landscaping of the median. And fortunately we're very happy to know that the county is now proceeding with that program. And one of the problems we initially had wasn't the initial Page 22 September 9, 1999 funding of it, was the maintenance. And at that point in time the county hadn't really -- I guess had come up with a policy as to who would pay for the maintenance. Now, it's my understanding that the county has taken a consistent position in that they will be maintaining this -- the median in this area. COMMISSIONER CARTER: That's correct. It will be paid for through the MSTD for this district. MR. PETERSON: Thank you. And thank you, Commissioner Carter, for that result. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay, let's go to our -- do we have registered public speakers on public comments? MR. FERNANDEZ: We have three, Madam Chairwoman. The first is Sally Barker and then Bill Turner. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: If Mr. Turner will go ahead and come forward and be on deck, as they say. MS. BARKER: Get out my crib notes here. For the record, my name is Sally Barker. I'm chairman of the Property Owners' Associations of North Collier County/The Second District Association. We take bets at monthly meetings as to whether I can say that in one breath or not. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. But on behalf of the association, I would like to thank you all for being here this evening. We don't often get a collective crack at you outside of regularly scheduled meetings, and we appreciate your making yourselves available to us this evening. These town hall meetings, it's a great concept. I attended the one in Golden Gate and thought you did a great job here, and you're doing a great job here tonight. I also want to thank you for the new regional library. It was just three to four years ago the county was entertaining a serious proposal to sell that land for a new shopping center. And the county commission listened to us and you didn't sell it, and now we're getting a new library. COMMISSIONER CONSTANTINE: Entertaining is the right word. That's -- entertaining at best. It was a terrible idea. MS. BARKER: But the real reason I'm up here is a subject that I've gotten a number of calls on and I'm sure you've gotten a number of calls on and that is the building height on commercially zoned property. As you all are very well aware, we're about to get a 125-foot building just down the road there a little bit. To say that that is inappropriate in that location is probably putting it a little mildly. And I'm sorry if this repeats a lot of what I said in my letter to Commissioner Mac'Kie last week, but I think we need to go over it again, because I have had so many comments about it. We know this building is legal. We know there's nothing we can do to stop it. It's going to happen. It's unfortunate. The land is -- well was already previously zoned. 100 foot building heights are legal in the C-4 zoning, so what are we going to do? What I am asking that you do is to seriously consider amending the Land Development Code in the next cycle soon to put a maximum cap on building heights in commercially zoned properties. And those -- this would pertain mostly, I guess, to those properties outside PUD's. And we still have quite a few pockets of C-4, C-5 around the county that are not in PUD's that could be subjected to considerably more Page 23 September 9, 1999 monstrosities of this type. We certainly don't need any more of these in North Naples. And as I said to you in my letter, the problem here does not stem from our local developers. By and large, with a couple of exceptions, they have been sensitive to the characteristics of our community. But we are vulnerable to outsiders, and as the outsiders who are building this 125-foot monstrosity. And I think we need to use the close the barn door approach again as we did with the commercial design guidelines. Close the door, get those building heights down and maybe the rest of the county won't have to suffer. But again, I urge you to take that under consideration, and thank you for being here this evening. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you, Sally. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER CARTER: Prior to that mention of her letter coming to you, Commissioner Mac'Kie, I had sent a memo down through Bob Fernandez and I have talked to Ron Nino about this, to bring that into the next LDC cycle with a recommendation of taking it down to 75 foot, with some other verbiage, which Ron can say much better than I can, that gives us some flexibility. If you have a very large piece of property, you may be able to go higher, have a needle verses spreading stuff out. But when you've got these small pieces of property, we want to pull that down so we don't get a repeat. The other thing I will say to you, that the fire marshal and our own building inspector will be watching this building very carefully. And this guy kind of got in our face in the paper. He said all you have to do is live by the law. Well, we're going to show him what the law is in Collier County, and we will make sure that he follows every inch of the law to get this done in the proper way. (Applause.) MR. FERNANDEZ: Next speaker is Bill Turner and Marvin Peterson. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Mr. Peterson, if you'll come on down. MR. PETERSON: I already spoke. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Oh, you did. I'm sorry. MR. TURNER: My name is Bill Turner and I'm treasurer of the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association, Madam Chairperson and commissioners. We welcome you to Pelican Bay. And also, we appreciate your staff taking the time to be with us. I think it's very informative for those of us who are now permanent residents who have moved from the north down here. And we know that it's a constraint on the staff, so maybe it would be appropriate for all of us in the audience to give the staff some applause for being here. (Applause.) MR. TURNER: I would like to address Ron -- where's Ron, Ron Nino. I have a question that was on our front burner for the Pelican Bay Property Owners Association. We had a developer who had gone to plan and zone and had requested that the height of some of the high-rises be increased from approximately 210 to 250 feet. And his commitment was that he would reduce a number of ground level units that he had in Crown Colony. This is Gulf Bay that had the development project going for an additional high-rise in an area where I live. But I'm representing Page 24 September 9, 1999 the property owners at this particular time. The PUD had some restrictions on the height of the buildings along Pelican Bay Boulevard. Has there been any changes, or have any other developers, including Gulf Bay, been back to your office requesting to increase the height of some of the buildings along Pelican Bay Boulevard? MR. NINO: No, there hasn't been. MR. TURNER: And what was the original action, Ron, that the -- your department took? MR. NINO: That petition was withdrawn. There was a petition filed a year and a half ago or so, and that petition was subsequently withdrawn after they determined that there was such opposition to it. MR. TURNER: In other words, though, if there was not the -- if the petition had been not recognized by some of the unit owners or individuals, that the petition could have been acted upon and the PUD could have been changed to increase that height. What we're talking about is a 25-story building going from 210 to 250 feet. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes, sir, but you need to understand that PUD amendments go through the Board of Commissioners and it takes four votes, four out of the five. It can't just go through the staff. MR. TURNER: So they need four positive votes. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Yes. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes, sir. MR. TURNER: Thank you very much. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Is there anyone else who'd like to comment who hasn't registered but wants to just make a general comment or has a general question? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: If you would, just come right up. Anybody else, if you'll be coming forward now, we'd appreciate that. MS. SOURBEER: Good evening. My name's Maria Sourbeer. And don't laugh, that's the name. I've been -- I was the president of the Naples Park area association for the past 10 years. This year I gave it up. I had to. I couldn't walk. Now I've got two new hips, I'm going to be back there fighting. But what I'm concerned about is although you say it takes four votes for these people to get their plans approved, have any of you taken the time to drive down Vanderbilt Beach Drive and Vanderbilt Beach Road? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes. MS. SOURBEER: The drive and the road? Have you seen that Regatta or whatever they call that thing they built on the corner? It's a crime. There's nothing there but just building. Where's the space around that thing? Where are the cars going to go that are supposed to have to park for that thing? Now, there's not much land left in North Collier in the Vanderbilt area, so I ask you, please, be careful with what you approve to be built. Especially when it's as high as that is. That looks to me not to be five or six stories high as they projected but about eight or 10. So where are these inspectors? Are they watching what they're building? I hope. I hope so. Thank you very much. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes, ma'am, they certainly are watching what they're building, but we appreciate that. MS. SOURBEER: Oh, it's pitiful, that corner. I could show you a Page 25 September 9, 1999 picture where there's nothing there, now there's nothing there but concrete. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Marie, I empathize with what you said. And Ron, maybe you could comment and just give the group a little history of what's happened there. If you think that's bad, you ought to see what was originally scheduled for there. It would have been -- MS. SOURBEER: I can't imagine it could be worse. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Oh, a lot worse. So Ron, maybe you could just give us a quick rundown on what we. This was, I think, prior to any of us being on the commission. MR. NINO: Yes, that property has been zoned commercial for many, many years, and that commercial designation allowed a hotel. And the developer, the owner of that property, successfully made application for constructing a 180-unit hotel. Appreciate when we talk about a hotel, we're not just talking about rooms, we're talking about convention facilities, we're talking about restaurants. And that was approved and that could have been a 10-story building. In addition to the 180-hotel units and the accessory activities that normally are -- take place in a hotel, they also received approval for 14,000 square feet of retail shopping areas. And that project was grandfathered. You all know what that means, they retained a legal right to do that project. That would have -- I might -- that would have resulted, in my opinion, in three times as much traffic, if traffic is the primary concern, that this project, the condominiums, are going to generate. In addition to that, if your concern is that there's a lot of building space on that property, you're correct. But there could have been as much and perhaps more with the development that was allowed to go there. So one could reasonably say that this was a down-zoning of the property. It's still not nice, it's true, but they had the law on their side and they received a court order to change it, actually, to a 180-unit condominium project with 5,000 square feet of commercial space. So it's a lot less of a project, lot less of an impact than could have occurred there, all within the scope of the law. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yeah, and just so you know, that that project that Ron refers to that was grandfathered was something that was approved by a board of commissioners a long time ago. So we did the best we could with what we had. Come right up, if you would, please, to the microphone. MS. RAND: Yeah, just about that specific project. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Who are you, please, ma'am? MS. RAND: My name's Mary Ellen Rand. And I have a question about the LDC requirements for buffering. Would they even for -- when a project goes in for development order review, wouldn't it be subject to the requirements for buffering? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Ron, you want to take that? MR. NINO: Yes, there is -- there are requirements for perimeter buffering and street buffering. For example there would be a 10-foot buffer requirement on Vanderbilt Drive and a 15-foot buffer requirement on Vanderbilt Beach Road. There's also a 10-foot interior lot line buffer requirement. Page 26 September 9, 1999 So there will be some green space between the buildings. But that's consistent with the provisions of the Land Development Code in terms of a 10-foot buffer requirement in which they have to plant grass and a tree every 25 feet. And you know, that's the requirement. And that will be there. That is provided for in that development plan. In addition, you might be -- there is a -- there will be a six-foot masonry wall built around that project there. As a pedestrian, you're really not going to see the great activities that occur there. And hopefully there'll be a lot of landscaping. I think there will be a lot of landscaping there. But you've got to give it a chance to grow. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Anybody else? Yes, sir. MR. DECKER: I'm Nelson Decker, president of the Greenwood Homeowners Association, and I would just like to ask a question with respect to the drinking water in Collier County. I know that -- I'd like to actually commend the county employees and the Board of County Commissioners. It's -- Collier County is actually run I think in a very good way in the overall. There are individual problems, individual areas. In the overall, I think a fantastic job is done. But we have about 30 additional people coming into Collier County every day. And what I'm wondering, a question I have, is what is being done about fresh water supply to take care of this need? CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Is that for you, Mr. Ilschner? MR. ILSCHNER: Yes, it is, Madam Chairwoman. For the record, Ed Ilschner, public works administrator. The county just finished a major expansion of its existing north water treatment plant, located on Vanderbilt Beach Road, east of 951. That existing plant had a capacity of 12 million gallons of water treatment a day. We could produce that much water out of that particular plant. We expanded that plant with high pressure membrane or reverse osmosis using brackish water wells and now have a capacity at that plant of 20 million gallons per day. And if we combine that with the capacity that we have at our south water treatment plant, we have plenty of water to meet the needs of this community as it -- with its current growth rate for approximately another six years. Now, Bob Fernandez, our county administrator, reviewing our master plans, wanted us to ensure that we had on-line a year early this time a capacity to meet future needs. And we have issued a contract with an engineering firm now to do the expansion of the south water treatment plant, and that will be on-line then a year early, and we're going to be in good shape for potable water for the foreseeable future. MR. DECKER: Even then this new thing that we heard about recently with the possible contamination of some of the water, because of Calusa Bay over here and possibilities of maybe some other lakes like that, you still feel that we have this kind of resource coming on stream. MR. ILSCHNER: Our water supply does not come from what's generally referred to as the water table aquifer, a very shallow aquifer along the Goodlette-Frank Road and over toward U.S. 41. The City of Naples has water wells that come out of that particular Page 27 September 9, 1999 aquifer area. And that aquifer would have no impact on Collier County's supply of water in the future. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: And also, let's just take the moment to reflect that there had been a concern about a possible contamination, but there in fact was none. So you're right, that it gave us a good heads up to be careful and to watch, or for the City of Naples to be careful and to look, because theirs is the system that is the most shallow. But I wanted just to clarify that in fact there was no contamination. MR. ILSCHNER: Madam Chairwoman, I think we've had some concern expressed from people in Pine Ridge about protection of that particular aquifer. And at this point in time Collier County is going to be working with four other agencies: The Collier County Department of Health, the South Florida Water Management District, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and we will be working with these groups. And before we can sit down with them and evaluate and determine a course of action as to whether something needs to be done with respect to Calusa Bay, we have to wait for the engineering hydrological studies that are being performed. One by Mismer (phonetic) International in the City of Naples has employed an engineering firm to look into the matter as well. Once that information is available, we will sit down with our Community Development Environmental Services department, or division, and we will evaluate that action and have a course of action in place, if there needs to be one. COMMISSIONER CARTER: Also, my understanding that they have done a random sampling of wells in Pine Ridge. We don't have the results yet. MR. ILSCHNER: That's correct. Alan Ruth with the Collier County Department of Health has done some random sampling of the wells in Pine Ridge. The result of that sampling is not back at this point. MR. DECKER: Thank you very much. I would have one other comment I would like to make and it's a subject that I've mentioned before, and that is I wish the commissioners would take every opportunity that they can possibly find to increase impact fees and find new ways to put on new impact fees to the fullest extent possible. And I think that maybe even everybody in here should give a round of applause or something to show that we're all favoring that same thing. (Applause.) MR. DECKER: Please, get the message. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Yes, sir. COMMISSIONER BERRY: Shall we make it retroactive? MR. DECKER: Sure, if you can, go ahead and do it. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Okay. Do we have anybody else who would like to address the board? We'd love to hear from you, if you would. Is there -- last call. Oh, here we go. MR. TAI~-NER: My name is Wes Tanner. I was just wondering, is there any plans to extend Piper Boulevard and Frontage Road to the Strand? And is there enough right-of-way since they cleaned the ditch out? COMMISSIONER BERRY: That's the problem. MR. KANT: For the record, Edward Kant, transportation services director. Page 28 September 9, 1999 We have hired a consultant to help us to analyze that. The short answer is I can't answer tonight because we don't have the final results. As far as the right-of-way, there is some right-of-way, but there is also the right-of-way stops short of Strand Boulevard. There is a platted buffer easement between the end of the Piper Boulevard -- or what would be the end of Piper Boulevard and what would be a connection to Strand Boulevard. So at this point, while I can't make any final pronouncements, I can tell you it doesn't look good. You wanted an answer, that's the most honest answer I can give you. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: That's what we want. MR. TANNER: One other question. In that area, since you can't extend that, what's our possibility of getting an overlay from Lakeland east to Livingston? MR. KANT: You're talking about an overlay on Piper? MR. TANNER: Yeah, I've called several times. MR. KANT: Yeah, when we put our road surveys together, you know, we will prioritize that, along with everything else. That road was put together in kind of bits and pieces, so it probably is getting close to an overlay. CHAIRWOMAN MAC'KIE: Anybody else? Comments from the board? I guess we're going home. Thanks for coming. (Applause.) COMMISSIONER CARTER: Thank you very much. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 8:30 p.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS/EX OFFICIO GOVERNING BOARD(S) OF TROL ~MELA S. MAC'KIE, CHAIRWOMAN These minutes approved by the Board one, presented / or as corrected Page 29 September 9, 1999 TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE, INC., BY CHERIE' R. LEONE, NOTARY PUBLIC Page 30