Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Chair, you have a live mic. Oh, thank you. And good morning, everyone, and welcome to the May 7, 2026 Collier County Planning Commission. I'd ask that you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Commissioner Shea, I would ask if you please take the role.

Chairman Schmidt here. Vice Chair Schumacher here. Secretary Shays here. Commissioner Sparazza is absent.

I note that he does have an excused absence. He sent me a note and he's. As a commitment up in Fort Myers.

Thank you, Commissioner McLeod here. Commissioner Petzer, but here. And our newest member, welcome, Commissioner Luccarella.

Here.

Thank you. Dominic, welcome. And you only had 3,000 or so pages. What was it? There were 4,000. There were 721.

I was going to say I got through about 500 before I realized I was never going to finish it.

Anyways, thanks.

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Ray, are there any addended to the agenda?

I called your name.

I'm not sure. Yes. Good morning, Commissioners. Oh, sorry.

I'm not sure I called Commissioner Lockhart's name.

I'm here. Thank you.

Ray?

Yes, we do have a request from the applicant for agenda item 9A and 9B for continuance. There was an issue arose from correspondence from the public and opposition, and they wanted time to address it.

All right, I need a motion and a second on the request for continuance as part of our practice now in regards to a Having this been publicly advertised for today, so I need someone to make a motion and a second.

So moved.

Hear a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, like sign. It passes unanimously. It will be heard. I believe we're scheduling for the June 5th meeting.

Mike Buzzi, Planning Center Director. Yeah, the June 4th.

June 4th.

The June 4th Planning Commission meeting.

Yeah, June 4, I got it. Okay.

So chair, seems like it seems like some of the people in the audience are kind of upset that we're having to forward this. Well, I understand they're upset, but maybe just a bigger, more of an explanation.

The petitioner submitted a request to continue this item, which they have every right to do so. There was an issue raised, and it was primarily having to do with parking, some of the parking issues that have been historically associated with the petition. And in regards... Mike, would you make sure all the other commissioners get the document that I received from Patricia, is it Parisi? Parisi, yes. That they get that document as well because that was sort of the genesis of some of the issues in regards. But I understand the frustration, but the petitioner is asked to have this continued. And I would ask that if anybody has any issues they'd like to meet with the petitioner, Noel, if you would stand up so they know who you are. Noel Davies is the attorney representing the petitioner, and I know he wants to meet with the neighbors to see if they can work some of this out. So I apologize from the standpoint that you came here, but the fact of the matter is they have every right, the petitioner has every right to ask for a continuance. In an effort to, rather than try and resolve the issues during a public hearing, it was the petitioner's desire to try and resolve some of these issues with the neighborhood first before coming back here with the petition. And I think that's probably a better way to go because to try and work that out here in the public, it becomes problematic. So with that, any other questions or concerns? You'll have to come to the podium if you want and state your name. Either one.

Okay, I am Patricia Parisi. My one question is, because I'm not 500 feet adjacent to Fairways Inn, I was not notified about the original NIM, so how is Mr. Davies going to notify the community? Is he required to do another NIM, or is he just going to do the surrounding NIM?

No, he's not required to do another NIM. The signs were posted, of course, notifying... of the dates of the public hearings. And yes, you may have been outside the 500 feet, but I would ask if you want to be part of the community to address the issues. And I read your letter and the concerns you raised that I would recommend you work with Mr. Davies and he will, between whomever you want to contact and that you all can meet to discuss some of these issues.

Okay. Just want it to be like enough people to express their issues too, not just mine.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right. All right. Our next scheduled meeting is scheduled for May 21st. As of now, there are no land petitions for that. Are there now?

no no land petitions have been scheduled for it we have left that uh meeting on the on the books so to speak in case we do not get through the full agenda today and some and we have to hear items on on the 21st uh the uh so right now there's nothing on the 21st but just in case of course if we have to continue any of these petitions we'll continue to the 21st

So the two that were continuing, we don't have a firm date?

Yes, we do. We do. June 4th.

June 4th. Okay, sorry.

It was going to continue to the 21st, but he felt, I talked to Noel last night, Noel felt that he didn't have sufficient time to meet with the neighbors in order to resolve the issues with the parking. I mean, I can get into great lengths about the parking, but the issue basically has to do with parking that has been long vested or at least agreed to by the county with off-site parking. And now that it's a PUD, it opens it up to discussion. So he wants to resolve some of those issues. Okay, then there's an LDC item scheduled for June 4th. The Fairways Inn will be scheduled for the 4th. That's a comp plan amendment plus the PUD. And, Mike, you said there's some other items now as well?

GMP and PUD for the mini-triangle.

okay so with that any commissioners believe are going to be absent for the meeting on the 21st if we have it will we have a quorum everybody will be here okay fine how about for the June 4th meeting I will be absent I'm out of town And, again, I would ask that the document Ms. Parisi sent so the other commissioners, it's included in her packet because that was one of the main concerns in regards to some of the vested parking. With that, then, the June 18th meeting has been canceled. Correct. So there's no meeting on the 18th.

and I'm here all summer unfortunately yes and we can do this now or we I can wait to the end we're gonna pull the Planning Commission about your availability for July 2nd we're going to have a number of petitions we have three or we have three LDC amendments that require a 505 start time so what that means is we'll probably start the meeting later on in the day try to coordinate towards where we can get through the the regular business and then have our 505 meeting on the 2nd that is a Thursday before a holiday week so we just want to make sure I know it may be tough to get a quorum so I just want to kind of throw the idea out see if we check your schedules I'll send an email I can send an email after today's meeting to everyone asking we'll ask you whether you're going to be available if you could check your schedules and if so we will schedule that night meeting if not we'll have to I'll be available.

Now, the question is the start time. The start time will be adjusted. Are there any other land petition items scheduled for that?

Yes, we will have at least two that will be two LDC amendments that can be heard during the day. If those are the only two, we'll probably start at 4 o'clock because they're relatively straightforward. But if we get any more land use petitions, we'll start just a little bit earlier trying to coincide it.

All right. All right, well, it's sent out a notice, but right now, anybody project now that they would not be able to make the July 2nd meeting? So I think we're good, but follow up as well.

We'll follow up with an email as well.

We'll go to the next item then. These are approval of minutes. These are the March 19th, 2026 Planning Commission minutes, and then the April 2nd CCPC 1 p.m. meeting. Do I hear a motion for both to be approved, or we can do each one separately?

I'd make a motion to approve all three, because there's also the 5 o'clock meeting. I missed that one.

There's a 5 o'clock meeting as well. Thank you. I hear a motion. I hear a second.

Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, like sign. Passes unanimous. Ray, the BCC report.

Yes. On April 28th, the Board of County Commissioners heard the Corkscrew Grove SRA report. SSA and that was approved unanimously 5-0 they also heard the Imperial Lakes PUD amendment and that was approved 5-0 then on the summary agenda they approved the Grey Oaks PUD amendment and the LDCA for application fees and procedures Imperial Lakes was that on the summary agenda or is it summary it was it was not heard publicly oh no Imperial X is regular the PDA for Gray Oaks was okay Any questions commissioners?

And right now if chairman's report nothing nothing on the consent agenda, so we'll proceed to the first Public meeting and that has to do with this is the expansion of the SRA this is item PL 2024-001-2290, town of Ave Maria, north of Oilwell Road and south of Immokalee. This is a petition requesting amendment to the town of Ave Maria stewardship receiving area. And the companion item, oh, that was 9C.

Is there a companion item? No, no companion. No companion, Chair.

No companion item, just 9C. Thank you. And with that, I turn it over to, please, any disclosures? Amy?

None. Do we have any disclosures? No.

Disclosures? None.

Stack materials only.

I did speak to Mr. Yovanovitch about this, and... Staff materials. Oh, I did speak to Mr. Klusich as well about this last night as well. Thank you.

Staff materials and a conversation with Mr. Ivanovich. Staff materials only.

Excuse me. Staff materials and spoke with Rich Ivanovich.

Okay. Any persons wishing to speak on this matter, please rise to be sworn in. And with that, I turn it over to the petitioner. Good morning.

For the record, Rich Yovanovitch, on behalf of the applicant petitioner, Representing the applicant and petitioner is Nick Kossler-Greta. Peninsula Engineering is both the planning firm and the engineering firm related to this petition. Mr. Treville-Cock is our transportation consultant. Jeremy Sterk is our environmental consultant. And Lucy Gallo, who is on Zoom, is our economic impact expert. By brief way of history, the town of Ave Maria was the first SRA approved pursuant to the RLSA program established in the early 2000s. And it's located northeast of Camp Keys Road and Oil Well Road. It's been a very successful town. has a variety of neighborhoods both commercial serving the residents of the town as well as employment centers it's been self-sustaining and as a high internal capture rate traffic wise in fact it far exceeded the internal capture rate anticipated for the town And the county has recognized that. It has interconnected streets, sidewalks, and pathways. And it's been named a top 20 master plan community in the United States. And it's got 5,000 plus existing occupied homes and over 75 businesses. if you all will remember not too many years ago there was a size limitation for towns within the growth management plan and both the planning commission staff and the board recognized that yeah it makes sense to have a minimum size for a town but why was there a maximum size for the town so that was removed because i was asked why were these lands not originally included as part of the town of ave maria it was because there was this basically artificial maximum size of a town so that was changed so uh and in fact these lands kind of were discussed as part of that growth management plan change so we are increasing the boundary of the town by 2042 acres we're updating the master plan We're increasing the residential units by 6,732 dwelling units, which is basically 2.2 dwelling units overall for the town. We're increasing goods and services by 996,000 square feet. We're updating the residential types. We're updating the cross-section for one of the roads. We're adding affordable housing, which was something that was not required as part of the original town, but since we're adding acreage, we are providing additional affordable housing opportunities related to that acreage, and we are providing a few new deviations as part of this process.

