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CCPC Minutes 03/19/2026 (Draft)March 19, 2026 Page 1 TRANSCRIPT OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION Naples, Florida, March 19, 2026 LET IT BE REMEMBERED that the Collier County Planning Commission, in and for the County of Collier, 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: Acting Chairman: Chuck Schumacher Secretary: Paul Shea, Randy Sparrazza Michael Petscher Michelle L. McLeod CCSB Rep.: Amy Lockhart Chairman: Joe Schmitt (Absent) Michael Petscher ALSO PRESENT: Raymond V. Bellows, Zoning Manager Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning Director Heidi Ashton-Cicko, Managing Assistant County Attorney Courtney DeSilva, County Attorney's Office Ailyn Padron, Management Analyst I James Sabo, Planner III March 19, 2026 Page 2 MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Good morning, and welcome to the March 19th Collier County Planning Commission. Starting out, please rise for Pledge of Allegiance. (The Pledge of Allegiance was recited in unison.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Secretary Shea, will do you roll call, please. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Chairman Schmitt, not here. Vice Chair Schumacher? CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Secretary Shea is here. Commissioner Sparrazza? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Commissioner McLeod? COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Commissioner Petscher is not here. Ms. Lockhart? MS. LOCKHART: Here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: We have a quorum, sir. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All right. Thank you. Ray, any addenda to the agenda today? MR. BELLOWS: I have no changes. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Thank you. Planning Commission absences. Our next meeting is -- it's April 1st, I believe. COMMISSIONER SHEA: 2nd. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: 2nd. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: April fools. Gotcha. COMMISSIONER SHEA: That was quick. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: So April 2nd. Does anybody know if they will be here or not here? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I just wanted to confirm I March 19, 2026 Page 3 thought there was a question on if it's starting at noon or 1:00 and then again at 5:05 p.m. MR. BELLOWS: Yes. MR. BOSI: And I was -- Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. It's 1 o'clock. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: 1 o'clock. MR. BOSI: One o'clock on the 2nd. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Oh, it's 1. It's not noon anymore? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Yeah, because we did see noon. MR. BOSI: It's 1. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: It's 1 o'clock. All right. Well -- COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Thanks for pointing that out. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: It will be another nail biter. Approval of minutes. COMMISSIONER SHEA: What about the second meeting? CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Oh, I'm sorry. What is the second meeting like? Is that the -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: 16th. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: 16th. Anybody know if they'll be here or not here or -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: I may not. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: You may not? MS. LOCKHART: I won't be here. COMMISSIONER SHEA: I'm having surgery, and I don't know that I'll be ready to come back. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Got it. What do we have planned for the 16th, Mr. Bosi? MR. BOSI: I believe we have four petitions. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Four petitions, okay. March 19, 2026 Page 4 COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: And, Mike, can I ask about April 2nd, the 1 o'clock meeting? I get the notices, but I don't have it memorized. MR. BOSI: I believe that April 2nd is only one petition. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: One petition. All right. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Any reason why we can't start it a little later? Do we anticipate that petition being a lengthy one? MR. BOSI: Those advertisements and notifications have already been distributed. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. Fair. MR. BOSI: Yes. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So we lost -- originally we were going to have four on that date. Now we're down to one. MR. BOSI: No, I was thinking of a different -- Ray just got to the look-ahead, and we are at four petitions, so yes. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Four. Okay. COMMISSIONER SHEA: On the 2nd? MR. BOSI: On the 2nd, which starts at 1. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All right. Approval of meeting minutes. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: So moved. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Moved. Second? COMMISSIONER SHEA: I'll second. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All in favor? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: (No verbal response.) COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All right, great. County Commissioner recaps? March 19, 2026 Page 5 MR. BELLOWS: Yes. During the March 10th BCC meeting, there were no land-use petitions heard. There was one LDC amendment, but that was continued to the April board meeting. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: April board meeting, okay. There's no Chairman's report. I don't have anything on the consent agenda. All right. That brings us to our first advertised item, PL20240001182, the Capling SR29 mine. All those wishing to be heard on this, please rise to be sworn in. THE COURT REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. Disclosures. We'll start with Ms. Lockhart. MS. LOCKHART: Text materials only. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Staff materials only. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: How about you? CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Go ahead. No, you go first. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Staff materials only. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Staff materials, spoke with Mike Bosi, and spoke with Rich Yovanovich. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: I had staff materials and a conversation with Mr. Yovanovich. Okay. The floor is yours. MS. HARRELSON: Good morning. I'm Jessica Harrelson, certified planner with Peninsula Engineering. We have a team here this morning which includes Rich Yovanovich, our legal counsel; Jenna Woodward, our licensed engineer; Norm Trebilcock for traffic; Jeremy Sterk for environmental; and Kim Arnold with Kimley-Horn. March 19, 2026 Page 6 The subject property is roughly 1400 acres in size. It's located north of Oil Well Road, east of State Road 29, and has been used for agricultural purposes for many, many years. The request is for a conditional use to permit commercial excavation on the subject property. The site is within the agricultural zoning district, Mobile Home Overlay, Rural Land Stewardship Area Overlay, and the Area of Critical State Concern. Most of the property is designated as open lands under the RLSA and will be developed under baseline standards. There is some FSA and HSA designated lands along the eastern portion of the property which will not be impacted by the development. This is a depiction of the site plan over an aerial. Access is an existing location along State Road 29. This access will be improved and permitted per FDOT standards. Just roughly about 100 acres will be excavated on the property in this location here. We have the scale house and office in this location here, which is about a half mile from the entrance, which will allow sufficient staging of the haul trucks on site. One minor change I need to mention that occurred after we received staff sufficiency is that we shifted the scale house and equipment operations just slightly south. This guarantees that the scale house will be located outside of an existing ERP permit. It just simplifies the process for the engineering team as they move forward with permitting. The proposed project is not anticipated to create any adverse impact on directly adjacent property owners. We have -- where the excavation limits are, there's conserved lands and active agricultural uses. Per conditions of approval, these are your typical conditions that you've seen in other mining projects that we've brought forward in the last couple of months for traffic trips. We've limited to 82 March 19, 2026 Page 7 two-way a.m. peak-hour trips for the haul trucks. We've added hours of operation. Staging is prohibited within the State Road 29 right-of-way. A dust control management plan is required as part of our excavation permit. We've added conditions regarding blasting, should that become necessary. And Condition No. 19 was added by staff last week just requiring County to send a copy of the application to the Florida Department of Commerce to ensure consistency with the Area of Critical State Concern. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Is that 1500 feet a legal number? MS. HARRELSON: We've added that in as a -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: But is it an arbitrary number, or is that defined somewhere as -- MS. HARRELSON: I believe that started with another mining project that had a little bit of public opposition. There are state-level requirements. I'm not sure if it's 1500 feet. I think the State requires something further away. So I think the County implemented something closer for the notification. The last condition I wanted to review is we did commit to installing a 10-foot-high berm along the southern limits of the excavation. This was through coordination with two surrounding property owners, just to ensure further compatibility of the use. We held a NIM last April. No one from the public attended. And that concludes my very brief presentation, and we'll open it up for questions. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Thank you for keeping it brief. Commissioner McLeod. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Yes. So I just wanted to point out that I so appreciated the Florida history -- the extensive Florida history that was mentioned in the packet. I felt like I was reading "A Land Remembered." I don't know if you ever read that book, but it March 19, 2026 Page 8 was great. So who did that? Who was able to -- MS. HARRELSON: Oh, was it in my narrative? COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Yeah. MS. HARRELSON: Yeah, that was me. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Great job. And then I only had one other question, and I may have missed it in the packet, but -- so you're going to -- you're going to have a well and septic there on the property. Is there, like, going to be an office that you need septic or -- MS. HARRELSON: Yeah. So there will be a small office or temporary -- they're usually, like, temp construction trailers while the mining operation is occurring, and it holds, you know, a couple of employees, and it will be on well and septic. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And it will be there permanently? MS. HARRELSON: Until the mine ceases. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. MS. HARRELSON: Yep. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Thank you. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Do you know how long that will be? MS. HARRELSON: We have up to, right now, 35 years is what the condition is. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Thirty-five years? MS. HARRELSON: Yeah. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Quick question. In one of the letters of opposition, it stated that 73 percent of this property was altered, which is not true? Because you're only within 100, correct, out of the 14. MS. HARRELSON: Right. So we are only altering 10 percent of the property. And I believe that was a letter from the Conservancy that was received prior to us changing the plan. March 19, 2026 Page 9 CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Correct. Got it. Thank you. Staff? MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. Staff has reviewed the proposal related to transportation, environmental impact, stormwater, landscaping, and overall land-use perspective. We are recommending approval. We have added the 19th condition for this mine related to the transmittal of this application to the Department of Commerce. It's a requirement. Whenever you -- we have an activity, whether it be a building permit, whether it be an SDP, or whether it be a rezone, conditional use, we're required to send any activity in the Area of Critical State Concern, which this is in, to the Department of Commerce for comments. So that's why that was added to the list of conditional uses. Other than that, staff is recommending -- recommending approval. It's consistent with the GMPA and the LDC. And any questions you guys may have, we'll be happy to answer. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Excellent. Any public comment? MR. SABO: Mr. Chairman, no public speakers are registered. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: No public speakers. Close the public portion and open it up to Board discussion. Go ahead -- I'm sorry. Secretary Shea. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Can you speak more to the -- we have petitions come in here and residents that complain about blasting distance and that it's not an effective distance because they're getting cracks and things. I'd like to understand more how you decide what that criteria is. I thought the State decided it, and that's what everybody adopted, and that apparently wasn't sufficient. MR. BOSI: We have a very complicated mathematical formula that I can read to you, and then we could -- we'll have a little March 19, 2026 Page 10 discussion. It says, if a structure's within a distance of 200 feet times the square root of the charge away from the blast, as illustrated by the following formula, distance equals 200 times width, one-half where D equals the distance in feet and W equals weight of the charges and pounds of explosive delay. If the structure is within 500 feet of a blast permitted for any size charge, we have -- we'll do that, 500. So basically, if there's a structure within 500 feet of the blasting, we will have a mandated requirement. And if it's beyond that 500 feet, if it meets the formulaic -- the formulaic criteria, then that would -- then inspections will be performed there as well. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Do we feel that that criteria is acceptable given every time we have a mine, somebody comes in with pictures of a cracked foundation? MR. BOSI: We have not been -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: And we're about to do the same thing. MR. BOSI: Staff has not initiated a change to that procedure, nor has the Planning Commission or the Board of County Commissioners. Based upon that lack of direction, we believe that the -- that the standard is adequate. MS. COOK: Jaime Cook, the Development Review director. The blasters are required to do pre-blast surveys. They cannot blast within 300 feet of any structure or existing right-of-way. And as Mike mentioned, that formula that's in there does dictate whether they need to expand beyond that 350 -- 500 feet for any pre-blast surveys. But our code of ordinances, which regulates all of this, does match the state statute. COMMISSIONER SHEA: When you lay out the area that they're going to work in and that -- where blasting might occur, how far is it from their property line? March 19, 2026 Page 11 MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm sorry. I missed the question. MS. COOK: Until we actually receive the request for the blast permit, I can't answer that question. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Most of the blasting -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: The question was, in your footprint, you're obviously not going to blast the whole thing. Is it -- is it a thousand feet from any of the property lines? Just to get a little level of comfort. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, the answer is, I'm assuming until we figure out where the rock is we don't know the answer to where we may or may not need to blast. I think -- I think what the smarter thing today is to just say we'll be -- we'll meet the state standards, instead of having this 1500-foot, because it almost implies that we may be -- we may be reducing the requirement for a pre-blast by putting the 1500 feet in. Because if there's a structure that shows up later, it almost implies that we would not have to provide the State-mandated notice. So I think we should remove that ambiguity and just say we'll meet the rules and regulations by the State, because the State basically -- and Heidi will correct me if I'm wrong -- has preempted this area, and they are in charge of deciding when and where we have to provide notification and do these studies. So I don't think we should do anything that might imply that we're doing something less than the State standards or even more than the State standards, because they've preempted that area. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: I was actually going to -- MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yes, that's correct. We are preempted in how explosives can be used but not where mines can be located. So you're here regulating the zoning of where a mine can be located. It's under Chapter 552 of the Florida Statutes, so... MR. YOVANOVICH: And if you look -- March 19, 2026 Page 12 COMMISSIONER SHEA: You made a suggestion, right, that we take the 1500 feet out? MR. YOVANOVICH: Take the 1500 feet out. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So I'm looking for staff or somebody to tell me what they think about that. MR. BOSI: What I heard from the County Attorney's Office is we are preempted related to blasting, to the State. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So -- CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: To the State. MR. BOSI: To the State. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So his proposal is probably reasonable? MR. BOSI: Yes. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Okay. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: The location is based on -- I mean, is our determination. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, you have limited criteria. You have the conditional-use criteria that you have to apply to the scenario. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Which one do you want to take out? MR. YOVANOVICH: I forget which number it was, Heidi. It was under the blasting criteria that we have. If you look, it's -- MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Well, under 16. I don't see an issue with any of the things that we have here. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, there's a 1500-foot number in our presentation. I'll go back and look at your resolution. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Yeah, but it's notification and inspections. MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah. It says we have to provide notification. It's 16A and B both have the 1500 feet in there -- I'm sorry, B and C have the 1500 feet in there. March 19, 2026 Page 13 COMMISSIONER SHEA: So that should not preempt anything, should it? MS. ASHTON-CICKO: I mean, the notice doesn't have to do with the actual blasting activity. You know, it's just procedural. It's, you know -- and where it's located, pre-blast inspections within 15 [sic] feet, there may -- I approved it for legal sufficiency. I mean, are you saying that has to come out? Because this was negotiated with your -- with your team and staff. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, it wasn't negotiated. It was told to us that we needed to put this in. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yeah. But as you know, you don't put conditions in if you don't agree with them. MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, we put them in -- I don't think we should have any condition that is contrary to the State blasting. So if we're not required to do pre-inspection under the State criteria, we shouldn't -- we shouldn't be required to do anything that's not consistent with the State statute, State rules. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Yeah. I personally like the pre-inspection idea. MR. YOVANOVICH: But that -- again -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: I know. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Well, we can leave it in, and I can specifically research that question. And if we're in agreement that we're preempted, we'll take it out, or you can just request that it be taken out. MR. YOVANOVICH: Again, all I'm saying is we're fine with meeting the mandated State criteria, and I think that's what we should do and not run the risk. And I'm happy to talk between now and the BCC with Heidi about whether or not you can impose more stringent pre-inspections criteria. If you want us to notify people, property owners, just simply notify them, you know, okay, but when -- I just -- March 19, 2026 Page 14 MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Is the 1500 feet on your property or off site? MR. YOVANOVICH: Well, it says 1500 feet within. So if you look -- I've got the -- it's right up here. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Well, if it's requiring pre-blasting inspections off site, that might be an issue. MR. YOVANOVICH: It is -- it is requiring. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Oh, it is off site? Then we're probably going to have to take that off. MR. YOVANOVICH: Right. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: I didn't understand that it wasn't on the property. MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah. We -- why would you make me inspect my own... CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: That -- my question was going to be is how close would a blasting site be to the next nearest home? MR. YOVANOVICH: Look at where we are. There's nothing. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Yeah. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yeah. If we're preempted, we'll take it out. So we'll fix that before the Board if it's applicable. MR. YOVANOVICH: Okay. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Any other Board discussion? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: No. Motion? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Rich, if I may. Do you have an estimate how close around your area is the closest neighbor? MR. YOVANOVICH: The nearest home, it's probably more than a half a mile away, which even I know that's more than 1500 feet. March 19, 2026 Page 15 MS. ASHTON-CICKO: Yeah. I mean, if owners are concern, they should take a video of their own property with the date, you know, and then they can address that themselves. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: And there were no folks at the NIM, correct, on this? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah. Nobody was there. You know, this is -- I think the picture -- COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: It's out in nowhere. MR. YOVANOVICH: -- if you look at the picture -- COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Yeah. MR. YOVANOVICH: -- we're nowhere around anywhere. I mean, this is clearly an appropriate location for an earth mine. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Just confirming. Thank you for your answer. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All right. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Can I have -- did I misread something? I thought you were recommend -- staff was recommending that we don't approve it. Has that changed? MR. BOSI: What I was saying, that there was -- staff was saying we are preempted to the State related to the blasting pre-inspection. We can still provide notification within 1500 feet. COMMISSIONER SHEA: No, I'm obviously jumping beyond the blasting issue. I'm talking about the petition itself. I thought in the documents I read you were not in favor. MR. BOSI: No. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Okay. MR. BOSI: As contained in the staff report and my presentation, staff is recommending approval. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Okay. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. So -- COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Motion? March 19, 2026 Page 16 COMMISSIONER SHEA: I'm sorry. It's the next one I had that note. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Entertain a motion to -- motion for approval or denial. MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm not a young man anymore. You can't do things like that. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I would like to move forward with a motion to approve said petition with no -- I believe we need to have the one amendment that Heidi will discuss, correct? CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Between now and the Board? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Between now and the Board meeting. MS. ASHTON-CICKO: That's correct. That's correct. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. There's a motion. Do I have a second? COMMISSIONER McLEOD: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All in favor? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Any opposed, like sign. (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Unanimously approved. MR. YOVANOVICH: Thank you. MS. HARRELSON: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Moving on, Item No. 2, we're doing J II Rezone. Next agenda item, PL20230018359, 1331 Jaybird Way. All those wishing to be heard, please rise. THE COURT REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the March 19, 2026 Page 17 testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Disclosures. Ms. Lockhart. MS. LOCKHART: Staff materials only. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Staff materials only. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Staff materials only. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Staff materials and spoke with Mike Bosi. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Staff materials only. And you are, sir? Petitioner? MR. LAUSTER: Yeah. I -- my name is Richard Lauster. I'm the owner of 1331 Jaybird Way. And my wife and I, we are happy to live there. Nevertheless, over time we found out it's a pretty big lot, and the north part of it we never use. It's only work. And we would love to give a part of it to a family to build a new home for them there; and therefore, we need to rezone it, and then later the plans to split it. And the width of the split it part should be 120 feet; whereas, our remaining part is still big enough. It's around 200 feet. The lot will be used then for a single-family home. Through traffic is not possible because it's -- it is a dead-end road. The use will not cause any difference to today's utilization. Given the surrounding communities with hundreds of homes, the traffic caused by this change will be insignificant on Jaybird Way as well as on the access roads; and therefore, we ask you to approve the change. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. Any questions from Commissioner McLeod? COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Richard, can you pull up a map of your property? March 19, 2026 Page 18 MR. LAUSTER: Yeah. I can give you a handout. MR. BOSI: I'll put it on the overhead. MS. LAUSTER: Would you like a handout? CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Yes, I would love a handout. Okay. So... MR. LAUSTER: So this is Jaybird Way here, behind us a lake, and further behind I-75, that's the lot how it is today. And we want to split it like that, that here can be built another single-family home. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And where's your home on this property? On the south side? MR. LAUSTER: It's here. So it's a -- sorry it's such a weak copy, but this -- this is in the new part here, that one here, and our home is here, and that's -- that's the back part of the property. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And you're not dividing it in half. You're -- MR. LAUSTER: Not exactly in half because, you know, here this -- at Jaybird this will be 120 feet. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Could you use the arrow, please? MR. LAUSTER: Oh, sorry. This 120 feet, and this is approximately 200 feet. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And I read in the packet that you are on well and septic, and this next homeowner will be on well and septic. MR. LAUSTER: Yeah, that's -- COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Can you tell me where on your property you have the septic -- MR. LAUSTER: So this is -- COMMISSIONER McLEOD: -- and well? MR. LAUSTER: -- here, and the well is close to the lake in the very -- very behind. The plan is also for the new septic where as -- at the very beginning of Jaybird, so it's a lot of the same size here. And March 19, 2026 Page 19 Jaybird is only these two lots. There is water and canal from the County. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: With the connection, you're referencing the County's connection? MR. LAUSTER: Yeah. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Yes. MR. LAUSTER: So our neighbor here has both. They are connected and have also own well and septic. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And do you know where their -- the reason I'm asking is because I know there's a separation requirement. MR. LAUSTER: Yeah. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And I just wanted to -- MR. LAUSTER: So it's approximately -- so their home is, like, here. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Yes. MR. LAUSTER: And their insulations [sic] are at the corner of their home there. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And yours is on the very south end of the -- MR. LAUSTER: Just the other side, yeah. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Have you ever looked into tapping into the County's water and water waste? MR. LAUSTER: Yeah, we did. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: How much is it, just out of curiosity? MR. LAUSTER: Oh, it is -- the number I'm telling you is about 10 years ago, and it was between 10- and 12,000 but, you know, our septic and water supply works pretty well, and we are, in a way, proud on having our clean own water. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Um-hmm. And it was 10- to March 19, 2026 Page 20 12,000 to run the whole pipe to Knight -- MR. LAUSTER: Ten years ago. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: So for inflation, that would be 120,000 now. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Those are the prices I've heard, more like. MR. LAUSTER: I did want to mention that. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Well, darn it. We missed our chance for that. Thank you. MR. LAUSTER: Yeah. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Richard, sir, if I may ask you a question. So the intention is to build a home for another family member; is that correct? Is that what you're saying or -- MR. LAUSTER: Not -- it's not finally decided. We have a family member. He's pastor of Giove (phonetic) Church -- church here. And he's very interested, but it's not finally decided. So, you know, we are not under time pressure of any kind, and we want to talk to him. We just want to do the rezoning now and then the split to have everything prepared. It does not mean that we have to do it in the next three months or so. And there are checking finances and selling another home and all the stuff we are doing in front of such a decision. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. Is there any public speakers on this matter before I go to staff? MR. SABO: No public speakers. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: No public speakers. Mr. Bosi. MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. As the applicant had indicated, the current parcel right now is 6.96 acres. The proposal is to split it into two parcels. One would be 2.49 parcels [sic]. That's where the new house would be -- is being March 19, 2026 Page 21 proposed. And the existing house will be on 4.37. Because of those large acres, staff is comfortable with the well and septic arrangement, but we do appreciate the questioning and inquiry from Ms. McLeod. We will say this is well below the density within the surrounding area. And we calculated it about -- averaging about six units an acre in the surrounding area, and these are right around the .3 units, you know, an acre. So it is very low density in that regard. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Yeah. High density area. Okay. Any questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Close the public section of the meeting and go to Board comment or recommendation. COMMISSIONER SHEA: You're really good at this, Randy. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: You are, Randy. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: And a pleasant good morning. I would like to make a proposal that we move forward with this petition. I don't believe there are any amendments to it. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: You're making a motion to approve? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I'm making a motion to approve this petition. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Any seconds? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Second. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All in favor? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: It's a unanimous, sir. Thank you, Richard. MR. LAUSTER: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. March 19, 2026 Page 22 CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: ***Okay. Moving along this morning. Item No. 3, PL20250004748, Moorings Park at Grande Lake PUDA. All those wishing to be heard on this matter, please rise to be sworn in. THE COURT REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Disclosures. MS. LOCKHART: Staff materials only. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Staff materials only. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Staff materials only. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Staff materials, spoke with Rich Yovanovich and Mike Bosi. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Staff materials. And I had a conversation with Yovanovich. The floor is yours, sir. MR. YOVANOVICH: Good morning. For the record, Rich Yovanovich on behalf of the applicant. With me is Ray Piacente, who is the representative of the property owner; Alexis Crespo, who is our planner. I don't see anybody else on our team. Oh, I see her back there. Lisa Van Dien is here, and so is Patty with Alexis' firm. This is a pretty straightforward request. Our request is to convert or change the PUD that currently allows a .45 floor area ratio for senior living facilities. This is the Moorings Park project which is on the southeast quadrant of Airport Road and Golden Gate Parkway. It's up on your visualizer. As you can see, there are already several buildings constructed within the project. The Land Development Code was revised to allow for a .6 floor March 19, 2026 Page 23 area ratio, which has been, basically, the standard applied to senior housing projects for many, many years, and finally, the Land Development Code was amended to catch up. So we're simply requesting the ability to have a .6 floor area ratio for this particular PUD; however, there is actually a limitation contained in the language where the .6 is added that limits the square footage that can occur on a portion of the project outlined on the master plan that you can see here. So there is a maximum square footage of 412,000 square feet that can go on this hatched area. The reality is we're never going to attain the .6 that we're requesting. It will be a much smaller number, but -- so we're asking to go to the .6. We have a square footage limitation on the property that this .6 can apply to. And staff's recommending approval, and we're requesting that you recommend approval to the Board of County Commissioners. That's it. It's not a very -- not a very complicated request. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Mr. Bosi, any staff report on this? MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. And as the applicant has stated, County, based upon the Planning Commission's recommendations, have adopted a new standard for assisted living facilities for the floor area ratio of .6. This is asking for the update of the PUD to correlate or align with our current standards. And that .45 to .6, what that means is that would give them an additional square footage of 6,534 square feet per acre. We recognize over the entire course of the PUD, that's a substantial amount of acreage as well as the 25 acres that their current site sits upon. They've agreed to a limitation in terms of the overall square footage being requested. We think that's appropriate. Based upon that limitation, staff is recommending approval. This is an area that's already been designated and developed as March 19, 2026 Page 24 assisted living facility. Adding more square footage to facilitate that mission, we think, is beneficial for the area and appropriate for the area, and based upon that, staff is recommending approval. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Commissioner McLeod. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: So I just wanted to point out something that I learned from this petition. I had asked Mike Bosi, I'm like, "What triggers using a floor area ratio requirement versus, like, a density and intensity requirement?" He enlightened me that you use -- you can only use FARs for assisted living, which I did not know. But then in talking to Rich, too, I'm like, "Okay, but yours is not really assisted living," and so he walked me through MUNI code to find that you can use this for dwelling units that are part of an age-in-place living environment. So it all made sense to me after that, so... MR. BOSI: And I did a little more research. There's also in specific -- related to destination resort hotels or hotels, we do have a floor area ratio within our activity centers. It's a little wonky from Planning Commission's standpoint. It doesn't have any relationship to this. But that's the other instance where we would use a floor area ratio, just for full disclosure. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Right, right. Okay. Very good. Very enlightening. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Rich, does floor area ratio increase the building height? MR. YOVANOVICH: No. There's no changes to any of the development standards other than the ability -- it turns out to roughly a 40,000-square-foot increase over what we could do under the .45 floor area ratio. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Any public comment? MR. SABO: No registered speakers, Chairman. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Any questions from the Board? March 19, 2026 Page 25 (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: No. All right. We'll close the public section. Go to Board comment or, Mr. Sparrazza, do you have a -- I mean -- COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Once again, a pleasant good morning. I would like to propose approval for this item agenda with no extra requirements or additions to the petition. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Excellent. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: I'll second that. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All right. First and second. I mean, a motion and a second. All in favor? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All right. Approved unanimously. All right. So that brings us to our fourth item, PL20240010212, Corkscrew Swamp Grove East Villas SRA. All those wishing to be heard on this matter, please rise and be sworn in. THE COURT REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? (The speakers were duly sworn and indicated in the affirmative.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Disclosures. MS. LOCKHART: Amy Lockhart. Spoke with the applicant during pre-application phases, and staff materials. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Staff materials. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Staff materials only. March 19, 2026 Page 26 COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Staff materials, spoke with Rich Yovanovich and Mike Bosi. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Staff materials and a conversation with Mr. Yovanovich. That being said... MR. YOVANOVICH: I'd start, but someone took over. MR. BOSI: It's Troy. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All yours, Rich. MR. YOVANOVICH: Thanks. Good morning. For the record, Rich Yovanovich on behalf of the petitioner. With me today is Mitch Hutchcraft, who is the executive vice president of real estate for Alico, Inc.; Bob Mulhere and Jeremy are the planners on the project; Alvaro Yusty is the civil engineer for the project; I think Lucy Gallo is on the -- yep, she should be here present by Zoom. She is our economist for the project; Norm Trebilcock is our transportation consultant; and I think Heather is here from Passarella. Is Ken here? Welcome, Josh. Josh Evans is here as well from J.R. Evans, civil engineering firm. This is a request to designate a village in the Rural Lands Stewardship Area. The property is 1,446.59 acres. This is State Road 82, and that is Corkscrew Road. So we're on both the east and west sides of Corkscrew Road and the south side of State Road 82. You have seen several SRA designations out in the Rural Lands Stewardship Area. I think this is the ninth one. Ms. McLeod and I went through, and although the staff report says 10, I think it's only -- this will be only No. 9, unless I'm missing one, but that's okay. So you're familiar with this. This is exactly where development is supposed to occur under provisions adopted in the Growth Management Plan back in 2002. I'll show you the map that shows March 19, 2026 Page 27 that this is designated open space where a development is supposed to occur. Our requested density is 4,502 dwelling units, which includes the 362 affordable housing units that are required to be provided for within the village under the requirement that we designate 2.5 percent of the land within the SRA as affordable housing at 10 units per acre. We have the required square footage for neighborhood-scaled retail and office uses, which is 238,606 square feet, which is basically 53 square feet per dwelling unit, and we have the ability to do self-storage, but that self-storage square footage does not count against our neighborhood-scaled retail and office uses. That's in addition to the required neighborhood-scaled retail and office uses. We also have the required square footage of civic, government, and institutional uses of 45,020 square feet, which is 10 square feet per unit. So our request is consistent with the parameters set forth in the Comprehensive Plan. We will be getting SSA credits from two SSAs; SSA 11, which has already been established, and SSA 22, which will be approved by the Board of County Commissioners at the same hearing that they consider the SRA designation. That's why you saw some little difference in the math calculation as to we were able to use eight credits per acre from the SSA 11 and 10 credits per acre from SSA 20 [sic] because that changed from eight to 10, but for SSAs that were established prior to a certain date, you still honored the eight credits per acre allowed. This is just a brief summary slide of the RLSA program. We've shown this to you many times before. You can see our property is up in this area right here, which is pink, which is open area, which is where development is to occur. Mitch is going to take you through our outreach that we've had -- tell you a little bit about Alico and then tell you about the March 19, 2026 Page 28 outreach that we've had, including meeting with environmental groups and the regulatory agencies. One of the unique things about this petition is we have this panther corridor area that was added to the Growth Management Plan I believe in the last cycle of the amendments, and we are helping to implement that panther -- the panther -- COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Corridor. MR. YOVANOVICH: Thank you. Yeah, panther corridor. So with this -- Bob will take you through in greater detail the master plan, the areas designated as neighborhood general, affordable -- the affordable housing and our village center. Staff is recommending approval, obviously, of this project. It is 100 percent consistent with both the Land Development Code and the Growth Management Plan Amendments and Growth Management Plan. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mitch to take you through a brief presentation of Alico and our environmental outreach, and then Bob, and then we'll be -- the whole team is here to answer any specific questions you may have, but it will be me, Mitch, and Bob making the presentation. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Good morning. For the record, my name is Mitch Hutchcraft, and I'm with Alico, Incorporated. I wanted to make sure that I gave you just a little bit of background about who Alico is. I don't know that -- if you're familiar with us, but Alico is a 150-year-old company. We've been based in Southwest Florida. Our corporate headquarters have either been in Fort Myers or LaBelle for decades now. We have a strategic vision to continue agriculture on some properties and have recently transitioned into being a land management company. As of 2025, we had 54,000 acres spread in eight counties. So that gives you a feel for who Alico is and that we March 19, 2026 Page 29 have been a Southwest-Florida-based company for a long, long time. Also, Alico is very proud of our community involvement and our conservation legacy. Most of the areas that you see that are significant environmental areas, the headwaters of CREW, Okaloacoochee Slough, Devil's Garden. Most of -- or some of those properties were previously Alico properties, and so we have worked with State and other agencies to put those properties into permanent conservation. Within the last several years, Alico has sold over 40,000 of acres of land to the State within Okaloacoochee Slough and Devil's Garden. So we're committed to conservation and stewardship. And our community involvement includes Alico donated the 760 acres that is now the site for Florida Gulf Coast University. So we have been part of the community for a long time. Rich quickly went over the Rural Lands Stewardship Area program, which identified there are open lands where we encourage development to go, and then there's areas where we think conservation ought to take place that will become the sending land. We think that was an excellent guide for us to start our planning. We wanted to take that an additional step. And so I've got a couple of slides that I'm going to quickly go through that show you some of the additional work that we went over and above the original foundation of the RLSA to make sure that we were putting development in the right place and preserving the correct property. So outlined on this slide, you'll see on the left-hand side the Corkscrew Grove property. It's the overall property. The village that we're looking at today is a portion of that. But on the right-hand side of the slide is our Felda Grove property, and that is the basis of the SSA 11 that has already been adopted. What I'm showing you is data that was collected from all available state data. So this is Florida Natural Areas inventory, the March 19, 2026 Page 30 clip data, all generated by state regulatory agencies, universities, with input from environmental organizations. This map shows wetlands. And so the greens and the blues are high-priority wetlands. The yellows and the browns are low-priority wetlands. What you'll see is Felda has lots of high-priority wetlands, and there's only scattered very-low-priority wetlands in the Corkscrew boundary. The next one is surface water. Again, significant coverage on the Felda property. Just one small spot in the Corkscrew property, on the left. The next one we looked at was floodplain. Well over half of the property of Felda is covered with floodplain designation, and just small portions of the property of Corkscrew are designated that way. We also took a look at natural communities. And there are high priorities -- I'll -- I don't know how to point on this one. On the Corkscrew property, there's a little bit there and a little bit here. There's actually more over in this portion of the property that we've revealed as we've done our fieldwork. But most of the Corkscrew property is converted citrus, so it has already been impacted and converted for decades. The next one is potential habitat richness. So with the vegetation, the communities that are out there, how many species will likely utilize it. What you see is the Felda property is significantly covered, and there are just small areas in the south and, again, a little bit up in north, but the rest of the grove is very limitedly designated. The next one is strategic habitat. So if you have to focus on areas to conserve, where would you focus those areas. Again, the Felda property is significantly covered; small piece here and a small piece here within the Corkscrew property. The next one is landscape integrity. So how well does it tie in with the next larger context? What's around it? The Felda property March 19, 2026 Page 31 is over 50 percent designated; and again, a small area in the southern portion of Corkscrew. The primary panther habitat designation. You can see that Felda is well over half covered, and the southern portion of the Corkscrew property is designated for Primary Panther Habitat. The State of Florida wanted to identify how can we create an overlay that emphasizes where we ought to invest money if we're -- the State is going to acquire conservation easements or to encourage landowners, if you're going to do conservation, you should do it in these areas. So they adopted the Florida Wildlife Corridor, and you can see that it significantly covers the Felda property and a portion of the southeast corner of Corkscrew. Taking all of that information, my background is I'm a landscape architect. One of the guys that I held in high regard is Ian McHarg. He proposed what was called a McHargian overlay. So you take all of that data, and you lay it over each other. And where the dark areas are, those are the most valuable. And so what you can see is the Felda property is significantly covered, and we have just minor areas that are designated in the southeast corner and again in that top piece. So looking at that map what we did is used that to further prioritize where we're putting our conservation and our development. So you can see SSA 11 covers the vast majority of what's included on our Felda property, but I'll note that the entire property is outlined. We will ultimately be submitting an SSA on the remainder of that property. It is not required for this project. SSA 22 is all of this property. And so what you can see is the areas that were identified in the north and the southeast corner are all included within our SSA 22, and the development for the village is in that area outside of any of the areas that were prioritized. So we have worked very closely with agencies and NGOs to make sure that we were emphasizing the right conservation areas. March 19, 2026 Page 32 Part of that input resulted in we have funded and partnered with Florida Department of Transportation to construct a wildlife underpass that will go under State Road 82 right in the middle of our wildlife corridor -- that is already under construction -- and we did that in conjunction with input that we got from environmental organizations that we've communicated with as well as Fish and Wildlife Commission, from the State of Florida, and Fish and Wildlife Service. And as Rich indicated, we believe that we are doing more than our part of establishing that future connection which is trying to get panthers from the CREW area back over to the panther preserve up through Okaloacoochee Slough to the dispersal zone. We're establishing the bookends on both sides of that arrow, and then the wildlife corridor on the western edge. And so this just gives you a feel for where that preserve is located on the property. All of this area is included in the conservation area to give you a feel for the overall dimensions. It's almost three miles north to south, east to west at our widest point is over two miles, and this narrowest point is about six-tenths of a mile. We've also coordinated with the adjacent property owner, which is Florida Power & Light, over here. They are going to retain a portion of the property over here for open space. So we've designed it so there will be no fencing there. So we'll have an even wider area at that location. So we believe that we are consistent with the fundamental requirements of the Rural Lands Stewardship Program but have gone over and above that to demonstrate that we're compatible with the adjacent uses. And you can see that we've included a significant buffer to the north side of the CREW property. We've been in regular communication with CREW and with Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in the design of our project. March 19, 2026 Page 33 That's just a repeating slide. There's also been additional work that identified if you could put in a wildlife corridor, where would you put it. The dashed line shows the center of that. That is exactly where we have put our wildlife underpass is at that location. And with that, I'll turn over the rest to Bob unless you have any questions. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: I have a question. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Commissioner McLeod. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Mitch, if I could ask you a couple questions. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Sure thing. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And maybe I missed it in the -- in understanding this. But the Felda property -- MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: -- is the Felda property your sending area? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Yes, that's correct. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. That's serving as your sending area? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Yes, ma'am. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And then in between is the wildlife corridor? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: In between is other ownerships, so we don't own that property. To the extent that the wildlife corridor -- the State's adopted wildlife corridor is on our property. The vast majority of that is included within the boundary that we've identified as SSA 22, which is our internal wildlife corridor. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And then what is a floodplain -- you pointed out a floodplain designation. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Yep. March 19, 2026 Page 34 COMMISSIONER McLEOD: What is a floodplain designation? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: It's just an area where, when there is lots of water, it will hold water, and so it will pool in that area. The Felda property is part of a very large wetland system. And so when there is lots of rain, you do get water backing up in there. On the Corkscrew property, we're adjacent to a wetland system, and there is some water that would back up on the edge, but that's all been incorporated within the areas that we've designated as conservation. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And then just with regards to habitat, so how do you -- how do you protect the habitat from entering and exiting this new village? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Yep, it's a great question. And so one of the things -- and if we need additional input, Heather can certainly address it. There will be a number of requirements that we'll do as part of our consultation with Fish and Wildlife Service. But what we've proposed is on the border between the wildlife corridor and the development, we have proposed lakes that range from 250 to 300 feet that provide additional separation. On top of that, there are some locations where we will be putting in fencing. And then our conversations with FDOT, FDOT is putting fencing along that segment of State Road 80 to direct wildlife to the underpass that we funded. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. So my only concern -- I really like the idea of separating that with lakes, but -- and I've brought up this example before, Deerwood in Jacksonville. There's a lot of deer there. And they have fencing, but I have seen deers try to jump the fence and then severely get injured by doing that. So the fencing part concerns me. Is this going to be fencing that's, like, so high that they can't jump it or -- March 19, 2026 Page 35 MR. HUTCHCRAFT: The fencing that we're proposing is part of the environmental permitting will be similar to what FDOT is doing along the road which is designed to keep wide-ranging animals behind that fence. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Um-hmm. Yeah, whatever you can do to keep that from happening. Thank you. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Any other questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Thank you. MR. MULHERE: For the record, Bob Mulhere with Bowman here on behalf of Alico. This is the village master plan -- SRA master plan that you see in front of you. And just to point out a few elements. There is an elementary school site right here. This would be the village center right here, and then you have neighborhood general here and also here and here. These were the perimeter lake system that Mitch just discussed. This is Corkscrew, State Road 82. As Rich indicated, we're north and south and east and west of Corkscrew Road. The density being requested yields a gross per-acre density of 3.11 units per acre. And we meet or exceed all of the other requirements outlined in the SRA, and they're numerous. The SRA doesn't include any lands designated as flowway, Stewardship Area, or Habitat Stewardship Area. We'd have to retain those if we did, but we don't have any within the site. There is a Stewardship Sending Area, SSA 23, that is surrounded by the SRA that includes 81.56 acres of WRA, Water Retention Area, and that's being protected -- because we're required to, and so that is being converted to a sending area as well. That will happen at some point. I don't know when, but it's not needed to entitle -- those credits are not needed to entitle this project. March 19, 2026 Page 36 As I said, the SRA doesn't include any land with an NRA -- NRI index greater than 1.2. The significance of that is that if there were any, we would also have to protect those lands within the village. And none of the lands in the village are in the Area of Critical State Concern Overlay. That first bullet indicates, as I mentioned, that 3.11 units per acre is the gross density per acre. There is a requirement for 35 percent open space in an SRA, which is pretty significant. It's a higher amount of open space required than typically for mixed-use projects. This project exceeds that, you know, slightly by providing 36 percent open space. The entire master plan and project is designed to encourage pedestrian and bicycle circulation, multimodal -- multimodal means of getting around the project and in and out of the project, and that's provided by an interconnected sidewalk and multiuse pathway system. I'll go over that in just a little bit more detail in a moment. We do have 63.63 acres of public benefit use in the form of an affordable housing site, plus the public school site, which I mentioned, and a fire station site. And this SRA village, similar to other villages, includes three context zones: Neighborhood general, affordable housing, and a village center. You're required to provide neighborhood general and the village center, but you may provide more, and typically the affordable housing site is provided as a separate context zone because of the unique nature, higher density, and unique development standards that will apply to that. And we have access directly to Corkscrew and State Road 82. We are providing a 25-foot perimeter landscape buffer along Corkscrew Road and State Road 82. We are contributing 65.40 -- or I'm not sure we're contributing, but we're required to provide 65.40 acres of additional right-of-way March 19, 2026 Page 37 and including a reservation for Corkscrew Road of 17.65 acres. These context zones -- I just mentioned them. The neighborhood general is the largest. It's always the largest. It's the residential portion of the project -- is 1,237.41 acres. Those are -- neighborhood general's predominantly residential but can have a -- it's required to have a mix of residential and multifamily housing. And, again, a pedestrian-oriented multimodal design with an interconnected system of sidewalks and pathways. Village center is just under 170 acres and will be mixed use. And Rich went over the other -- the items there. The affordable housing is, as required, to be 2.5 percent of the overall SRA, 39.63 acres, and that's required to be entitled at 10 units per acre. The trip cap is a maximum of 4,092 two-way adjusted average weekday p.m. peak-hour total trips. This is the connectivity bikeable and walkability plan. You have standard sidewalks here in blue and then a wider sidewalk of eight -- of six feet here -- or I can't see. It might be eight feet. And then green is a multiuse pathway. Those are 10 feet in width. If you look at this connectivity throughout, it's designed to allow folks to bike, walk, and provide other means of getting around the village and getting to the village center and getting to other areas within the village, whether it's the school or park, without having to drive. There's also an additional multiuse pathway right here. We did have a neighborhood information meeting on September 24th, 2025. We had no attendees in person and no attendees online. And therefore, obviously, no questions or comments were raised. We received a staff recommendation of approval from -- with regard to the Planning Commission and the BCC. That concludes my presentation. Open it up for any questions -- March 19, 2026 Page 38 CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Commissioner McLeod. MR. MULHERE: -- you may have. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: A couple questions, Bob. This is with regards to traffic. You know, that's, like, one of our biggest problems here in Collier. And I know these villages, the intent to -- is to kind of create kind of like self-contained communities so that people are not creating traffic in other areas having to go elsewhere. And so in some of your commercial spaces you mentioned, fire, schools, things like that. But what about other essential services; grocery stores, medical facilities? Where do those go in this -- MR. MULHERE: Those will also be -- let me get back to the master plan. So those will also be located within this village center. So you have a school here. This is the mixed-use village center. We're required to provide a minimum of 40 multifamily dwelling units within that. It could be higher. So this is where all of the commercial would be located within the project. Presumably -- and it's in -- it's in, you know, obviously, the developer's best interest to attract a grocery store and other uses. Those uses in the village are to be primarily neighborhood commercial type uses. So that would be grocery, restaurants, offices, those kinds of uses that are neighborhood commercial to maximize the trip capture within the project and minimize the amount of trips that would go out. Obviously, there are still going to be people leaving the project for various reasons; work, play. But these SRA types of development, towns and villages, have a much higher capture ratio because of the requirement to provide not only commercial uses but also civic uses. So sheriff, fire, county facilities, if they want them. These are all -- these all can be made March 19, 2026 Page 39 available right here within the village center. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And that space is big enough to accommodate -- MR. MULHERE: Yeah. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: -- the amount of housing? MR. MULHERE: Yeah. Absolutely. It's based on a formula that -- over the last amendment cycle made -- it was increased from 25 square feet per dwelling to 53 square feet per dwelling unit. So it's pretty significant when you do the math. It's several hundred thousand square feet -- 238. And we don't expect to have the need to provide any more than that, but that's the minimum of community commercial. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And then Rich had mentioned something about how -- 100,000 indoor self-storage space. MR. MULHERE: Yep, yep. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Where is that, and why is it separated out? MR. MULHERE: Well, it's separated out to ensure that that's not counted towards the neighborhood commercial, because the neighborhood commercial is very important because that's what generates that internal trip capture. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Right. MR. MULHERE: So if we could meet the 238,000 by just providing 100,000 square feet of self-storage, we really would be taking away from the intent of creating a -- COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. MR. MULHERE: -- a more self-sustaining type of development; however, people -- there's big demand for self-storage, and they're relatively low traffic generators, but if there is demand, we'd like to be able to provide one within here. If you think an average of 10,000 square feet, and that's what we generally use as a March 19, 2026 Page 40 rule of thumb for commercial, per acre, and if you look at the size of the village center, which is about 170,000, there is more than ample room for additional uses within that neighborhood center, you know, so... COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. And then can you go back and show me where the storage -- MR. MULHERE: We don't have a location for that, but it would have to be -- COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Oh, it's somewhere there? MR. MULHERE: It would have to be within the village center, yeah. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Hopefully -- MR. MULHERE: It's the only place where it would be allowed. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Right. Okay. Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Ms. Lockhart. MR. YOVANOVICH: I think what Bob was trying to tell you is roughly 170 acres would accommodate 1,700,000 square feet of retail. So we have more than ample acreage for both the multifamily and the self-storage and the retail and civic within our 170 acres. So there's more than ample space to provide everything we've committed to providing. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Ms. Lockhart. MS. LOCKHART: Yes. I had questions about State Road 82 and the speed limit along there. You have a lot -- it seems like a lot of connections between the neighborhoods, and from north and south, and what it is in Lee County, and will it slow down here? Do you anticipate that as a need? What's primarily driving my curiosity is the affordable housing across the street from the school. You know, I know there's all kinds of situations in our county where that occurs. March 19, 2026 Page 41 It's unavoidable, but I just wanted to see what we would be dealing with in terms of traffic. MR. MULHERE: I'm going to let Norm speak to that issue. I do want to point out that, you know, the signalized intersection here, by and of itself, reduces and slows down traffic, but -- MR. TREBILCOCK: Good morning. For the record, Norm Trebilcock. We prepared the traffic studies for the project. That section of roadway on State Road 82 is actually being improved now to a four-lane condition, and so -- and then they're planning to do signalization right now at Corkscrew Road as well. So what the DOT would typically do is look at those conditions and see if it warrants modifying the speed limits, their posted speed limits. MS. LOCKHART: Okay. MR. TREBILCOCK: So they would likely be modified in the future and typically would go down because of the additional development and friction and things like that -- MS. LOCKHART: Okay. MR. TREBILCOCK: -- that are in place and recognize that, so... MS. LOCKHART: All right. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Mr. Sparrazza. MS. LOCKHART: There will be -- right at that location where the affordable housing is will be a full signalized intersection and crosswalks and -- okay. MR. TREBILCOCK: Yes. At Corkscrew itself, the -- we would do that, because as part -- I mean -- I'm sorry. The sidewalks and any implementation that we do. But there is -- also with the DOT, they are planning to do sidewalk improvements and a pathway, multiuse path. And so they would also put those crosswalks in that you're talking about as well. March 19, 2026 Page 42 MS. LOCKHART: All right. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Commissioner Sparrazza. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Thank you. Bob, quick question for you. On this map here, is that an FPL right-of-way kind of diagonal between Pods 12, 13, 16, 11? MR. MULHERE: Yeah. And what is that? Is -- currently is there power lines going through that now, or are they anticipating? Do you know what that is? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Yeah, again, for the record, Mitch Hutchcraft. It is an FPL easement. There's actually two easements in it. One is a higher distribution line, and then there's a smaller one. It's 300 feet wide, but the lines already exist. And we've been in coordination with them about some of the multiuse trails occurring within that easement. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: The gray line here, I think it's designated 7 if I'm reading that correctly, that's actually going to go through that easement, correct? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: That's correct. That's a proposed internal road. And so our coordination with FPL has been they like to have those crossings as close to 90 degrees as possible. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Right perpendicular for EMI. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: No curbs, and so we've addressed all of that with FPL. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Okay. Very good. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Mr. Hutchcraft, while you're up there, let me ask you a question, sir. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: It looks like from the overlays March 19, 2026 Page 43 what you're looking to develop is basically what is farmland now, correct? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: That's correct. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: So it's already cleared. It's leveled. How -- has there been any farming activity on that land for some time or -- MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Oh, yeah. We are still harvesting citrus on portions of this property. Within this area, we're actually doing grass right now. So there's grass being grown. There are portions that have a cattle lease on it. And then I think some of this property over here is still being harvested. Our last official harvest was last year, and we're kind of cleaning up this year. But yeah, it's still been actively in production. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: And speaking towards the citrus industry, how -- how tough has that been? Because it seems like there's a lot of groves that go down and -- MR. HUTCHCRAFT: It is tough. One of the things that I didn't mention is that Alico was the largest citrus grower in the state, if not the United States, and in January 6th of 2025, last year, Alico announced that it's no longer economically viable to produce citrus as a publicly traded company. So we finished our harvest for last year. We continue to have about 4,000 acres of citrus that are still under production company-wide. A portion of that we're managing, but a portion of it is under lease. But the combination of citrus canker, citrus greening, and then back-to-back hurricanes; the freeze that we just had was significantly impactful. And so there are lots of headwinds for the folks that remain. But Alico has announced that we're phasing out of citrus operations altogether. And so this piece was fully in citrus production. Over the last year we've already begun converting it to other crops. March 19, 2026 Page 44 CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: So there's no portion of -- like, looking at your overlay and your aerials, the areas that are, let's say, wooded right now are staying wooded. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: That's correct. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: That's not being cleared. And then -- MR. HUTCHCRAFT: That's correct. We've got what are called other surface waters, which are the internal ag ditches. We've got some small reservoirs that have, you know, wetland characteristics -- there's water in them -- that we'll be impacting, but by and large the native areas, those are not included in what will be impacted by the development. It's citrus grove predominantly. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Perfect. Thank you, sir. Commissioner McLeod. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Yeah. You brought up an interesting point. So, Mitch, again, you mentioned there's cattle on this land. So what is the plan for that? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Yeah. The cattle operation -- so the property is bigger than this. We are planning that the cattle will be outside of the boundary. We still have several years of environmental permitting in front of us. So there may be some cattle on this portion until we get all of our permits, Water Management District and Army Corps done. Once the Army Corps permit is issued, all of the cattle operations will be outside of the east village. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And are you-all cattle ranchers? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: We are not. We have a lessee that will operate the cattle operations. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: I see. Okay. Thank you. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Yes. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. Any other questions March 19, 2026 Page 45 from the Board? (No response.) CHAIRMAN KOWAL: Turn it over to staff. MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. As the applicant indicated, we are recommending approval of the petition. Yesterday we did receive an additional comment letter opposing the proposal from a Marcia Ellis. We forwarded it to the -- to the Planning Commission for your awareness as well. As -- we just did receive another letter of opposition from a Kathy Walker, who's asked to -- to at least recognize that her concerns are overpopulation, impacts to listed species, and that we were moving forward with a reckless development scheme, in her regards, related to the RLSA program. From staff's standpoint, the RLSA program has been adopted and an important portion of the Collier's regulatory environment since 2002. Overall, there's a limitation on the amount of acreages that can be developed within it. Within the overall RLSA, the map that was shown earlier is roughly about 200,000 acres of land. About -- right now there's a cap of 45,000 acres can be developed in compact urban development that are designed to be self-sustaining. Right now we have over 50,000 acres that are SSA, which are lands that are set aside that are mostly environmentally sensitive, so we reserve those from development. And then the rest is a mosaic of agricultural land use as well as baseline development that can be developed. You're going to hear -- within the two comments that I referenced, as well as, I think, some of the speakers, you're going to hear a concern over this program related to panther habitat, long-term viability of the panther species. We specifically, within our Growth Management Plan, recognize that Collier County does not have the March 19, 2026 Page 46 environmental staff that has the expertise and the knowledge base to deal with listed species. There's a governmental agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife. There's their -- that's their role. That's their lane. We defer to U.S. Fish and Wildlife. So when we hear comments from local folks or from national folks related to the impact to the panther, we appreciate their concern, we appreciate their passion for the protections, but we, as a local government, do -- have no role within the permitting and the perspective of U.S. Fish and Wildlife towards how these proposals are moving forward. They're well aware of this program. Like I said, it's been for almost 25 years it's been -- it's been adopted. The one thing I will also say is because of the compact nature of these developments and the self-sustaining and the requirement for goods and services as well as job creation, these do have a higher internal capture than the communities that are developed within the coastal area. And it has a unique component. This is the only regulatory area within Collier County that requires that if you're having a proposed development that has residential development, you're going to provide for affordable housing. So this is the only area where we require inclusionary housing policy, meaning that affordable housing has to be provided for, and they meet the formula for the acreage requirement as well as the entitlement at 10 units an acre. The -- for all of those reasons, staff is recommending approval. And a quick note, unlike a PUD request or a GMP request, the Board of County Commissioners' bar for approval is not a supermajority for an RLSA -- or for an SRA within the RLSA program. It was decided by a -- by the judicial system that because they've already participated within the program and created the necessary credits for the entitlement of an SRA, that a supermajority's not required. The Board of County Commissioners, there's only three -- it's a simple March 19, 2026 Page 47 majority. So there's -- it's only a three "yay" approval, unique. GMP, a conditional use, or a rezone within the County requires the supermajority. This is one that only requires the simple majority because they've already participated in the program with the protection side, the environmental protection side. That's the balance. And I will, I guess, leave it -- close it with the way that the RLSA program was set up originally was think about three scales. These three scales were to provide protection. They were to provide protection for the environment, there was provide protection for property rights, and then there was a component to provide protection for agricultural protection, the conversion of -- premature conversion of farmland to urban development. Those three scales were the things that originally created the framework of the RLSA. It was reviewed five years later in 2007 through 2009. A number of amendments were arrived upon. Because of the Great Recession, those got -- those were shelved. We picked it back up in 2017. By 2021, we adopted the first amendments to the RLSA. That's where we established the cap and some other components, a requirement for the affordable housing. Because of the history, because of the long-term balance, we try to always make sure that we're attending to each one. And when you hear the presentations and some of the objections, it's a focus upon the protection of the environment. I'm not sure how much the protection of private property rights or the protection of agricultural activity is incorporated or under -- or underlies those concerns. But what we say is we recognize that there's always competing interests, and what we try to do is try to find a balance that's going to weigh equally between the protection of agricultural, the protection of the environment, and the protection of private property rights, and March 19, 2026 Page 48 those don't always complement each other, so that's why we're always trying to find that right balance. And with that, we think that this program, where it sits, the attention to the design, the attention to the surrounding underlying environmental characteristics of the land, are well thought out, well designed, and staff is recommending approval, and we would be able to answer any questions that you may have. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Commissioner Shea. COMMISSIONER SHEA: So in simple terms, we've got a four hundred and -- 1450 acre. How many acres are going to end up being put in conservation? MR. BOSI: The equation traditionally is, for every acre of development you're going to have three acres that are going to be preserved. That's the average ratio that happens within the RLSA. Whether in -- and one of the reasons why I say it's not all going to be from an environmental perspective. So the SSAs are created, and the SSAs, the way that they work, is you reduce your land uses. You start with your permitted uses, then your conditional uses, and then you go down to active agricultural, and then passive agricultural, and then down to conservation. Depending on how -- what you restrict it to is going to be what's the number of credits you're going to receive. So a lot of these SSAs that are reserved, they could -- they -- they maintain their ag to passive agricultural. So there's also a recognition that we have an SSA that's designed for long-term agricultural activity. If you engage -- and that was another thing that was adopted as part of the 2021 amendments. We recognized that in the scales property rights and environmental protection gained good footing, but maybe ag protection did not, and because of that we want -- people who want long-term farming on their property, they can create credits, still maintain that active agricultural, and participate in the program. There's a 25-year March 19, 2026 Page 49 prohibition once they do that until they can transition their land to something different. But that's just another recognition of the balancing act and the balance that we're trying to attain with this regulatory environment, so... COMMISSIONER SHEA: So in this particular case, I would assume you haven't -- you know how many acres that we're conserving. MR. YOVANOVICH: I can tell you. Would you like me to tell you? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Yeah. I'd like to know that. I get confused with all these TDRs and everything. But I think the public understands 1400 acres are being developed and 4500 acres are being conserved. That's a telling number. MR. YOVANOVICH: SSA 11 is 3,669 acres, and SSA 22 is 1294 acres. So we're just shy of 5,000 acres in SSAs? COMMISSIONER SHEA: So it's around the 3-1 that Mike's talking about. MR. YOVANOVICH: Yes. COMMISSIONER SHEA: But both of them 100 percent dedicated to this project? MR. YOVANOVICH: They are -- 11 is and 22 is, yes. And so yes, they're -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: Thank you. That's what I was looking for. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Commissioner McLeod. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Mike, another purpose for the RLSA was to prevent urban sprawl, and kind of like what we saw with Golden Gate, and now we have all the issues with septic and sewer and all that kind of stuff. So with a village, is there no septics? I mean, are we going to have them have access to county water and March 19, 2026 Page 50 wastewater? MR. BOSI: They are in the Collier County wastewater authority's geographic area. They are coordinating with -- MR. YOVANOVICH: We're actually in the Immokalee Water and Sewer District. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: So we will have central water and sewer. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And so no septics out there? Again, because we spend so much money to try to eliminate septics. MR. YOVANOVICH: There will be central water and sewer serving the project. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Perfect. Okay. MR. BOSI: And that is a component -- that is a requirement of the RLSA. They have -- they have to set up a system, whether it be -- whether it be an existing utility service area or if they're outside of a utility service area, they would have to provide for their own. That's how Ave Maria was originally started, with their own system that they developed. But that's a requirement of the RLSA. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Great. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. You know what, let's take a 15-minute break before we get into public comment, just because I know there's a number of speakers, and I don't want to -- I don't want your fingers to go numb. Stand in recess till 10:45. (A recess was had from 10:29 a.m. to 10:45 a.m.) MR. BOSI: Chair, you have a live mic. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: I'll wait for a couple more before we go into public speaking. I didn't want you to miss the public comment. So we're going to move into public comment. How many do we have in person that would like to speak? March 19, 2026 Page 51 MR. SABO: Mr. Chairman, there's three in person, four online. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. Let's do our in-person first, please. MR. SABO: First up, Sharon Kurgis, please. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Have you been sworn in, ma'am? MS. KURGIS: The general swearing in. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay, great. MS. KURGIS: Do you have a pointer? Because I don't know if I can -- oh, this is closer. Okay, good. MR. SABO: You can use the other podium if you want. MS. KURGIS: Okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: You can point this, and then you can move this around. MS. KURGIS: Oh, thank goodness. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Technology. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Again, would you just state your name for the record, please, ma'am? MS. KURGIS: I'm Sharon Kurgis. I've been a resident of Collier County since 1982. Okay. This is why I'm here today. There is a piece of property -- oh, gosh -- right there, red, the red piece, okay, and the piece next to it. It's actually all one piece. It's 137 acres. I've owned it for a while. I'm very pro-conservation. I have no plans to do anything with it. I am -- I have my degree in environmental sciences. And I've kept this as natural habitat as possible. I do run cattle, okay. The reason there's a piece in there that's red -- and that's about half of the property, maybe a smidgen more -- is Conservation Collier wanted to buy my whole property, the whole 137 acres, we'll say. And I told them I would sell them half but not all for a number of reasons, but it has nothing to do with the development. March 19, 2026 Page 52 This is a piece that Collier Conservation [sic] proposed to buy. When you look at this whole map, you have a green piece above it. That's a conservation area that was taken through mitigation. My south neighbor is Alico. Alico's right there. Alico's my east neighbor. This is the whole development area, and I'm going to say this is probably your village area, correct? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: It is over there. MS. KURGIS: Yeah, over there. This is the Corkscrew Road. This whole thing is Corkscrew Road. This is the CREW land. This is the Caracara Prairie. This is the Pepper Ranch Preserve. So at some point there should be some sort of conservation. I don't think panthers can read signs, "Go this way. This is your corridor." They're going to go wherever they want to go. But if you're doing any conservation, that -- any conservation tied into these two pieces would make sense. So my proposal today has to do with one thing. The reason we never finished this going to Collier Conservation is because Collier Conservation is hoping to get land that has public access. I'm fine with that. They want to put it into a birdwatching park; I'm fine with that. I have the caracara -- caracara falcon, I have the kite birds. We have panther, gopher tortoise. I don't have place for public access. The access to my ranch, which I agreed to give them over my ranch, comes down a dirt road, which is really a hazard in the summer. In fact, it was on the news a couple years, it was impassible. So I'm here to propose to Alico that you work with me into giving public access right off of 82, because this is all your land, and I know that there is a farm access right there. And even we do the farm access, and we come in underneath that conservation piece, which is light green and a dirt road. I already have a road builder picked out. I'm sure you have your own construction. It doesn't even March 19, 2026 Page 53 have to be a paved. Some of the -- it just has to be probably base rock road right up to here. The County can move forward in putting in a birdwatching park as long as we can get access through your Alico Grove properties. Because ultimately, once you're done with this development, I'm sure you're going to move on to developing part two, which will come right up to the property. And your people that buy there have then full access to a birdwatching park. Any questions? CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: I think that's a great idea. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: What's your address, Sharon? MS. KURGIS: Two six -- I'm in Naples, 2655 64th Street. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: No, I mean for this -- this farm? MS. KURGIS: Oh, you don't have an access -- it's Wildcat Acres, LLC. You don't have an address on the farm. It's a parcel number. And I would have to pay out of pocket for the subdivision -- you know, to divide it and survey it and -- but it would be great to get in a birdwatching park that close to your development. So look forward to working forward with either the County or with you guys. We'll get access. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Thank you. MR. SABO: Mr. Chairman, next speaker, Marissa Figueroa. MS. FIGUEROA: Hello. Good morning. My name is Marissa Figueroa. I'm the policy specialist with Audubon Florida, so thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Audubon Florida has met multiple times with the applicant and their consultants, and we've reviewed the Corkscrew Grove East SRA proposal in detail. We want to acknowledge that this application includes a strong suite of the proactive environmental measures, many of which we heard about today, and many of them are required March 19, 2026 Page 54 through the RLSA program and others that actually exceed those requirements. We heard a lot today about the large mammal corridor. That's the restoration of 1200 acres and extends into the eastern portion of the property within former Alico's farmlands. Also, there's a construction of a 16-by-7-foot wildlife underpass beneath the four lane -- the four lanes of State Road 82 that was also talked about, but that does help to enable movement of panthers and other wide-ranging species to connect the habitat towards King Ranch and West Hendry and the Duda sector plans that ultimately will connect to the Spirit of the Wild wildlife management area. And it's important to note that this property will also be adjacent to what was proposed -- a proposed SSA from King Ranch as well to help facilitate that corridor connection. There's also enhanced water-quality treatment that's been through -- expanded littoral plantings along the Carson Gully and Cabbage Slough Canals, and there's going to be two new water-quality treatment marshes that are -- those drainage canals will lead into before going into the Corkscrew Marsh to allow further treatment. There's also going to be bear-resistant waste managing practices and ongoing coordination that they have with that multiuse trail with FPL to further explore those water-quality and wetland preservation opportunities for the on-site power line easement. And there's also those strategic buffers that were mentioned to reduce those human/wildlife conflict -- those water reservoirs that were talked about on the buffer lakes along east and northern sides with those potential 10-foot fencing when appropriate. And we're also going to continue discussions with the applicant on several additional opportunities, and that's things like implementing potential things like Dark Sky lighting standards, March 19, 2026 Page 55 expanded littoral plantings on stormwater lakes to improve water quality and bird foraging habitat, and also to reduce turf grass in any potential common areas to favor some of those native pollinator-friendly plantings and less irrigation. So Audubon is genuinely appreciative of the applicant's willingness to engage early and often with Audubon Florida, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, and Audubon of Western Everglades. And these conversations have been very constructive, very solutions focused, and very responsive. So we hope that other applicants will also follow this collaborative model. And in closing, Florida -- or Audubon Florida is supportive of the significant environmental components included in the Corkscrew Grove East Village SRA application, and we look forward to continued collaboration as planning does advance, not only for the east village but also for the west village and the Stewardship Sending Areas that help to generate the applicable stewardship credits and the broader ecological landscape that this project does influence. So thank you for your time and consideration. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: That was great. One second, Marissa. Commissioner McLeod's got a question for you. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: That is so wonderful. Thank you so much for coming and sharing that Audubon Florida has appreciated all that this developer has proposed. MS. FIGUEROA: There's been consistent conversation, so we're definitely appreciative of that. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Oh, that's great. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for letting us know that there's that agreement between the two. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: You rarely hear someone come up in favor of, what, 4200 acres being converted to homes. March 19, 2026 Page 56 CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: 1400. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I'm sorry, 1400. COMMISSIONER SHEA: 1400 -- 4200 homes [sic]. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Yeah, 4200 homes [sic]. MS. FIGUEROA: We're very supportive of the environmental considerations is what we're -- yeah. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Right. The collaboration between you and something that, as you said, let's hope more and more projects -- MS. FIGUEROA: Yeah. It's a model. It's a model. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: -- do. Great. Good for all of you. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Marissa, if I could just ask you a question. In your experience -- because you referenced Henderson County. Do you find they have similar conservation that we do? MS. FIGUEROA: So I'm not as up to date on this, but I -- it's through my collaborator, Brad Cornell, he did mention that there's that connection there between West Hendry -- because I believe the county line is -- CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: So close. MS. FIGUEROA: Do I touch that here? So because of that connection there, there's also the other landowners that are potentially already looking to find those different corridor spaces, and I do believe, Mitch, you might be able to speak to that a little bit better as well. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Thank you, Marissa, very much. That's perfect. Mr. Bosi. MR. BOSI: I would just add that Mr. Hutchcraft was previously involved with Kings Ranch and the sector planning within Hendry County. So there's a lot of the provisions that were in the RLSA, I March 19, 2026 Page 57 think, that have inspired and kind of guided how the sector plan process has happened and transpired within Hendry County. So that -- Mitch has been that common link in terms of incorporating some of the components of the RLSA to the Hendry and having consistency within this local area. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Commissioner McLeod. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Yeah. So I love this quote, and it's so appropriate for right now. This is a quote from Eric Eikenberg, the CEO of the Everglades Foundation. He said, quote-unquote, "Unlike development practices of 100 years ago, development today can happen in an environmentally sensitive way. Development and the environment can coexist." And I think this is the perfect example of that. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. Thank you. That's a great quote. Next speaker, please. MR. SABO: Mr. Chairman, next speaker, it's either Cody Davis or Cody Paris. MR. DAVIS: Davis. MR. SABO: Cody Davis. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Come on up, Mr. Davis. MR. DAVIS: Good morning. My name's Cody Davis, and I'd like to address what I view as a fundamental issue with this proposal for the Corkscrew Grove East village, which is that it does not meet the intent of the RLSA framework that it relies on. The Rural Lands Stewardship Area was designed to allow flexibility only in exchange for something better than conventional development; specifically, compact, walkable, mixed-use communities that reduce sprawl and function differently from the typical suburban patterns seen throughout the county. But the staff report itself undermines that premise. It describes this project as, March 19, 2026 Page 58 quote, "Compact suburban-style development similar to many of the PUDs located in the urban area of Collier County." This isn't a minor characterization. It's an admission that this project resembles the exact development pattern the RLSA framework was created to avoid and replace. Yet despite that, the project is requesting numerous and in some cases extraordinary deviations from the Land Development Code, sixteen all together, some of which directly undermine the indicated intent of the RLSA. For example, Deviation 1 increases the maximum square footage for a single nonresidential use from 3K to 30K square feet. That scale of commercial intensity is not compatible with a walkable neighborhood-oriented mixed-use village. It encourages regional draw and car dependency. Deviation 3 increases the maximum multifamily lot size from four to 25 acres. This is the opposite of compact integrated development. It promotes separation of uses and reduces walkability within the community itself. And when looking at the actual layout, the disconnect is apparent. The neighborhood general context zone alone spans nearly two square miles. The village center, which is supposed to be the focal point of walkability, is located across a state road for a significant portion of that zone, including the entirety of the affordable housing context zone. It's simply not credible to describe that arrangement walkable, compact, mixed-use development. The physical form alone can't support the claim. I also want to address the claim of fiscal neutrality. That conclusion is based on a static, buildout-only snapshot decades into the future that doesn't account for changes and known variables. The peer review even plainly states that the fiscal neutrality analysis may become obsolete. Quote, "While we determined that DPFG's analysis largely March 19, 2026 Page 59 fulfills the fiscal impact analysis requirement, the following caveats and shortcomings are noted. Physical impact modeling is static and not dynamic. It's a snapshot in time, and therefore, known variables, like the cost of construction, the state of the U.S. economy, the pace and mix of the development plan, et cetera, are assumed constant. As such, substantial changes to these variables could render the analysis obsolete." In other words, the public will be required to fund roads, services, and facilities years and even decades before the projected tax base fully materialize, if ever. The peer review of the economic assessment acknowledges this fact. Quote, "It's important to recognize that fiscal neutrality relies on accurate projections often 20 years or more into the future. The model also relies heavily on one-time revenues like impact fees, while the obligations those revenues support, such as maintenance, public safety, and infrastructure, are permanent." Impact fees might cover the initial costs of developing capacity, but they don't account for the life cycle of the asphalt, the pipes, or the public safety equipment this development will require. By the time those assets need replacement, the one-time revenue is long gone, leaving future taxpayers of the whole county and not just this development to make up the difference. Because the model is used as a static snapshot of buildout, the analysis does not even attempt to assess whether these long-term obligations will be met by long-term tax revenue on an ongoing basis, and this all assumes that the figures provided by the applicant are correct in the first place, because those figures were not independently verified by the peer reviewer. Further, the model does not analyze the fiscal impact of wastewater and water even though the development's effect on the County's pipe connections per mile will have a direct impact on the March 19, 2026 Page 60 rates that are paid on those utilities countywide. This is a direct violation of Chapter 4, Section 8, Subsection 7(L) of the County's Land Development Code which plainly states, quote, "An economic assessment meeting the requirements of this section shall be prepared and submitted as part of the SRA designation application package. At a minimum, the analysis shall consider the following public facilities and service system: Potable water/wastewater." So while the project may appear fiscally neutral in a hypothetical future snapshot that assumes no change in known variables decades into the future and illegally excludes major utilities, that is not at all the same as demonstrating that it will be fiscally neutral in reality. The proposal relies on the flexibility granted to RLSA compact development does not deliver the defining characteristics that justifies that flexibility. It functions as conventional suburban development while operating under a framework intended to prevent exactly that outcome. This is a structural and fundamental contradiction, and for these reasons, I urge the Commission to take a close look at whether this project truly complies with the intent of RLSA, not just its procedural form, and to be skeptical of recommending approval for projects that do not have any recurring fiscal accountability mechanism in place such as a look-back provision, because without it the County is essentially signing a blank check to the developer. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Thank you, Mr. Davis. MR. SABO: Mr. Chairman, next speaker is online. Marsha Ellis, please. Give her a second to unmute. She's on. MS. ELLIS: Hello. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Hello. MS. ELLIS: Thank you. Can you -- I'm not sure if you can see March 19, 2026 Page 61 me. Can you hear me? CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: We can hear you, yes, ma'am. MS. ELLIS: Okay. Awesome. Wonderful. Let's start the video. Good morning. My name is Marsha Ellis. I am reaching out to you in Collier County about this development because we know that the impacts don't observe county lines, and there have been issues with regional coordination when it comes down to developments that have taken place on the county line. I was down in your area just a few years ago, two or three years ago, at an MPO meeting, and at that time I heard from your commissioners that there weren't any plans to develop in this area, and there was no need to be expanding the road. And now, just a few years later, another casualty of the urban shadow is falling victim to this period in time, this -- what we are experiencing, this historical shift in our state. That historical shift is because of the way that development and encroaching into ag areas is taking away the will of the industry to be able to -- to put investments in what has been our strongest sector in the state. So I just want to take a moment and talk about how having diverse sectors is really very important to resiliency. It's important to resiliency on an economic sense. There's also impacts here to human capital. When we talk about taking away and diminishing things like wildlife viewing opportunity, research opportunity just north of Audubon and on those CREW lands and then trying to shift it because it's convenient to an aspirational wildlife corridor, then we're really not recognizing the economic contributors that this development and this area takes away from other areas. We simply don't have the human capital out in Hendry County and that specialized workforce to serve thorough research goals. I also want to say that this project diminishes our agricultural March 19, 2026 Page 62 sovereignty for the surrounding area as well as our capacity. Alico, Inc., has been a major player. This area's been relied upon for beekeeping in order to prepare pollination services that guarantees our food source across this country. I also want to take a moment and point out that this credit-swapping SWAT team and that the exploitation of the wildlife corridor is not appreciated. I think it's disingenuous, because we have actual panther that are living in this area of Lee County and in Collier County that deserve our protection. When we take away and impact, in a negative way, distinct populations in geographic areas, we are putting that species in jeopardy by diminishing the ability of the -- of not only the species to disperse, but also to engage in gene mixing so that the species stays viable and can reach those recovery goals. I also want to say that continuing to exploit stormwater ponds and lakes because they provide utilities to these large developments and stewardship districts, it's really infringing on the rights of the surrounding people out there who are already experiencing water scarcity with their domestic self-supply wells. I'm also concerned about the economic injustice of skipping over areas like Lehigh Acres and those property values being diminished, right, because there's going to be all of this flood of new homes in the same area. I ask that in your consideration that you also think about the impacts on the county, you view things in a regional scale, this -- the outfall into the region's largest intact watershed, it should not be entered into lightly. I also want to just quote Proverbs 22:28 which states that -- that directs us to remove not our ancient landmarks. We have such rich natural resources in this area. We all rely on our water quality to protect our tourism to make sure that our March 19, 2026 Page 63 fisheries remain strong and healthy and that we should stop this catastrophic and large-scale conversion of these tracts and really look at what our heritage is, not just today, but 35 years in the future. And please don't take this consideration lightly. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Thank you, Ms. Ellis. MR. SABO: Mr. Chairman, next speaker, Matthew Schwartz online. He's -- we're going to wait for him to unmute here. (No response.) MR. SABO: All right. We're going to go to the next speaker, Patty Whitehead, ask her to mute. MS. WHITEHEAD: Commissioners, can you hear me? CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Yes. MS. WHITEHEAD: Okay. Hi. I'm Patty Whitehead, (audio cut out) representing (audio cut out) Management Coalition. Let me start by saying, I'm really appalled by the comments made by Audubon. This project in no way is any different from the massive urbanization that's going to -- that's going to occur with the Kingston project. I mean, it's just another bookend project similar to that one, and yet they approved that -- they approved this project and have a -- they have a federal legal action against Kingston project. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. Also, this project falls directly across from the CREW lands, and we know the species richness of the CREW lands. It's cypress dome and marsh trail parcels. Recently, FWC was in cypress dome. I actually encountered the houndsman who was in the process of trying to locate panthers to tree a panther to collar it. And my understanding is they were successful in collaring one panther in that CREW parcel. So even -- this was evident in the map that the developer's consultant put up showing the dark brown of the species interest in March 19, 2026 Page 64 cypress (audio cut out). How can you possibly put a city across the street from such important core breeding habitat for the Florida panther? This is unconscionable. This should not be allowed. How can you put such impact of automobiles and human beings and all this activity? You're going to essentially hollow out what lands the panthers have to translocate themselves to be able to find (audio cut out) and new territory to create new -- new, you know, breeding areas for themselves. The male panthers are not going to survive this process, and the females will be left stranded, and essentially, you're just going to diminish the population of panthers. This is just -- and don't -- please don't defer it to the Fish and Wildlife Service. We know how the Trump administration is gutting the Endangered Species Act as we speak, okay. They want to take out habitat modification -- the definition of harm -- they want to eliminate habitat modification under the definition of harm. Well, this is all habitat modification. That's what's occurring here. We need these lands to remain agricultural, and stop calling this a village. A village is always based around an agrarian lifestyle, an agrarian economy. No, the agrarian aspects of this land are being erased completely, okay. And this is being urbanized and suburbanized. A 100,000 square feet of storage space? No farmer needs that. This is absurd. The absurdity of this -- the double speak is just something that -- how are we allowing this to happen? How are we defining these terms in a way that completely perverts their meaning? It makes no sense to me. You need to say no to this project, I'm telling you. Categorically, it needs to be a no. That concludes my comments. Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Thank you, Ms. Whitehead. March 19, 2026 Page 65 MR. SABO: Next speaker, Matthew Schwartz. We're asking him to unmute again. Wait just a second. All right. He's ready. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. Matthew? MR. SCHWARTZ: This is Matthew Schwartz. I don't know if you were asking me to speak. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Yes. Go ahead, sir. MR. SCHWARTZ: Oh, okay. Great. Let me -- give me one second. I couldn't really hear the announcement. Okay. So Matthew Schwartz. I'm the director of the Florida Wildlands Association, and we are opposed to this project, and I'm going to give you some information that might back that up. From the -- FWC has a panther Pulse website where they talk about roadkill, and, of course, roadkill is, by far, the leading cause of death for our state animal. We're in 2026 right now. So far only four panther deaths this year. That's a very low number. All from vehicle. Three out of four in Collier County. 2025, 18 panther deaths, all but one from vehicle collision. Seven out of the 18 in Collier County. 2024, 36 panther deaths, 28 coming by way of vehicle. Eighteen of those deaths were in Collier County. In 2023, there were 13 panther deaths, again all by vehicle. Eight of those deaths were Collier County. '22 -- 2022 there were 27 panther deaths, all but one by vehicle; 14 of those deaths took place in Collier County. Aside from Lee and Hendry County with those -- where panther collisions also take place, panthers rarely show up as roadkill in any other parts of the state. Collier, and specifically eastern Collier, this area is where the action is. Not because drivers are better than -- better elsewhere than in Collier, but because there are no longer Florida panthers living in the vast majority of Florida. If we renamed the Florida panther the Collier panther, it would not be far March 19, 2026 Page 66 from the truth. We know where panthers live in Florida and how they're dying. The focus is here, and the Collier County Planning Commission and the Collier County Commissioners are really holding most of the cards. I should point out that the two Corkscrew Grove developments, east and west, will build up to 9,000 new homes. The average Florida household has 1.7 vehicles. Multiplication gives us 15,300 new vehicles in what is currently a completely rural area. Nobody showed up at your planning meeting because there's nobody living around here. These 15,000 vehicles will generate tens of thousands of additional vehicle trips per day and substantially increase risk for Florida panthers. Part of your conservation element, there's some really eloquent stuff in there, and I'm just going to read one paragraph because it really gets to the nub of this. Goal 6, identify, protect, conserve, appropriately use native vegetation communities and wildlife habitat. The preservation of native vegetation shall include canopy, understory, and ground cover, emphasizing the largest contiguous area possible, which may include connection to off-site preserves. The purpose for identifying the larger contiguous area is to provide for a core area that has the greatest potential for wildlife habitat by reducing the interface between the preserve area and development, which decreases the conflicts from other land uses. When I look at the location of this project, it is surrounded by wildlife habitat, and specifically those contiguous habitats will not be contiguous when we put a large suburban development like this in the middle of those. Going around clockwise, around the project, (audio cut out) preservation areas in close vicinity to this project. Spirit of the Wild wildlife management area; OK Slough wildlife management March 19, 2026 Page 67 area; Dinner Island wildlife management area; Pepper Ranch preserve; the CREW lands, including the very popular CREW Marsh Trails; and the Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp. A bit further are the massive public lands that are the core habitat for the panther, and that's the Big Cypress, Fakahatchee, Picayune, Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. Panthers have one single contiguous habitat. They go through this entire area. The site is not primary habitat. You pointed that out. What you didn't point out, or the developer's representative didn't point out is that the entirety of the site is in secondary habitat for panthers. There's only about 800,000 acres of secondary habitat in the state. It's rare. According to the Panther Recovery Plan, secondary habitat has managed to support panther population expansion, particularly north of the Caloosahatchee River, by facilitating movement and habitat connectivity. That's what this project does not do, does not create panther habitat connectivity. I want to say something. You guys -- I've spoken to this commission, the Planning Commission, the County Commission. You do defer, as you said today in the meeting, to the Fish and Wildlife Service. But I want to point out to you that the Fish and Wildlife defers to you. In 2015, there was a study done. It looked at all the consultations FWS had done between 2008 and 2015; 88,290 consultations. Of these, not a single project was stopped or extensively altered as a result of an FWS finding of jeopardy or adverse modification. They will take your decision today and go with it. They might recommend the wildlife crossing, but they will not protect this habitat. There's a way for you to learn about this project. Do a March 19, 2026 Page 68 workshop, I've said that to you many times, with scientists that can inform you what all this development is doing to panthers and the other wildlife in the area. I'm at five minutes now. I guess I'll close here. Those are the main points I wanted to bring out. Thank you for listening today. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Thank you, Mr. Schwartz. MR. SABO: No further public speakers. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Final, Rich? MR. YOVANOVICH: I think what -- in summary, what the speakers are, they don't like the program. But this is the program that the Board of County Commissioners coordinated with the property owners to come up with appropriate regulations for the development of the eastern lands which you have heard has resulted in significant set aside of lands in Stewardship Sending Areas to develop on lands that the program directly says where development should occur. If we can go back to the pink map that was in our presentation, you will see that what we're proposing is within the pink area that development is, in fact, supposed to occur. I don't think this is ours. So -- so the reality is is that the expert testimony that's been provided today through our experts and our documents and staff's review and analysis is that we do meet the criteria for this property to be designated as Stewardship Receiving Area. A couple of responses -- I can bring Bob up to talk about testimony from someone how we're not -- we're a typical development in the urban area. Well, we're not a typical development in the urban area. A typical development in the area doesn't have a mixed-use concept where you actually have a village center where you are required to provide goods and services and civic areas. That's not a typical urban development. And Bob can come up here and go through in greater detail how March 19, 2026 Page 69 we meet it. Your staff has determined we meet the requirements for a village. We are a village as defined in your code, not as some other person who wants you to define a village. We meet the definitions of a village. The fiscal analysis has been -- this model of fiscal analysis has been applied by the County Commission for, I think, seven of the eight already approved Stewardship Receiving Areas. This is a tried-and-true analysis. We have no impact on County utilities. So the speaker saying that somehow the taxpayers are going to be obligated to address County utilities, we're not even touching the County utilities. And when you look at what the fiscal analysis is, they did verify the information that was provided. You can see at the end of their appendix where they checked each and every one of the assumptions that we provided and checked the data. That's exactly what Appendix A says. They checked the ad valorem taxes. They checked the impact fees. And they did say that we met this analysis, what we provided is a legitimate analysis, and it does show fiscal neutrality. That's the facts. This project is recommended for approval by the Board of County -- I'm sorry, by your staff to you and the Board of County Commissioners. We meet all the criteria. If you would like additional testimony from Mr. Mulhere regarding the village and it's not a typical suburban development, we'll be happy to provide that. And with that, we are asking for you to recommend approval consistent -- the deviations that we've asked for are typical deviations. They're allowed to be asked for through this process. And, candidly, you cannot do a multifamily project on four acres. You cannot do an apartment complex to provide housing in that form of development on a 4-acre site. That's why we asked for the change. March 19, 2026 Page 70 This -- we asked for a change to the amenity center size, amenity center. It's not a regional attractor. It's an amenity center to serve the residents. Those are the types of deviations we asked for. They are not deviations from the concept of obtaining a village. They're legitimate and necessary deviations to provide the variety of housing that is, in fact, required to be provided in a village. If you want to hear from Bob, I'll have Bob come up here. If you're comfortable with the information we provided, we can rest our case. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Quick question, Mr. Yovanovich. One of the public speakers said 9,000 homes. This is 4,500, correct? MR. YOVANOVICH: Yeah, 4502. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: 4502. MR. YOVANOVICH: 4502 on a little over 1400 acres. Maximum density in a village is four units an acre. We're 3.11. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: No impact to the public. You're going to have a CDD set up. Each association will pay for whatever -- MR. YOVANOVICH: We have -- we actually have an independent stewardship district set up for this property. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. Good. Commissioner McLeod. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Yeah. Rich, if you could address two of the comments that the speakers made. Cody had mentioned something about modifying the size of commercial space from I think he said 3,000 to -- MR. YOVANOVICH: That was the amenity centers. He misstated what we asked for. Amenity centers, we're capped at 3,000 square feet; 15,000 square feet of raw. We asked to go to 30,000 for an amenity center to March 19, 2026 Page 71 serve the residents. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: What would be classified as amenity center, Mr. Mulhere? MR. MULHERE: I hate to confuse things even more, but dare I suggest, Mike, that we had a discussion, a formal discussion with the staff, and the staff's opinion is that that restriction as to size applies to nonresidential commercial uses and doesn't apply to amenity centers. So we really don't even need this particular deviation anymore. But that just happened. Mike, do you want to -- MR. BOSI: Mike Bosi, Planning and Zoning director. Amenity center is your clubhouses, your recreational space, those are the type of things associated with a residential subdivision. What the -- staff's interpretation and reading of the language, the restrictions in terms of size of 3,000 was allocated specifically for the neighborhood general type of uses that are being proposed. So it's mixing apples and oranges. The amenity center is not a commercial -- it's not -- it's nonresidential, but it's activities for the residential subdivision. The neighborhood general is different. That's for your commercial center. So you're crossing -- you're crossing two different unlike activities when you're comparing the two. So what's being proposed is, like I said, the deviation isn't necessarily even needed because that's really restricted to the more pure commercial and not the amenity centers that's associated with residential subdivisions. MR. MULHERE: Just to point out, there are two amenity centers depicted on the master plan, one right here on the east side and one right over here. The -- you know, whether or not those expand or another March 19, 2026 Page 72 amenity center comes, that's all part of a process that you go through after this approval. What the developer wants to do is provide amenities that not only are used to market the project but also are there for the benefit of the residents, so... COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And this is regarding an earlier comment of mine, to make these -- the intent is to make these communities self-sustaining -- MR. MULHERE: Yes. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: -- self-contained so that it doesn't draw people outside of the area and create more traffic -- MR. MULHERE: Yes. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: -- and where needs are not being met here on site, so... MR. MULHERE: Yes, that's correct, and that's a benefit. You know, Rich asked -- I just want to share a little of my experience with this program. So I worked for Collier County. I was the planning director for the County around the time that the State found the County in noncompliance and made many trips to Tallahassee and worked with the landowners and on behalf of the County to develop this program, as well as the Rural Fringe Mixed-Use District program. I left the County in 2001, and the County hired me again to be the lead planner through the implementation process of this program, which was about 2004/2005 time frame. This is completely different than any other urban development. You do have mixed-use urban developments, PUDs, but there's no formula required. It's kind of what they want, they come in and ask for. This process requires a calculation based on the number of dwelling units for commercial and civic uses. We meet with every single public-sector provider to determine what their needs are in this March 19, 2026 Page 73 process, whether it's fire or sheriff or school board. In this case we don't have to deal with utilities because it's not in the Collier County Utility; otherwise, we would have met with them as well. So it's a very different process with the primary focus being on creating, as much as is feasible and possible, a reduction in vehicle miles traveled generated from this project. That's -- VMT is a term that's used. And we have a lot of folks today and historically moving from east to west in the morning and west to east in the evening, clogging the few east-to-west arterials that we have. With the inclusion of Vanderbilt Beach extension and other roadways and by generating employment and entertainment and recreation and other activities in close -- within or in close proximity to this, we will reduce the number of -- school. We're going to reduce the number of trips that are forced to be traveled a considerable distance away from these sites. So -- and I guess last, but not least, I think Rich mentioned, and Mitch did as well, the amount of acreage that generally is required to entitle one of these, about a 3-1, slightly above in most cases. But I don't know that it was said, perhaps it was, but that's at no cost to the taxpayers of Collier County. That's not Conservation Collier spending money to go buy these lands. Thank you. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: And then I just have, Chair, one more question. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Yeah, go ahead. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Rich, if you could also address the last speaker's comment on panther connectivity. He's indicating that there is not panther connectivity, but I thought in your presentation you did. MR. YOVANOVICH: You heard from Mitch -- COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Yeah. March 19, 2026 Page 74 MR. YOVANOVICH: -- explain in great detail how we are accommodating panther connectivity. We showed you that map, remember, that talked about -- Mitch, let me know when I go too -- well, that's one -- that's one -- you can see how this area becomes part of that panther connectivity. This is -- this is -- that's the area. And if you remember, that's our SSA. So we are, in fact, providing the wildlife corridors, including for the panther, as part of what we did not include in the village and what we did include in the SSA. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: So that thatched area is the panther wildlife corridor? MR. YOVANOVICH: That's the wildlife corridor that the State -- do I have that right? I'll let Mitch give you the exact details, but the State determined what it should be. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: Yes. Appreciate the opportunity to address that. But as you see, the outlined area in red in this area is 1200 acres in addition to the 3600 acres over on the Felda property that's being put permanently into conservation in areas that are utilized by panther habitat. And not only are we setting aside the land, but we're also providing a wildlife underpass. Mr. Schwartz talked about the impacts of vehicular/panther. The way you address that is put up fencing and an underpass, which is exactly what we funded in cooperation with FDOT and through informal consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Okay. Great. Thank you. MR. YOVANOVICH: I just want to -- you know, I just want to make sure we're really clear. When we create an SSA, we remove layers of development. And in our case we're still going to have the ability to do cattle grazing and things like that. March 19, 2026 Page 75 So I -- we -- conservation -- I don't want -- this isn't going -- this is not total conservation lands, but it is re -- it's removing development in most of the -- so I don't want someone to come back -- and this happened in another case I was involved in. We said on the public record it was conservation lands, and they -- I don't want to misrepresent this is a true conservation easement where there's nothing going to happen on the property. There will be some, you know, cattle grazing and things like that in these SSA areas. So just to make sure we're all clear on that. And with that, I think we've met all the -- I'm sorry. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Rich, can you go back to that gray hashed mark map -- maybe the other direction -- where you said the panther corridor. MR. YOVANOVICH: The wildlife corridor. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Right there, wildlife corridor. All of that hashed area, is that wildlife corridor as depicted in your ledger over there that is not going to be developed ever? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: No, that's not the case. What that is is an overlay that was established by the State over private property to identify where are opportunities to add conservation and preservation. So if somebody wanted to submit property for a conservation easement, the State would look at it and say, "Hey, this is within our overlay. That's a high priority." So it's really a prioritization tool. It does not indicate what is conservation or what will be conservation. It's an idea of this is what we ought to be moving towards, but it does also include areas that are conservation. This is the CREW property. This is the Okaloacoochee Slough. But it also covers private property in locations where they would like to create connectivity. And so within our property, we are establishing connectivity through our March 19, 2026 Page 76 1200 acres on the east side. MR. YOVANOVICH: I would say it's a State wish list, and we're accommodating the State's wishes through how we're developing our property. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: The goal would be to somehow get the panthers to move in the northeast direction through that hashed mark up to the large area on the top right of that map, correct? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: That's correct. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I mean, that's the wish. MR. HUTCHCRAFT: That's the wish. There are other conversations, as was previously indicated. There's a sector plan that has been adopted in Hendry County that identifies wildlife connectivity. The State's looking at a future underpass at that location. So I think, ultimately, it's going to do more like that (indicating) than like this. There's currently, you know, a sand mine in this area. But the general direction of getting panthers from the southwest over to the Okaloacoochee Slough, that's the general direction that they're looking to achieve. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Very good. Thank you for that information. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Mitch, while you're up there, are you open to working with Mrs. Kurgis on her easement for Conservation Collier? MR. HUTCHCRAFT: I've given her my card, and I have her contact information and have already told her we're happy to reach out and have a conversation. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Awesome. MR. YOVANOVICH: Separate and aside from the village? CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Yeah, separate from -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Right. March 19, 2026 Page 77 CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Rich, you and I had both -- when we spoke on the phone -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: -- we had touched on the affordable housing aspect. I am requesting there is some type of language for one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. MR. YOVANOVICH: That you would like to see a mixture? Sure. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: I would like to see that in that because, like I said, we had this issue where we don't see -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Sure, sure. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: -- these three-bedrooms in some of these projects, and when I hear from people that they went to try to get one, and they did have three-bedrooms. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Oh, good point. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: So I just want to make sure. I had something else here. Covered that. MR. YOVANOVICH: I'm assuming on the mixture of ones, twos, and threes -- CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Yeah, they can -- MR. YOVANOVICH: -- it would be based upon, you know, market, not -- you're not going to dictate that is has to be one-third, one-third, one-third? You're just saying -- CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: No -- MR. YOVANOVICH: Just want us to provide a variety -- CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: -- there just has to be an availability there. MR. YOVANOVICH: Understood. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Any other questions from the Board? (No response.) March 19, 2026 Page 78 CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Not seeing any, we'll close the -- MR. YOVANOVICH: I just want to add one more thing on the traffic. I think what you'll see, and I think Mike will agree, is that the assumptions of internal capture that were made for bigger projects like Ave Maria actually understated the internal capture. It's been significantly higher of keeping -- keeping traffic within Ave Maria. And the whole goal of this program really was as a whole, not on each individual project, but to change the traffic direction from east to west and provide, over time, the opportunity for people to work, live, and play out east versus having to find all those amenities on the west. So this is -- this is a process that's finally taking hold, and you'll see -- you'll see at the end that I think the projections were correct. There will still be people coming west, but the number of people west will be significantly reduced by the approval of these towns and villages. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: SR [sic] 22 -- that brings me back to another point. Is that an established SRA now, or is that one that's -- MR. YOVANOVICH: It will be established at the same hearing that this -- CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: -- SRA is considered. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. MR. YOVANOVICH: We have to do that or else we won't have enough credits. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: So -- and that is in perpetuity going to be ag? MR. YOVANOVICH: It's going to be -- CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: So you can't use cattle -- March 19, 2026 Page 79 MR. YOVANOVICH: It's going to be reduced down to ag. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Yeah. MR. YOVANOVICH: And we can go back later, actually, and reduce it down to where it actually does become conservation. There's that final category. So there is the ability to get there. We're just not there yet. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Okay. I just want to make sure that that stays so that we don't have like we had last summer with the apartment complex at the end of the street with -- it was supposed to be reserved -- preserve land, and now it's not. Okay. Great. Close that. Open it up to the Board. Comment? Questions? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: No? I'll entertain a motion to approve or deny. Would the Board like to discuss? COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: You this time. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Is the staff okay with all of the -- I'm gathering you're okay with all of the variances? MR. BOSI: Deviations, yes. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Deviations. MR. BOSI: Yes. Staff is in support. These deviations are ones we normally see within the SRA request. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: I mean, they're -- COMMISSIONER SHEA: Do you want me to do it? CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: I mean, they're approving this on the land that's already cleared, and then even putting other cleared lands into it, SRA for perpetuity, so... COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Good project. I would like to move -- you guys aren't. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: You're batting a thousand. March 19, 2026 Page 80 COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I would like to move forward with the -- with the petitioner -- I would like to -- CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Motion to approve. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Motion to approve the current petitioner for the Corkscrew Grove East Village SRA. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: With the amendment of making sure the affordable housing -- COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Yeah, with an amendment of the affordable housing will include one- -- CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Three-bedroom. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: -- two-, and three-bedroom -- CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Three-bedroom units. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: -- units. At this point we're not dictating the ratio or the total number? MR. YOVANOVICH: Correct. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: That's correct. COMMISSIONER SHEA: Second. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All in favor? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Motion carries. Excellent. MR. MULHERE: Thank you. MR. BOSI: One second. That -- we need to include that as a vote of the EAC or have an EAC vote as well, separately, because you're acting as the EAC as well as the Planning Commission. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: I'll make a motion as the EAC. Motion to approve. March 19, 2026 Page 81 COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: I'll second it. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: All in favor? COMMISSIONER SHEA: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Aye. COMMISSIONER SPARRAZZA: Aye. COMMISSIONER McLEOD: Aye. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: There you go. MR. YOVANOVICH: Thank you. CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Very good. Old business? No old business. New business? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Any other public comment? (No response.) CHAIRMAN SCHUMACHER: Seeing none, we are adjourned at 11:41. ******* March 19, 2026 Page 82 There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned by order of the Chair at 11:41 a.m. COLLIER COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION __________________________________ CHUCK SCHUMACHER, CHAIRMAN These minutes approved by the Board on ______________________, as presented ______________ or as corrected ____________. TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF VERITEXT BY TERRI L. LEWIS, RPR, FPR-C, COURT REPORTER AND NOTARY PUBLIC.