Okay.

don't know how many of you have actually read the town plan but it was the first town plan and it's about that thick it had 240 pages we've seen several new applications in fact you have one later where we've streamlined it instead of repeating what was in the land development code we but this plan is still the original 240 page plan so we've got minor modifications to 35 of those pages so it makes it a little bit more difficult to talk about the changes but you have all of those pages and that are in your your backup documents these are the areas that are being added to the town there's two small parcels right around here that are difficult to see but then the other parcels are sufficient in size to show up pretty clearly on the exhibit that we're adding to the overall town as you're aware the town also has the university district as part of the town So that is also included in the total acreage for the town. For those of you who are new, either in the audience or on the planning commission to the RLSA program, it was started in basically 2002. And on the left is the... kind of the governing map that addresses where development should be and where development should not be for purposes of designating either a stewardship receiving area, SRA, or a stewardship sending area, an SSA. And it's basically the pink area is appropriate for designation of SRAs. and the various different other areas that are different colors where you have flowway stewardship areas habitat stewardship areas or WRAs are where SSAs are encouraged to be established and designated so the program has been working there's been a significant number of SSAs established roughly 50 000 acres have been put into ssas or are in escrow as ssas and roughly it turns out to between two and a half to three acres of ssas result in a designation of one acre of a stewardship proceeding area so the program was to balance the importance of various environmental, environmentally sensitive areas out in the eastern lands with property rights to be allowed to develop property within the eastern lands. Our parcel is designated as open. There are no WRAs, flowway stewardship areas, or habitat stewardship areas within the project. There are no areas with a natural resource index greater than 1.2, equal to or greater than 1.2 acres. I'm sorry, the score greater than 1.2. That's important because if you score higher than a 1.2, you're not allowed to develop those areas. So in some of the SRAs that have gone through the process, there will be pockets of areas that do score higher than a 1.2, and those are put into preservation areas within the SRA. We don't have any of those, and we are not within the area of critical state concern. As I've already mentioned, we don't have any area scoring higher than a 1.2. And we provide more than the required 35% open space. I've already mentioned we don't have any FSAs, HSAs, or WRAs. We have direct access to county and collector roads. We're compatible with adjacent land uses. We meet all of the required criteria within the growth management plan and the land development code. And we have sufficient credits set aside for the expansion. of the uh the town i'm going to turn it over to chris scott who's going to take you through in a little bit greater detail the proposed changes to the sra document to the master plan and then we'll open it up to any questions mr yovanovitch before we do that i just want to make to make this clear to the public

and of course to my commissioners as well we are not here for rezoning this area is already zoned it's zoned SRA meaning it's already zoned stewardship area I received emails concerned about saving farmland and other types of issues. Those issues have long been addressed in regards to the way the county approved the rural land stewardship and the basic premise of the rural land stewardship program was to put lands that are deemed to be, should be preserved, put in preservation as stewardship sending areas and then stewardship receiving areas. The receiving areas were then lands that were subject to be developed. So we're here to approve the concept of the town and approve the concept of the expansion of the boundaries. The zoning's already been settled and the zoning's already been discussed. So if you would clarify that again from a legal perspective.

I will, and that's why you heard me use the word designation. We are designating these lands an SRA, stewardship receiving area. The zoning was taken care of through the amendment to the Land Development Code, which the Land Development Code implemented the growth management plan, where the growth management plan set aside this concept of the rural land stewardship area. For those who were around in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a moratorium placed by the governor on development in the eastern lands of Collier County. It resulted in two distinct but similar areas in the eastern lands, the rural fringe mixed-use district, which this is not part of, and then the rural land stewardship area. which this is part of and as the chairman pointed out as a result of that moratorium we implemented a growth management plan uh process to designate lands as a stewardship preserving area the zoning is in place so what we're you you apply very specific criteria in determining whether or not to designate a land a stewardship receiving area we meet every one of those criteria they're set out in detail in your staff report and in all the information that we provide is backup information so we're not zoning the property that's already taken care of the difference is in a rezone uh kairi county has a super majority requirement for the board of county commissioners which means four out of five commissioners have to approve a reason since we're a designation the difference is it's a simple majority so that's that's why it's not a rezone it's a designation of lands uh with specific criteria that have been met and and Mr. Luccarelli, who's new to this, that means we go through this quasi-judicial process versus it's not a legislative action. You'll always hear lawyers say things like, if we meet the criteria, we're entitled to the approval. And it's got to be based upon competent, substantial evidence. It's not that I have 1,000 people who may hate this project. It's whether or not we meet the criteria.

and i know i'll note in our staff report the criteria is very spelled out very clear um there's 13 items that we are to consider in in reviewing this and it it was on on page 26 of 27 of our staff report but page 559 over 3 733 pages that we had to review for this meeting

Right. And I'm not going to take you through all of our materials unless you have quick, but you have that as evidence for purposes of the cause of judicial hearing. Uh, so you have our expert testimony through documents as well as what Chris is going to say today. And then you have staff's expert review, which is based upon.

Before we get into the particulars, there are sufficient credits available for sending areas to cover these areas that are being added.

There is a credit reconciliation and a credit agreement to show that there are sufficient credits to designate these additional lands as part of the town. Unless there's any other background questions, I'll turn it over to Chris Scott to take you through the details.

Good morning. For the record, Christopher Scott with Peninsula Engineering. I'm a certified planner and have been working on Ave Maria since I started at Peninsula Engineering five years ago. This is the proposed master plan with the expansion areas. And I'll break those down a little bit more. This slide will show the existing master plan on the left-hand side of the screen. The right-hand side shows the expanded areas with the updated master plan. So the Ave Maria master plan includes several contact zones, which is a requirement of the Rural Land Stewardship Program. Towns are required to include a town core. town centers, as well as neighborhood general areas. Ave Maria is unique in that we have a special district for the university. So Ave Maria University is a very important aspect of the town. That's shown in light purple. That acreage has not changed with this update. Neither has the town core area. The expansion areas do include additional town centers, a little over 300 acres of new town center areas. Those are to be located. There's some revisions down in the existing area in the southeast as well as new town center areas. in the northeast and northwest. Those are intended to have your commercial as well as mixed-use development, so it will have higher density residential and commercial opportunities. The majority of the expansion area is neighborhood general, including all the area on the east side of Camp Keys, and also in the northeast and northwest expansion areas. We have approximately nine acres of new service districts. That's for the Ave Maria utilities. Their main plant is located already in the town, but the expansion areas are providing small expansion areas to help service the additional acreage into the town. additionally there's almost 50 acres of new community parks and those are located just in the Northeast area that will be a mix of active and passive recreation in that general area again the total addition is 2042 acres the town with the increase in acreage there's also an increase in density and intensity so additional residential areas we're adding six thousand seven hundred thirty eight dwelling units that split between single-family and multifamily it follows the existing ratio that you find in the town so approximately 20% multifamily, 80% single family within the town of Ave Maria. We have 996,000 total new square feet of additional goods and services, which includes your retail, office, light industrial manufacturing. Hospital use is now classified under goods and services since that is a medical service use. And then an additional 100 hotel rooms As rich mentioned in the opening the RLSA program was amended several years ago now has an affordable housing requirement and The town is meeting that. We are based off of the expansion area of 2,042 acres. The RLSA program requires a percentage of that acreage to be dedicated for affordable housing at 10 units per acre. That results in 511 affordable housing units that would be required for this expansion. The SRA documents amended to note that that could be met in one of three ways, either on-site with rental units, off-site rental units, or through some agreement with the county where there would be land proximal to the SRA that the developer would rezone and then sell to the county and the county would develop. the intention for ave maria is to meet this off-site we do have three sites that are specifically identified in the sra document some of these are already going through the approval process in fact one the wave it rose for 230 units for very low-income families has been approved and received a revenue bond by Collier County Board of County Commissioners recently. That one is located in Immokalee. All of these offsite locations are within five miles of the SRA boundary. Staff has reviewed and found that this is meets the intent of the affordable housing provisions of the RLSA program. Additionally, the RLSA program was amended with policy 4.6 that includes a mobility plan. the ave maria sra always had this pedestrian pathways plan included and has very substantial language throughout the document it's a robust town plan has a lot of references for multimodal transportation systems we did incorporate a specific section now that is identified to meet the mobility plan provisions it does require sidewalks pathways along all town streets transit station or park and ride which will be located in one of the town center districts the town also allows for golf carts and low-speed vehicles that they receive special approval by the Board of County Commissioners previously to have that and that would be included within the expansion areas The mobility plan also will meet ADA requirements and allow for micromobility facilities, charging stations, and other requirements that are provided for in the RLSA program. Briefly, I'll go over some of the transportation. couple names transportation as you are aware is something residents have legitimate concerns about this project will have a developer contribution agreement with collier county we've been working with the transportation department on that and that will be a companion item that would go to the board of county commissioners if this moves forward to the board the improvements that are identified and I'll walk through those will be additional right-of-way along Immokalee Road as well as some land that would be utilized for stormwater improvements for the expansion of Immokalee Road There's right-of-way and water management.

Chris, let me just interrupt over here. The expansion of Mockley, that's a county initiative though, correct? Or is that the initiative of Ave Maria? You're providing areas for storage, water management, but the expansion of that area of Mockley Road is a county initiative, correct? Correct.

will be a county initiative when development happens uh up there yes but okay overall the mockley road is part of the right county i'll ask make sure mike or somebody in the staff confirms that during this we have norm here who can better address that as well go ahead uh there will be right away in water management along Mockley Road, there will be improvements along Camp Keys Road for the full length. A lot of milling, resurfacing, adding shoulders and cross drains. Along the frontage where the SRA is expanding onto the east side of Camp Keys, there will be fuller transportation improvements. So the road right-of-way, a traffic circle at the intersection of Camp Keys and Pope John Paul Boulevard will be there. and the additional lanes at that location uh and again more milling resurfacing from that point south to oil well road there are some county planned improvements at the intersection of immokalee road and camp keys so whatever additional right-of-way is needed for that will be provided and then the county has widening of oil well road for that section to connect between ave maria and the other developments further west those are scheduled for fiscal year 28 29. one of the there is a new residential product that's being introduced it is a owner-occupied cottage court, so cottage court single-family attached product. This would be allowed within the neighborhood general and town center districts. This is a product that exists, I believe, at aisles at Collier Preserve has the same product, and it's been highly successful. They're smaller units, clustered around a common green, so not all of the lots would have direct frontage on a roadway they could have frontage on an internal green garden and the access is provided to the rear of the unit so it allows for that front porch look onto the roads or onto a common green area between units because not all the lots would frontage on a road there is a proposed deviation as part of this SRA amendment to allow for those Lots to not have what would be typical street frontage required by the land development code staff has reviewed and found that the SRA amendment meets the suitability criteria and is consistent with the growth management plan and the land development code Again, the town has been a highly, I think, one of the most successful examples of what the RLSA program is about, and these expansion areas will also continue to help bring more residents and increase the economic opportunities within the town to create a self-sustaining community that was envisioned when the RLSA program was done, was created. So with that, I'll

close my presentation and we can open up to questions since you brought up deviations you have deviation number nine and deviation number ten deviations have already been approved but these are new deviations there are several new deviations and I can go into those in more detail if you would like yes yeah I would like you to put those on the record sure the other deviations that are being proposed

Give me one second so I can make sure I'm not missing anything.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at him now. That's throwing his phone at me.

Sorry.

Actually, I'm starting from deviation two. Which is the neighborhood general town design criteria. Deviation through four. Okay, the if you just go through make sure that they're I'll go through all of them.

Yes, please They may be out of order from how they're written. All right, so Deviation 10 there's off street parking design standards. This is located in the LDC's architectural and site design standards that provision states that anytime you provide more than 120 of the required parking so you are exceeding the minimum parking by 120 or more that you have to provide double the landscaping internal to that parking lot this deviation seeks to not to allow to not require that double the landscaping specific to the hospital use that is proposed. Town center already has internal landscaping requirements within the Ave Maria town plan, so it is recommending that this hospital would just meet the existing internal landscaping provisions specified in the town plan. Uh, there is a. Provision that limits the amount of square footage within a neighborhood center or non-residential square footage within a neighborhood center to no more than, I believe it is 3,000 square feet for any use. This deviation is intended to allow the 9,000 square foot sales center, which is represented by the large red star, located on the east side of camp keys when that sales center is done with its useful life as a sales center that it could be converted to a public non-residential business deviation 4 is related to off-premise directional signs the county allows for off-premise directional signs but has a spacing requirements that they be no more than a thousand feet or two thousand feet from where they're directing people this deviation seeks to allow two off-premise directional signs along camp keys road and they're spaced at four thousand and eighty five hundred feet south of the neighborhood to the north those are represented by the two small stars or asterisks on the plan if you have questions on any of these feel free to stop me as we go through them The other new deviation is for a proposed boundary marker sign the LDC allows for boundary marker signs we are asking that The town of Ave Maria be allowed to place their boundary marker on a tower structure or an incidental structure The town's allowed to have a tower structure, but it couldn't have signage above what would be allowed for a boundary marker this would allow them to put a town of Ave Maria or whatever on that boundary marker at a higher size, higher height and larger size. And that would be located near the intersection of Camp Keys and Oil Well Road if it were to be constructed.

Chair, I do have a question on that tower.

Yes, go ahead, please.

Chris, are you saying that it's going to go higher than the tower? No. Because the picture shows it's right in the middle of it.

No. A boundary marker sign, I believe, is limited to like 8 or 12 feet. So a tower would be allowed up to 35 feet. So we are asking that the signage be allowed to be placed on a 35-foot tall tower.

Okay. Thank you.

so uh just just to clarify a tower is already allowed up to 35 feet you just want to put a sign on the tower that is correct and those are the new proposed deviations there's some rewording of existing deviations that were done at the recommendation of staff uh and the orders changed but those were the new deviations all right thanks for covering that i just want to make sure that was on the record Anything else for me?

I don't see anybody lighting up there. Chuck, you're the first, and Amy. Yes, Chuck?

Just a quick question on that affordable housing off-site. Why not do it on-site in Ave Maria?

Ave Maria has historically been a very affordable community. We had several NIMS. There were a lot of residents that were there and consistently did not want new affordable housing units within the community. We have the right the SRA amendment allows for it to be inside, but we are respecting the wishes of the community and have agreements to provide some affordable housing off-site with some affordable housing providers that we have relationships with will you be doing more of the affordable housing for that less than 80 percent per se because that 80 to 120 kind of fits yeah and i just wanted essential workers and whatnot yeah i want to this is not unusual there are other sras that have the same provision to be able to do that

And yes, we've got some partners that do target, like for instance, the one that's already been approved, that's 60% and below. So it allowed for opportunities to use existing partners to provide the affordable housing to serve this area as well as businesses outside of this area.

Well, there's good and bad associated with that, and I'll chime in. One is the bad, of course, is that they're not... being built on the property and enjoying the amenities, but the good is they're not being burdened by the other fees that are applied through the district and other O&M and other fees that are associated with the maintenance of Ave Maria. So it could be a beneficial cost savings to the homeowners who buy in the affordable housing, offsite housing.

Right, right. And as Chris pointed out, if you look at the historical price points of sales in Ave Maria, Ave Maria was providing affordable housing even though it was never required to do it when the town was originally approved.

Just a quick question on Anthem the connection to this Alvin Maria Elementary School which will open up next year from the new additions up north of it and also Camp Keys improvements and its access to those school sites there's a combination of Alvin Maria Elementary and a middle school that will be built in the future So just a little discussion on that, how that's connected. I think it would have to connect to Anthem.

Yes, where the arrows point is the location of where the school is being located. So all those, with this expansion, there will be interconnections throughout the entire community. So Ave Maria Boulevard will now extend all the way from Oil Well Road on the south and will connect up to Immokalee Road on the north side. The developments on the east side, so the expansion area, the 1,000 acres east of Camp Keys, that is intended to be a senior living community. So those units, that will be a highly amenitized senior living community. So obviously there shouldn't be schoolchildren associated with that, but there will be appropriate pedestrian and golf cart crossing from there on to Pope John Paul, which you could then get on to Anthem.

And your way through, yes, okay. actually the Ava Maria attendance boundary includes all of those areas and but the middle school eventually will have more than likely have a wider attendance boundary so I want to make sure everything was connected Michelle yeah Chris did you identify the land area that you are gonna have of the affordable housing for this project

Yeah, we're off-site.

Those circles that are on the screen, those are three parcels that we have specifically identified within the town plan.

And is one of those the Onda project?

Correct. The Onda one is the one in the middle of those three.

Okay. Yeah, because yesterday's Chamber Wake Up Naples, they had – the event was on the housing of – or housing – And it was very interesting to note how great of a community this offsite location was. And I understand that it was negotiated with Baron Collier that to allow this affordable housing really where it's very much needed. So I like the idea of taking it offsite. And then you say you have a couple other

We have two other sites. One is located to the north off of Lake Trafford. That one we have a partner that we've worked with in the past, and they're looking at expanding. And then the larger site is about 35 acres. That is currently farmland that is owned. There's a small portion that encroaches into the RLSA overlay. Most of it is within the Immokalee Urban boundary, but that site we have identified as another site that could provide additional affordable housing.

And then have you identified developers or is this the part where there's options, the county, the land trust?

These three sites would be ones that Baron Collier would take responsibility and lead with our partners. So the 35-acre site closest to the town boundaries does not have a partner identified at this point. We do have relationships with several low-income affordable housing providers that we would deal with.

Great, thank you.

It would be eligible for the land banking option as well.

Right. We would rezone it, and then the county could have right of first refusal.

I think another advantage of being off-site is you're attacking a much lower compensation level, which is the one that we really need more help in.

Exactly. Like the ONDA is 100%, like under... Extremely low. Extremely low.

That's our overview and presentation. Well, with that, I have no other questions showing. Staff?

As the applicant has indicated and contained within the staff report, staff is supporting the petition. All of the internal disciplines have reviewed the proposal. I did want to mention that we did receive a slightly modified peer review from Jacobs. Jacobs provides a third party peer review, the fiscal analysis that's required of the proposal. there were only three areas one was the date of the TIS needed to be updated another area was a figure cited within the school operating revenue summary table that was updated as well as modified a note related to the school capital millage rate so those they none of those had a modification to their conclusion that the the determination that this will be fiscally neutral um at at at the time of of the overall built out development to the county as well as the applicant had indicated there will be a DCA that's associated with it as well to augment the uh the the SRA request Staff is available for any questions that you may have. We are supporting the deviations that the applicant has requested. Any questions you may have with it, staff would be happy to answer.

You actually, there were two separate economic reviews, correct? Jacobs and then?

else i've been looking so no so you we have dp uh dp fg they they provide they they do the original they do the original fiscal analysis we we we retain jacob for a third party who did who has economists on staff that will do a third party reviewer to to to review the numbers that utilize the methodology the overall the the overall um program of fiscal neutrality determination is reviewed we get a report from them staff does its own kind of overview of the two and draws a conclusion of either fiscally neutral or a requirement that it doesn't meet those requirements this has been determined to meet the fiscal neutrality requirements And I note in the consideration other representatives from here from DPFG or from Jacobs I know they had mentioned that Lucy Gallo is the longtime representative from DPFG I know she's on the line As I mentioned our expert is on Zoom if you have any questions of her And that's Lucy?

Lucy Gallo I may have if I hear something regarding in the public She's available With that, staff, I would just ask if staff could just verify the transportation requirements from a standpoint of review. And I don't know, Mike or who is that? Oh, Lori. Lori's coming up. I just want to make sure that from a perspective, because we always hear issues with traffic, and I just want to make sure that from a staff perspective, the DCA covers the things, the items that are going to be performed or executed by the developer and then of course the other Collection of impact fees or others that will have to fund any road and future road improvements, but please go ahead Lorraine Lance transportation planning.

I did come in a little tardy so I did not get sworn in I do So yes, we are currently working on a developer agreement for some of the road right-of-way reservations, as mentioned by Chris, on Immokalee Road as well as Camp Keys, and then for additional right-of-way for a study, as well as whatever that study comes out with for the intersection of Oil Well and Camp Keys.

Okay. So from a transportation perspective, the county is... Fully supportive. Once that agreement is executed. And that agreement does go to the board. We don't see it, but of course it will go to the board. Thank you. Is that it with staff?

That's staff listed.

Any other questions? I see no other questions. Public comments?

Mr. Chairman, there's five public speakers that are all here in the room. Daryl Dunteman is first.

If they could come up to the podium, please. First public speaker.

Daryl Dunteman.

Apologize for not being able to stand No apologies, we just want to accommodate so you can speak go ahead.

Okay There are a number of concerns the biggest one we not really talked about It's what's the traffic going to be on Camp Keyes Road? You're shoving we can hear them.

We can hear them, right?

Okay It's a two-lane road you're making provisions On Immokalee Road a roundabout and that's fine also oil road But yet, there's nothing. It's a two-lane road. Most all the expansion is going to go on that two-lane road. Right now, there's times it took me 25 minutes to get from Ave Maria to Walgreens, partially because of the traffic that was existing. And it's like 2 o'clock in the afternoon, so that's not a high time. You're going to drastically increase the traffic on that road. My opinion, in looking at the number of vehicles, they're going to add more than 12,000 vehicles based on standards on that road alone that's not adequate down the road might be but there's no plans that i can find if the county is going to do anything on that road i'll ask the applicant to address that uh... the other issues we're in the middle of a drought twenty percent eighteen to twenty percent below normal rainfall developers said in the past well that's great because we're getting rid of high water usage such as orange groves vegetable crops but at the same time there's only so much water out there one does not know whether this condition is going to continue uh we're already on rationing a number of places in collier county is it wise to expand this without knowing exactly the outcome other issue and i mean i you you addressed it a little bit on farmland we've lost i think you may see the next sense of agriculture you're going to find that collier county's lost between 25 and 30 percent of its existing space and that gets back to do we really need this project we're seeing right now the last three years we're seeing decreases in the average closing costs We're seeing an expanding number of units on the market all in the last three years. Is this project really necessary? I don't believe that it is. I think if you talk to the residents of Almeria, if you took a vote, this would not pass. At times, Baron Colliers doesn't seem to know what they're doing. While they're adding this, They're also seeking to remove 1,000 acres from the project that's currently in the district, and there seemed to be some backing for that project among certain members, but when it got to the point of adding, it has to go through the legislator to remove, Lauren Mello had originally Sponsored the legislation take it once she got into the whirlwind and buzz buzz saw that was Ave Maria She pulled it off. And so why are we adding property? At the same time we're subtracting property doesn't make much sense to me But it's Others and the problem is is with the other problem when we put these additional units in Because it's a special district, the governance is based on the population and the percentage of population. Right now, and I'll let hopefully Rob Klusick is going to speak. He can address it more than we've only got two representatives on a special district. We basically had no voice. This was going to extend that period of time another 8 to 10 years, in my opinion. So we're kind of out here. We joined an organization thinking 11,000. That's what it's been since day one. These were buffer areas. Yes, they were included. But that's not what we were told and so. I think, you know, we need to take a look at some of these things. May not checklist with some of the things that you're asking, but you need to hear them. If the public is not advocating it and we're seeing financial issues already, highest HOA deficiency rate in the state of Florida. Period. Almost one-third of the operating budget for the For the Ave Maria Master Association, and I assume you guys know there's individual HOAs the Master Association covers entire spot They've got over a million dollars in past due on a 3.2 million annual budget That's financially responsible to continue and that partly the development, you know it gets down to why are the numbers that high and because the developers are not pursuing lean foreclosures. In Avalon Park, it's about 10% deficient. Five people make up one-third of the deficiency rate.

Can I ask you to wrap up your comments, please?

And that's basically, I'm telling you that from the Avalon Park, We are not in favor of this expansion because it's not warranted because of the economy. And we'll see the same situation we saw here a few years ago with foreclosures already increasing in Collier County. So is this project really necessary? That's it.

All right. Well, I'm going to ask the petitioner to address the issue with Camp Keys Road, and he and his consultant, Norm Trabococ, can address that. Water management is covered by the application through the state organizations. They file through an environmental resource permit. As far as the drought and those kind of issues, we have nothing to do with that. That's the state issue, and that's through the environmental resource permit. And you brought up issues between the district and the SRA. Those are mutually exclusive. We have nothing to do with the district. How the district is formed, how the district raises revenue, that's a district issue. Special district is not considered at all as part of this board. We look at the expansion of the SRA, and the SRA is... It's different than the district. Even though they may have mutual boundaries, they're two separate things. And I did talk to Rob about this last night, and I know Rob's going to bring it up, so I'll address it when Rob speaks, Mr. Klusich. From that standpoint as well, I'll ask the applicant to address it because the district is, though it may be of concern, you brought up issues about foreclosures. And at the end of the discussion, I'm going to ask Lucy Gallo to discuss that as far as her economic analysis. So that would be on the record. But with that, thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

Antonio Guidel, please. Antonio Goodell all right next speaker Megan Foose please I was stepping in when we swore in also so do I need to yes yep okay

I do. My husband and I, I'm sorry, I'm nervous. My husband and I are cattle ranchers in East Collier County, and I drive every day on the Mockley Road. I go to Ave Maria regularly. I serve on the Collier Soil and Water Conservation District Board. I just have some concerns, maybe similar to the fellow that just spoke, in that I saw when 2008, when everything came to a screeching halt, and I remember Ave Maria, what it looked like when nothing was happening. There were houses and stuff, and it looked kind of almost like And I was there when it was the dry season and the dust town and there were tumbleweeds going down the road. But anyways, I just have concerns about our conservation areas. I don't think we put enough value on our ag lands. I'm sorry. I'm so nervous. I, you know, I spoke with, you know, our commissioner, Bill McDaniels, about, you know, there's a higher value on habitat than on ag. And I'm worried about Immokalee Friends. longtime businesses that rely on agriculture they're already seeing a reduction in you know their incomes um you know the tire shops the chemical dealers the um you know all the suppliers for farmers that you know these new developments taking that land away where we're hurting immokalee and immokalee is you know a pioneer town so i mean maybe we should think about you know expanding More infrastructure in Immokalee. And I know my thoughts are disjointed, but I have concerns about protecting agriculture and protecting our conservation areas. We have a small ranch. We have 1,200 acres. And we see panthers all the time, bears. turkeys, deer, and we love it. And I feel like the more concentrated we make these homes and everything, we're just going to have them more concentrated. They're not going to live as naturally as they should be as they are right now. You know, just the other day, another Panther Cub was hit on Everglades Boulevard. We've got so much traffic. And, you know, I worry every day taking my kids to school with the dump trucks racing on Immokalee Road. You watch them race and they don't want to get over. We had a dump truck roll right in front of my son's school at Corkscrew Christian the other day just because he was racing somebody else. I just don't know how many fatalities we need to have, how much more land we need to take up. just for the sake of you know more development but anyways I know I'm disjointed and but I appreciate you know being more informed so We ran a little over 200 ourselves.

On 1,200 acres? That's a big size. Well, and we're— I thought you said it's a small ranch.

Half of our ranch is in a conservation easement with NRCS, so we're with the federal government. Half isn't. We're improving our other half. You know, the county average to run a cow should be about four acres to a cow, and we're trying to get down to like— three acres to a cow and increase our numbers so we can pay our bills you know just like any business thank you for the work you and your husband do yeah thank you all so megan i'm going to ask you a question because uh yes sir and it's it comes up every time we deal with these expansion of the sras how long how long have you been in collier county Well, we're actually short timers. We bought our place in 2019. Okay. But I worked in Immokalee in early 2000s. I worked with a lot of the people that were on the original stewardship plan. Well, that's what I'm going to discuss. Mr. Ed English, you know. Yeah, the 2020.

twenty four years ago twenty five years ago when we developed this rural land stewardship areas and just so you understand the plan was put in place to preserve put in preservation lands that need to be put in preserve and then areas that were designated for growth were identified twenty twenty five years ago so these areas had already been identified many many years ago for growth and I And the stewardship plan was specifically that, to put lands in conservation to prevent growth on high-value lands and direct growth to low-value lands, which typically are former croplands.

Right. Yes, sir.

But that's how the plan was developed. So I know you see this now as something as an encroachment, but this was planned many, many years ago. Whenever I'm with staff, we had, what, three different amendments over the 25 years of the stewardship receiving areas, a rural land stewardship program.

yeah so I just want you to know that that my concerns the amendments yeah yeah you know I mean I know what was originally set aside the 200,000 acres and things like that you know and but then it seems like you know ever since the last five years it's like listen amend amend amend yeah you know so okay all right I understand thank you for your comments thank you thank you thank you next speaker please Mr. Chairman there's two left five minutes each Rob Klusick and Greg Collar

Mr. Klusich.

Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, as you recall, I believe you agreed that you could concede me some extra time.

Well, I'll talk about that because I'm going to ask the question. Are you here representing yourself? Are you a member of the district board?

Yes, I think for nine years I've been on the district board.

Are you here representing yourself as yourself or as a member of the board?

Well, I'm a member of the board. I'm here to represent the community and my neighbors who have been speaking out.

I've got to be clear about this, because when I talked to you yesterday, I was under the impression you were here under the auspices of the board.

Well, yes, I'm here as a board member.

You're here as a board member? Yes. What was the vote from the board in regards to the... We didn't vote on this matter. Did the board vote on the 1,000 acres? Yes.

That never was passed. That was defeated.

But the board did approve? Did the board approve or not approve the reduction of 1,000 acres out of the district?

Well, I think that's moot because the board, I believe the board did approve it. The board approved. The board had no decision at all. All the board did is said we took a vote. whether or not we supported the private landowners petition to the State House for what ended up being House Bill 4023. We didn't sponsor that. We didn't do anything. All we did was vote that we weren't opposed to it.

All right, well, I'll start the clock.

Mr. Chairman, go ahead, please. I just want the record clarified. I am not aware of the Stewardship Board taking a vote to authorize Mr. Klusick to come here and speak on behalf of the Stewardship Board.

Oh, and I didn't say that.

Well, you said you were a board member.

Oh, absolutely. I think that's crystal clear. You're trying to diminish the value of me speaking here as a board member and as a former four-year member of the planning commission. And I don't appreciate that you're trying to diminish the value of my commission.

Please, there's a discussion with us, not with Mr. Yovanovitch. All he did is ask the question, which I tried to ask as well. You're here as a private citizen, not as a representative of the board. Is that correct?

Right, I'm not authorized and wasn't told to come here to speak on behalf of the board. I happen to be a board member.

That's the question I'm asking, and thank you.

All right. And I thought I made that clear, and I'm sorry if I didn't. All right, so I guess what I'd like to do is give you a handout. Thank you, Rob. And as I was saying, for four years, Mr. Petscher replaced me. I was sitting in your seat. I really value the work you do. And it's unpaid, and it's a lot of work. So I appreciate that. And I would like to use this board.

And I am going to try to be very, very straight and to the point.

So as I mentioned, I've been on the Ave Maria Stewardship District Board, which is the bond issuing board to fund all the infrastructure that the SRA requires, although it's obviously very separate. The petitioner is asking today to approve an expansion so that the land, including 1,000 acres to the east of Camp Keys Road, that's what I'm going to talk about, can piggyback on the existing 5,000-acre town SRA. I was the one, by the way, who, of my own accord, before the developer even asked for it, because as a member, a resident, long-time resident of Ave Maria, I was the one who, at a public meeting, was the first one to suggest that we don't have a cap. on the size of the development in Ave Maria because it didn't make sense to have the SRA of Ave Maria as comprehensive and then have a village. Why would you add three villages Instead of having a comprehensive, they had a right to develop it under the RLSA, so I was the one that at first suggested it didn't make sense to have the cap. Not anti-developer, not against our developer. As a matter of fact, I've constantly made the same argument or rationale that the chairman has made about the environmental decisions have already all been made, because people like to bring that up. Developers have done a great job making sure they spearheaded a lot of that, and they're doing the best they can to avoid environmentally sensitive areas and develop the least sensitive areas. So I'm all for that. I'm really here to talk about how that 1,000 acres to the east is treated. They want the substantial benefits that come with being part of the established town community that the SRA requires. They want access to the already approved density and stewardship credits, to the town center, to the parks, to the roads, to the traffic network, the internal trip capture, the goods and services, the schools, and the overall master plan infrastructure, all of which allow them to build a large age-restricted community without providing their own full complement of urban-level services required for a standalone SRA. That's my concern. They're piggybacking, and I'll get to the point on why it's germane, because it really is. At the exact same time they're doing that, the same petitioner is aggressively trying to remove the same 1,001 acres to the east of Camp Keys from that bond issuing district, the Ave Maria Stewardship Community District. In fact, they pushed House Bill 4023, which because of public outcry, Representative Mallow withdrew, and it failed. And she stated at a recent meeting in April that the only way she would ever bring that back is if the people of Ave Maria made it clear that they no longer were opposed to it. They claimed that this acreage receives zero special benefit from the very same community infrastructure, roads, drainage systems, and town amenities that the SRA expansion is designed to support. That's literally their rationale. We're having our own private community We have all of the support needed. My community, Del Webb, for instance, we have no bonds for our improvements in our neighborhoods. The one thing we have is the drainage. They're saying because they're across the road, they have their own drainage. So they have no benefit. That's their claim. There's no benefit from the infrastructure that the SRA requires. That's why they're asking to be part of it. This is a direct contradiction. They tell Collier County we're an integral part of the Ave Maria town community. Please let us expand the SRA for this 1,001 acres and enjoy all its benefits. And then they tell the state and the district residents we're a completely separate, independent community that receives no benefit from Ave Maria's infrastructure. Let us out of the district so we don't have to pay for any of it. And they even have a legal memo to try to get out of paying it if they remain in the district, because they don't have any special benefit. the people they've contracted with, which is Minto. I think several of their gentlemen are here, representatives. They gave us a memo at the district meeting this week that basically stated they're going to pose a legal challenge if we try to impose any bond debt or O&M assessments against them because there's no or de minimis benefit. The landowner had a choice. They could have pursued a standalone village SRA for this 1,001 acres, which would have required them to provide their own services, amenities, infrastructure. But that would be at greater cost and bureaucratic burden. and instead they're deliberately choosing to remain part of the larger town SRA precisely because it is far more profitable and convenient to piggyback off the existing comprehensive community. You should not reward this duplicity. I recommend that you either remove the 1001 acres from the proposed SRA expansion or that you make your approval conditional on the landowner's binding permanent commitment that that land would remain subject to the Ave Maria Stewardship Community District. And then if the law actually determines that there's no special benefit, which is required, if the law determines that there's no special benefit to that land, then the district wouldn't be able to assess that against them. The reason it's so important is if you look right here on the overhead, Look at what the town must do. And it must do this for the benefit of every house that's developed. So they want the development rights to build that 1,001 acres out and build those 3,000 homes, or whatever it's going to be. And that's so that those 1,001 acres can have urban level services and infrastructure, which is required. Development that's compact and mixed-use they bragged about The trips and they basically said oh, yeah, this benefits all these homes, but then they're not later now they're saying there's no special benefit to that thousand and one acres and I think for public policy reasons and For because it doesn't comply there you can't rely on their their assertions to you today and in all of their material about You know, the benefit and why this thousand acres should be in, it's not credible because they're currently seeking, actively seeking, telling everybody that they're going to try to get the legislation to go through again to remove this from the district.

Can I ask you to wrap up your comments, please?

Yes, and the mixture of land uses, the town shall be greater than 1,500 acres. They're only 1,000 acres, so they're going to benefit from all of this while trying to get out from underneath paying for any of it. Now, I also want to, if you flip over, this is their own information. This is a website by this group, rlsafacts.com. And you can see Baron Collier Partnership is part of it. So the petitioner is part of this group.

And they say right there,

Truth matters, which I agree. Towns and villages must include commercial centers so residents can easily access jobs, groceries, goods, services, schools, and parks, and relieve the burden on the roads because of capture. And all I'm saying is that if they're going to assert in other forums right now, concurrent with their petition to you, that they are going to be integral part of this community and that those homes will benefit, I don't know how you can approve that because it undermines the very purpose of the SRA, which is to make sure all of the homes out there have these goods and services within their community with short trips, with low burden on the external roads, so it's an internal trip capture. I would also suggest that as you evaluate this, you have several issues they came up with. They're talking about the parks are required, right? Under the SRA, community parks are required. Is that correct? Does everybody agree with that? Pretty sure that's in the SRA requirement. The parks belong, currently the large park in town belongs to the Ave Maria Master Association. And right now they've stated that the development that they're going to do with Minto will not be part of the Ave Maria Master Association, so they would not be allowed to use that park. And as to the signs, I'm really concerned that the signs will simply be marketing signs rather than wayfinding signs, because that seems to be their modus operandi.

Rob, you need to bring your points to the conclusion.

Sure, sure. Yeah, I think I've made the points. Thank you.

Well, let me stop there because I want to ask you a question. You're conflating the RLSA with the Special District, and they're two separate things. We have nothing to do with the Ivy Maria Special District.

I don't think I did that. As a matter of fact, I pointed out. I went overboard to make sure that's not what I was doing. I'm trying to show how they're related, and I'm trying to show how they're representing to you, to the county government, what they expect and are, in fact, asking for while simultaneously in other forums insisting that that is not what they're asking for and that's not even what they want. And so you're allowed to consider that in your deliberations because it's not credible. They have to present credible evidence.

I'm trying not to talk over each other.

No, and I'm sorry because you know that's how I am. I apologize.

And I'll ask the petitioner this. Mr. Yovanovitch, since you're up at the podium, the infrastructure for the development on the east side of Camp Crees Road is funded by whom? The infrastructure will be funded by the owner of that property. Of that property. And how they do that, whether they form a separate CDD, which they have every right to do for that area, or otherwise, that has no concern of this board.

Or... Not have a CDD at all.

Not have a CDD at all. And they fund it through the development. So you're trying to state on the record that for some reason this board should prohibit the expansion because they're not going to be part of your...

No, they're stating that they don't benefit from any of the towns and the services and the amenities in the town that are required in the SRA to benefit all the land, all of the land that's in the SRA.

Will there be some kind of prohibition that they can't cross the road and go to the town center or to the...

It's their assertion. No, I actually, no. Actually, they're more likely to use... the things in town than many other residents in town. All I'm saying is it's because they're trying to be tricky, You know, it's good. These lawyers are tricky. They're good. I'm a lawyer. We have that reputation for a reason. We have that reputation for a reason. And the developers have that reputation for a reason. And what I'm saying is they're now saying whatever they need to say in front of you when they've already stated that their goal is to create an independent community and their goal is to make sure they don't give a dime to any of the infrastructure with the rationale in their own legal memo that was presented at our meeting on Tuesday by Minto, their lawyers, they presented a memo to us. Their own memo says there's no, zero special benefit to this 1,001 acres provided by anything, any of the improvements in the district. And all I'm saying is, Their petition is not credible on that basis. You have to have evidence that's credible in order to vote for this.

Again, the only thing we look at... Credible evidence. All right. Well, the SRA rules are very clear. And when they expand the SRA, it includes the entire... packaged of Ave Maria to include the parks, whatever. How you deal with that financially and whether you charge them to come to your parks is not a matter of this board.

No, and I'm not asking you to weigh in on that. All I'm asking you is to not approve something That is a lie. They're lying to you about what those 1,001 acres will be. They're telling you that they're part of this integral SRA, which is required. The whole point of the SRA is to make sure all of the development that happens is part of a comprehensive community so that you don't have a house out there that doesn't have all the support things that are outside, external to the community. They want all the benefit of that, and that's why they're telling you, oh, it's integral, it's part of it, short trip capture, blah, blah, blah. And then at the other meetings, they say, well, everyone will use Camp Keys Road. They won't ever even use Ave Maria Boulevard because they can just turn left or right.

But I can go out there today and drive down Ave Maria Boulevard.

I guess you're missing the point. I mean, you're being the devil's advocate, and I appreciate that.

I'm not missing the point. I'm sorry, Rob. You're trying to conflate the revenue portion of the district with the expansion of the boundary.

Two issues, two separate issues. No, I'm saying don't. Approve that thousand and one acres when you know right now that they're lying to you about their plans for that 1001 acres and I don't know how knowing that I don't know how you can approve We have your statement on the record.

I clearly understand and I'll Do you have any other statements? And then I'll ask questions. Yes, I'll turn to the petitioner. You can ask questions.

Go ahead, please. And I will acknowledge that both the lawyer and the developer are good. We're not tricky. We do not lie. We do not conflate. The testimony you're talking about, it's a simple question, true or false, happened at a special district meeting. True or false? False.

The petitioner is currently lying to this board about what they're asserting about the land in question. And I'm not going to answer that question because there's no real answer to it.

Yes, it is.

You know what? I'm the one who stated where they said it. I'm the one who stated where they said it, so I'm not going to re-answer your question.

That's enough. Thank you. You can be seated. I'm not going to get into a debate. I'll just do it in a rebuttal. You can do it in a rebuttal. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Next speaker is Greg Koller. Last speaker.

Thank you. It's Kolker. There should be a K-M-A. C-O-L-K-E-R. I don't know if it matters for the record and it was sworn in earlier. I first came to Collier County in 2010 to attend Ave Maria University. I live there now. I think that the SRA and the town SRA specifically is a fantastic idea. I understand that others have concerns about things like ag land and environmental issues. And I just want to say, from my perspective, I think that it's fantastic and what we're doing is amazing. I'm more concerned about the other end of it. The idea is, OK, we preserve these things and then we develop stuff. And it's not just develop it however we want. The land code's very clear that we're trying to avoid urban sprawl. And we're trying to develop genuine communities that are self-contained and have low trips along county roads and things. I think that's fantastic, and I think that they've done a very good job of doing that. I appreciate the work that they've done. When I have an opportunity to speak to folks like Mr. Genson or anybody, I always love it. I came there for university. I made the mistake of leaving the county for a little while, realized Atlanta stinks. Traffic's really terrible there. And I came back. And so for most of the last 15, 16 years I've been here, and in Ave Maria specifically, we bought a home in 2019. I live in one of the original neighborhoods. It has the most interconnected streets. My children ride their bikes along sidewalks and shade trees to school. We can go to church like that. There's golf carts. The interconnectivity is real, and the Land Development Code fantastically builds the structure, the physical structure of actual community. My wife had back surgery, and for more than two months, three times a week, a different family brought us dinner. That is not in the code, but that's the kind of thing that the code's hoping to create. That's the reason that they get all these awards for being top-selling community, because they follow the code, which had a fantastic goal, and is actually working, as they state. So with that out of the way, I'm not against growth. I'm not against the developer. I'm not even against developing the 1,001 acres, which is the subject of what I want to speak to here. They brought up on slide three, when they talk about the town, when they introduce this to you, the first thing they show you is a giant picture of the town core clearly making the case that they want to expand the town. And the reason they're doing that is because they know very well. They wrote a lot of legislation. They were there talking about planning. They understand the boxes, the 13 items that they're trying to check off. So here in this forum, I heard Chris. Sorry, I don't remember your last name. Scott. Mr. Scott talked about the interconnectivity and they had a slide up here showing that they're going to have 12 foot sidewalks that loop around the thousand acres and connect to John Paul II. He spoke about being able to facilitate all of that because the only way you can improve it is if every residential area, all the neighborhood general zoning, must have access to all the other amenities of a town. Now I'm not going to speak to what mechanisms fund those things. I don't want to talk about that. What I would like to show is the memo that Mr. Klusick actually referenced. Two days ago, I listened to a representative of the current landowner and the folks under contract to purchase it strenuously argue to me and my neighbors that they would have no interaction And when they were pushed on that, because, come on, look at the maps. You here are supposed to. The thing you're supposed to think is, no, of course they're going to use the town. They want you to believe that. But what they told us is that, in fact, and I will quote from this. First time. Trips generated from the Latitudes property. That's what they're proposing in the 1,001 acres. Their attorney wrote this. into the district again we can ignore that term but what they are referring to is the rest of the town are expected to be incidental and limited in time pending anticipated future development in the area so what they're saying two days ago is there's not going to be any traffic we're not sending anything into the town we're not part of the town at all really and then today i hear them present and show you exactly how in fact that's the opposite Set aside how the funding of it's going to happen. I think it's important because you've got to somehow facilitate. And there's options for how you facilitate it. But if you're choosing the town SRA, if you're choosing to develop under the Ave Maria town SRA, then you have to follow the town SRA rules. To say on one forum one thing and another something different is mind-blowing to me. I mean, truly shocking to see the complete reversal in just two days.

Okay, can I ask you to bring your comments to a conclusion?

What I would say is that the reason that Representative Mello very uncommonly, pulled a bill that probably more than $100,000 in lobbyists was spent to get passed. She pulled this bill because the fundamental principle of fairness and the understanding of what our community is was being violated. That video on their own website talks about the facts about the RLSA. They say, as an alternative to urban sprawl, the RLSA guidelines encourage, require, that's my modification, concentrating new populations into well-planned communities with full infrastructure, like the thriving community of Ave Maria, the first town to be developed in accordance with the program. Ave Maria incorporated smart growth principles and has generated diverse new businesses. They told you about the 75 businesses. But they also told us nobody's ever going to go to those businesses. So it violates basic principles of logic and fairness for a development to claim it meets the highly integrated, interconnected, and shared service requirements of the Ave Maria Town SRA, while also promising to, and I quote, fight to exclude itself and prove that, in fact, it is not part of that in another venue.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

And with that, we'll take a 15-minute break.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's king, queen, and we must go down now beyond the chandelier Where I won't have to speak my mind and you won't have to hear Shreds of news and afterthoughts and complicated scenes Will weather down behind the light and fade like magazines Let me hear you say everything's all right. Let me smell the moon in your perfume. Meet me in the middle of the day. Let me hear you say everything's okay. Let me see you smiling back at me. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm so glad I ran into you. If I hadn't seen you, I would have been a fool. Thank you, baby, for saving my life. I feel like I'm living again. Like I'm living again. I'm so glad you came along to stop me from singing that sad, sad song. You're the one who raised the pain. My life will never be the same. You're the very one, the only one that I've been waiting for. Thank you, baby, for saving my life. For picking me up, dusting me off, putting me all back together. Together. Together. Together. I can live. I can live. I can live. I can live. I can live. I can live. I can live. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so you're heartbroken. You sit around hoping.

You say, you even think about time? Well, before you do anything rash, dig this. Everybody plays a fool sometimes. There's no exception to the rule. Listen, baby, it may be factual, may be cruel. And there's no guarantee. a certain person could never be love runs deeper than any ocean and clouds your mind with emotion everybody plays the fool sometimes there's no exception to the rule listen baby it may be factual it may be true I want to tell you that How can you help it when the music stops to play? And your ability to reason is swept away.

Everybody plays the moon sometimes.

Use your heart just like a dream. Listen, baby.

You'll never tell your soul is gone. I won't say it again. Everybody plays the moon. Listen to me, baby. Everybody plays the moon.

Maybe factual, maybe cruel Sometimes Everybody plays the fool Listen, listen, baby Everybody plays the fool Sometimes

just to confirm with staff do we have any staff do we have any more public speakers no further public speakers all right with that before I open it up to the commissioners and I know that a lot of commissioners have questions but I want to turn to the petitioner for a rebuttal yeah I And I would allow you to ask questions of those questions you want to ask as well if you want to go down that road.

No, no, no. What I want to do is, first of all, i'm going to say for the discussion we had about how we're going to fund our infrastructure as part of the town is irrelevant to the analysis of approving or not approving an sra designation i will tell you that you have never approved let me take that back on the projects the sras that i've worked on you have never required that the developer either form a stewardship district or a CDD to fund infrastructure. Never. And you're being asked to include a requirement that this thousand acres be absolutely prohibited from removing itself from the district. Never been done. It's improper. It would be an illegal action on this board's behalf to require that the legislature never elect to remove this 1,000 acres if they decide it's appropriate to remove the 1,000 acres. That would be improper. Now, so you went, the whole argument was you need to make a stay in the special district by Mr. Klusig. Now, I'm going to, even though it's irrelevant, I'm not going to let a lot of what he said on the record stand without being addressed. First of all, it is totally inappropriate and unprofessional to get up here as an attorney. I let regular lay people do whatever they want, but to get up here and call a petitioner and their counsel liars is totally inappropriate, absolutely inappropriate. And if he had done that in court, I think a judge would have smacked him down pretty hard. That was totally inappropriate for him to say. The discussion regarding who's benefited and not benefited is irrelevant. But let's talk about some of the things that are being paid for by the developer that the rest of the people in Ave Maria will get benefited for but not pay a dime. And those were the road improvements. Camp Key Strand, the roundabout. All of that's going to be totally funded by the residents within the 1,000 acres. not being asked to be funded by anybody in Ave Maria. The discussion that Mr. Klusick was talking about was with regard to if there is going to be a special assessment against this 1,000 acres, you're going to need to prove that there was a special benefit. And if you can't prove there's a special benefit, you can't assess. That's the purpose of this memo that he put up here. That's what it said. So that was a special district meeting. He didn't want to answer my question, which I thought was a fairly simple question. Where did this discussion happen? It happened at a stewardship district board meeting. That's what was discussed. If there is a special benefit and if this property stays in the district, they'll pay it. They just said you had to prove it. Now, again, He even said, I believe, his own neighborhood does not use water management or other things related to the district. The district didn't fund any of those improvements. That's all that was being discussed at this special district board meeting was we're not going to ask for any special district funding for these improvements, therefore you can't assess us for them. We're not benefiting. That's what that discussion was about. Yes, we're an integral part. of Ave Maria. We may not be an integral part of existing bonds and existing operation and maintenance assessments. All they were told was at the district board, if you don't prove it, we're not paying it. If you prove it, we'll pay it. That's all that was happening at that meeting. Now, I'm done talking about that topic. It's irrelevant to why we're here today. But we have met every one of the criteria.

Your staff is... Can I interrupt you a minute? Because I want to make sure on the record. It has to do with economic assessment review. In the statement on the record, the economic assessment, at a minimum, is required to demonstrate fiscal neutrality for the development of the following units of government transportation, portable water, wastewater, irrigation water, stormwater management, solid waste, parks, law, enforcement, emergency, medical services, fire, and school. In the event the assessment identifies negative fiscal impacts of the project, several options identified to address the shortfalls. And then it gets into MSTBUs, MSTUs, CDDs, or otherwise. That's our only issue we deal with from an economic standpoint is the economic neutrality. And on the record, it was stated by staff that this project has been verified by the independent consultant, that it's economically feasible, and that it's economically neutral from the standpoint there's no burden on the county. What happens internally to the district is not an issue of this board. We have to prove.

that the units, commercial, and any other aspects of this amendment is not fiscally negative to Collier County. To the taxpayers. To Collier County. Yes. We have proven that. There are mechanisms, should there be a shortfall, to fund that shortfall, if there is a shortfall. And what you said were some of the mechanisms, and one of them is cash. Yeah, which is the developer is spending their own money to provide for the infrastructure to assure we're not, to assure our fiscal neutrality and that has been confirmed by Lucy Gallo and if you want to ask her you can and confirmed by the county's review of the fiscal neutrality analysis that we've provided. Okay, I kind of fibbed. I do want to make one other comment. The very first speaker talked about the turnover, if you will, of the district board. You would think he'd want the 1,000 acres out. not be part of the district so it wouldn't dilute how long it will take the remaining members of the district to to get control of the district board so you would think if your control if you want resident control of the district board you would support the removal of the thousand acres from the irrelevant discussion we just had but i just wanted to put that on the record With regard to the remainder of the project, I think the people testified that they thought the additions actually made sense, and we shouldn't have three separate villages, that we should become part of the town. It really was a question of whether or not these properties should be assessed, or mainly the 1,000 acres should be assessed under the district. I didn't really hear any testimony that we didn't meet the criteria. for being part of the town, it was really a discussion about should we or should not, should we not be part of the district? The RLSA program was established to address both the environmentally sensitive portions of the area in the areas that it was appropriate to develop and to not have a premature conversion of farmlands. I didn't say never convert farmlands. We're 25 years in. I think this was approved in 2002. We're almost 24 years in. I don't think this has been premature. The evolution of the RLSA program has occurred the way it's supposed to occur. You have 50,000 acres in an SSA, and oh, by the way, in a lot of those SSAs, cattle ranching is still allowed to occur. And in some row crops, they're still allowed to occur. It's depending on the SSA. So that has been appropriately addressed through the SSA process. we meet all the criteria all the competent substantial evidence testimony which is your staff our experts the general public hasn't put an expert up and with that we're requesting that you uh designate this lands as part of the town of us ave maria sra we'll answer any questions you may have

Mike, did you, you had some questions you wanted to ask about the boundaries? Did you? Go ahead.

Yeah, no, I had a couple questions.

I don't know how to show, can you turn this back on? Yeah. Because if he's going to ask about the boundaries, it's probably perfect for you.

so when you first came up here you said that this lane has already been designated um can you elaborate more on that because are you just did david just not build on these lands or are we voting today on the additional 6 000 homes and all the deviations that you're asking what what i what i had said was it's already been zoned yeah so zoned is different we are now designating this area this area this area and then there's two

of the bottom now we're designating them as an sra as part of the town together with the additional units together with the additional square footage of neighborhood general uses together with the additional hotel rooms together with the increased hospital square footage and the deviations and the and the new deviations

Is the 6,000 homes and deviations? No. So the 6,000 homes, these have already been, the 6,000 homes have already, I'm just using round numbers, have already been designated for this area, for these areas. I'm just really confused on this one.

I'll use the word generally. We could ask for up to four units per acre. Okay. On these lands, which we're not. why weren't these developed already if they're already zoned well they were zoned but you have to go through the designation process and if and and at the beginning the i can't remember the exact acreage for towns but they were capped at what's it initially it was 4 000 acres then i think it went to 5 000 acres and then we said okay well i got a couple of options the board decided it was silly just cap it at 5,000 because knowing that this, this, this, and these two little small pieces made more sense to have them be part of the town of Ave Maria instead of three separate villages adjacent to the town of Ave Maria. So the reason they weren't developed initially or weren't included in the petition initially is there was a prohibition in the growth measure plan to go above 5,000 acres.

if I could try to simplify it for you in the rural land stewardship area overlay there's kind of three categories of uses that you can do one is the baseline standards so you would develop it based on your underlying zoning district the second is a stewardship sending area and the third is the stewardship receiving area so the stewardship receiving area is essentially a floating zone it's allowed and it lands where it meets the criteria So I don't know if that helps.

Yeah, a little bit. Now, the land that's across from Camp Keys Road, was this originally part of the SRA there?

No, it was part of the area that could be designated as an SRA. It was not part of the original town. so you're requesting to add this yes we're at this today here today i'm here to add this piece this piece this piece and then there's the two smaller pieces at the bottom we're asking to add to up there's another one here in the middle we're asking we're asking and i could show you the parcels again if you want to add those parcels to the town of ave maria and they've already been zoned for what you want to put there correct yes excuse me please there are no comments from the come on rob you know better than that the zoning is in place we have to designate two different things your question was am i zoned i am zoned do i have to go through this process yes so so you're zoned and it's you're not asking for increase in density nope not asking you to go above what the what the growth management plan and the land development code already allow us to correct this is correct

Yes, Mike Bozzi, Planned Zoning Director. It was a determination by the administrative law judge back 10 years ago, if not further, that because they participate in – they've got a zoning overlay – they've participated within the credit system to be able to designate SSAs to enable land that the zoning is in place the credits are utilized to designate the SRA areas that meet the criteria of the NRI scores So the zoning is in place and that's why when the Board of County Commissioners approves it, they're not required to have a super majority that we have from every other conditional use, a PUD or a rezone requires four affirmative votes. A designation of this land, because it is already zoned, only requires a simple majority, only three. And because of that designation, or because of that already prior assignment of zoning, the designation doesn't rise to the level of the super majority. I know it's very confusing and unusual. But the uses that are identified within our SRA are inherent within the overlay zoning. It's the designation that we're undertaking when we go through the SRA actual process.

Okay, so just to clarify, the only reason why we're here is because there was a cap previously imposed on the size of the town.

yeah i i would i would venture to guess that had the size of the town of ave maria not been limited initially you might have had all of these lands included in the original approval i just got one other question on the deviation for deviation three

Yes. Why are you adding an additional 4,000 square foot for the sales center? Why are you asking for the deviation? Why should we just give it to you?

Well, the sales center is When its useful life goes away, it's a building that it probably makes no sense to partition into smaller chunks of retail uses. We've not heard any objections to that. The concern really was, was that going to be available to the general Ave Maria public? And it will be, because it will be on the public side of the community gate.

Michelle?

Yes. And this is along the same lines as Mike's first question. And Megan, the speaker, I believe, her concern about the amendments, because I asked the same question. I'm like, Rich, why now? Why are you adding this now? And it was because of the cap being removed. That's why these additional amendments areas are being added because it makes more sense to have a town versus all these little villages alongside of it and that's what rob rob had said as well so that was Good for me to know what you know the reason behind this and then also if we could address Megan's concern about farmlands. What citrus lands being converted? One of the previous petitions last month. They talked about why citrus lands are being converted and I found it very interesting and I think it's good to share that here with this petition as well. Can you address that?

citrus is basically a dying or almost dead industry in florida you know the groves have been diseased uh to to remove the groves replant the groves and hope they don't get diseased again isn't is it's not economically viable so in that other petition i think you're talking about alico The Corkscrew one? The Corkscrew, that's Sable Palm Road, yes. Oh no, I'm sorry, Corkscrew, yes. That was an example of a citrus growing business saying it's time because the groves are just, they're not producing. They're not economically viable. So that's why that village came in.

And I think we all would love to see citrus continue here, but because of the conditions, the disease and all, it's just not viable anymore, unfortunately. Oh, and then there was, because I read the NIMS transcripts, and there were concerns that the converted sales center to general public would only be used by a select few.

But in in talking to you prior to this meeting, you said that it will be open to the general public, the 9000 square foot becomes something other than the sales center and it becomes a business. Yes.

Okay, I just wanted that noted for the record, too. I think that's all my questions for right now. Thank you.

Okay, Mr. Ivanovich, do you have any closing comments? Because I'm going to close the public hearing and turn it to deliberation to the board.

No, our rebuttal is complete.

Your rebuttal is complete. Any other questions of the petitioner by members of the panel? All right, I close the public hearing.

Mr. Chairman, we had one more public speaker request.

No, Mr. Chairman, you already closed that.

No, we've already concluded the public speakers. Okay, I'll close the public hearing, open it at the deliberation of the board.

I'm going to ask Rob to come back up because him and I had a conversation. I just want it to be on the record for full disclosure, that's all. We had a conversation during the break, basically, on this 1,000 acres, which keeps coming up, on them using the services at Ave Maria as part of the Ave Maria SRA. So is that correct, Rob? Yes.

What they've proposed is a community on that 1,001 acres that will not be part of the Ave Maria Master Association. Ave Maria Master Association owns the large public park that is private. It's a private public park for the use of the Ave Maria Master Association members, which is every single community in Ave Maria. They're proposing that this community will not pay, not be part of that, and so therefore they would not have a legal right to use that park. And so all I'm saying is since the RLSA requires a town to provide parks to all of the homes in the community, that that would be a requirement that they would somehow have to, that park would have to be made available to those people, which the most logical way is to treat it like all the others, to force them to be part of the Ave Maria Master Association or otherwise somehow gain access to a private park that they would not have access to. And all I would say, it's a matter of, they don't have development rights on any of the land that they're asking for. They have a right to develop that land under the RLSA program as an SRA or whatever kind of, you know, some SRA, and they're asking you to expand the existing one so that they can have development rights. That's why this is so important. Right now they can't do anything on that land until they ask. Well, I guess they could probably, you know, use it for farmland or something, but they can't use it for housing development.

Is there any other amenities in that master association that's open to the communities with Auburn Maria? Do you have like a water?

Yeah, the water park has restricted use for non-members as well. And there's another park that also is owned by the So the two community parks, the two large community parks, are privately owned by the Ave Maria Master Association. So again, I don't know how the petitioner can come and say, hey, all of this land is part of this community that's required to have these amenities for the residents when the residents won't have those amenities. And I'm simply, again, asking that you either excise that 1,000 acres from this petition or mandate that they not seek, well, that the land doesn't have development rights if it's not in the district, regardless of what the state does or whatever. No one is going to take that land out of the district unless the owner asks for it to be taken out of the district. So that's something they're fully in control of.

Thank you, Rob. Rich, can I ask you a question? Yeah, I want to talk about what you just said, but go ahead.

If this is being advertised as part of Ave Maria, then I would think that would be part of the Master Association. Now, I understand there's disagreement over what they pay for. I would think that once something is developed, those units would be part of the Master Association so they could use the amenities within the Master Association and pay their fair share for that. Now, going backwards from the time of development forward, that would be standard, right?

That's the answer, and I don't mean to. disrespectful. None of that is relevant to what we're here to talk about today. How communities, you know, can I just say something? I had to listen to him interrupt me and be disrespectful to me when he was sitting up there. I don't have to do that anymore. So can you please say to Mr. Klusig control yourself? I

Rob you know better come on we make comments from the floor if it continues I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the room

a second there so anyway going back to if you go to pelican bay or anywhere else some of those properties are are part of the foundation and some of them are not that's that's a that's a developer decision it's not a zoning level decision so how that goes about and what they decide to do and what amenities are in the master association are available or not available to that thousand acre is irrelevant to the zoning decision What I wanted to point out, remember, you got this area, this area, this area, and the additional community park square footage for that area is that green area right there. So we're meeting the requirement for community parks and other areas as part of the overall additional land. Just like we're providing affordable housing related, that's in the calculation, the 2.5% of the acreage. So we meet the requirements. What master association amenities are or are not available to this parcel is not part of the zoning. But understand, this is an active senior community. That big yellow area is going to be one heck of an amenity package to provide the services to those residents. And guess what? They'll pay all the assessments necessary to make sure that that works forward. And so maybe they don't need to be part of the master. That's not a zoning, that's not a designation level decision.

I got a question on that. Thank you, Rich.

But to be clear, Mr. Yovanovitch, Members of that community are allowed to enter Ave Maria, the township, use the Publix, use the other storefronts, visit the businesses, go to the church there, whatever they can do. Those are all open to the public, is that correct?

Yeah, you know, I don't live there, but when I go out to visit there, I've been to that Publix.

Michelle? Mike? Mike?

Now, I'm really just trying to understand this. I can understand the two SRAs that are enclosed. Why is this being added into this? Is it because it's not 1,500 acres as listed on this? sheet that it has to be and it's trying to pass as part of Ave Maria even though it's separate something separate or why is that developer not pursuing something separate and a big I'm just trying to understand

it's no different than the del web community that's already in ave maria that is segregated away from other residents from the town of ave maria we are just adding another large community as part of the overall town and with it comes the requirement to provide higher levels of office and open space and all the higher levels of retail and office and hospital-related improvements, all of that comes as a burden to adding 1,000 acres for the benefit not only of our residents, these new residents, but the existing residents as well.

Okay well I closed the public hearing so other than Chuck do we have any comments or questions I have a question on traffic Somebody from traffic could come up Want Norm Trebiltock or do you want staff No I want staff because I want to talk to them about Immokalee and Camp Keese and all that fun stuff and planned improvements I apologize

Good morning. For the record, Mike Slater, Transportation Planning.

Good morning, Mike. Improvements for Immokalee Road slated, planned to, especially on that area. I share Megan's comments with concern on heavy construction equipment, Tulane Road. Obviously, there's issues there. So what's the improvement plan for? On Immokalee itself, did you do?

We do have the roundabout right now that is going through design at Camp Keys and Immokalee. So that's in design right now. I believe it is in for the 31 to 35 cost feasible. uh plan um there is also this section of amokley from carver to uh camp keys that is partially funded to go from two to four lanes um in the 20 41 to 2050. And again, that's partially funded at that point. Those are the immediate improvements that we've got in and near Ave Maria.

It's just the amount of development that's going on out there, I share that concern. It's not something I'm looking for the developer to pay for. I think that as a county, we have to get a little bit more in front of that. And the roundabout at Immokalee and Camp Keys, that'll at least create some slowdown versus what's there now.

It will probably... In essence, we'll need to do testing before and after and make sure everything is what we believe is going to happen. It probably is going to slow traffic down in order to make those movements. but also at the same time reduce the number of conflict points primarily which is really what we're trying to do with that improvement is to get rid of that the issue of that particular intersection that we've done some changes over time uh to try and make from a safety standpoint it's safer um that's primarily what we're doing with with the roundabout okay thank you sir just want to get the other record

Okay, with that, again, more discussion. Let me, just my viewpoint on this. Clearly, the applicant is coming in to increase the size, the footprint of the town of Ivy Maria. And to do that, as was brought up by the public, taking advantage of everything that's within Ivy Maria. And I fully understand that. but we as a board at least it is my position and I'm looking for your input I have no issue or I cannot in any way shape or form deny because it's not part of the criteria whether this thousand acres or the two areas to the north are part of the the revenue portion of the special district the special district it's a legal issue that they're going to pursue they want to pursue separately as a board they have every right to go down the legal avenue to pursue that whether they're going to charge the residents of this quote separate community because far as i'm concerned it's not a separate community we've heard a testimony that it was separate community but but from our criteria there's there's nothing that states it's it's it to me it's part of ivy maria how the special district deals with that is not an issue of this board now they can take that to the board of county commissioners and again i think it's going to be a stretch even for the board of county commissioners to try and figure out how they cannot approve this if there's an issue over revenue and that's going to be a legal issue between the special district the members of the board of the special district and the developer so I I clearly understand Rob's argument but as I said before we're conflating two different issues and how the how It's funded from the standpoint of managing the the other amenities is really not a matter of this board other than the fiscal neutrality that we've already been validated by staff through a separate private consultant and and the criteria that we're asked to review, so my position is I'm gonna support this. I'm looking for other comments from board members.

I was just gonna ask the county attorney to, it's not this board's position to dictate how a master association membership works, correct?

It's not part of the criteria for review the criteria here tends to be a little bit more objective than some of the subjective standards you would see for a PUD rezoning Thank you So basically we can't dictate I understand what the residents from Alvin Maria have said I mean

Common sense isn't always common I get it but I would think that if you're advertising the community at Ave Maria then it would be part of Ave Maria but that sounds like as the county attorney just related to that's something they're going to have to work out themselves it's not something that we can dictate upon them we're here for this expansion and the RSLA

expansion of the boundary and inclusion of the request by the petitioner and the deviations that were also included so it's basically expansion of of the town of ivy maria to include the thousand acres to the east right

to include the thousand acres east plus the two parcels to the north that were added two tiny little pieces down here and two tiny pieces in the bottom and this addition is not increasing traffic because it was already approved right because the concerns were also on traffic

no that's not correct the traffic traffic has been verified go ahead we we did no we had to do a traffic analysis for the additional residential units and the traffic analysis came back that we meet the county's level of service criteria And then we also have the developer agreement dealing with traffic impacts along basically Camp Keys, providing additional right-of-way and water management for Immokalee Road and also on . .

. But this 1,000-unit area community was already approved?

No.

No? It's already, again, it's zoned, but we have to designate it. And as part of the designation, we do a traffic analysis. That's when we get the units. And we did a traffic analysis, and the traffic analysis shows that we meet the county's traffic criteria. So there was an analysis of the traffic impacts.

But it hasn't been approved.

Is there a concern then?

I mean, basically it's already SRA, No, it's already a stewardship receiving area, but this is expanding the township into what's already approved as an SRA area. The area is eligible to be expanded into, I guess is the best way to say this.

So the SRA allows for what?

No, the stewardship receiving area or the Rural Land Stewardship Program allows for the SRA to be expanded into the rural land stewardship lands that have been identified as receiving.

But how many units would have been allowed?

Right here on your visualizer is basically the delta of what we're asking for. We're asking for 2,042 acres to be added to the town. That results in an additional density of 6,700 units, 6,738, additional goods and services of 996,000 square feet. All of that was analyzed as part of our traffic study We meet the county's traffic requirements to approve these additional units.

Okay, Mike, can you help?

And I've got a question. I'm going to piggyback on you. So we're really approving this change on the right? That's correct. Okay.

That's exactly what we're approving. You're approving the expansion of the town of Ivory Maria that includes all of these, the delta, the change. Which is allowed in the rural land stewardship program because these were identified as receiving lands. They already have the sending lands cash in hand to compensate for the lands that they're moving into.

And Mike Bosie, you're trying to help me out here.

So the additional 6738 dwelling units in the 996,000 square footage that's being proposed results in an increase in a daily trip cap associated with the expanded town. from 4,320 to 5,620 so they are adding around 1,300 additional trips with the additional change that's being requested That's been analyzed by our Transportation Department it's associated with the DCA that that's being proposed so it has been recommended for approval from our Transportation Department in terms of meeting the capacity and the needs in the increase in the trip cap at this at this 5620 level With no changes to Immokalee Road till 2050

yeah 2041 25th yeah which could take them that long to build i mean maria's been under construction since 2000. our first junior probably won't start showing up for two years you know so you're you're not going to get we're not dumping a total of 17 738 dwelling units onto the roads today this is over a significant period of time for development

All right well with that anybody make a motion or I'll be glad to make a motion on this one because I lived and breathed this thing as it was developed and it was part of the staff when the program was approved I'm just looking for the paragraph now to make sure I have all the criteria so stand by I still need some clarification here

go ahead michelle this this total count where does this make up ave maria yes everything in the boundaries that i showed you including the new stuff including the new today today you have 11 000 approved dwelling units in just and with not including the lands we're adding okay when we add the lands that we're adding the number goes up by six thousand seven hundred thirty eight

Okay, and so you had told me before that these outside areas were villages.

Oh, I said they could have been they could have been villages.

And they could have been because they were zoned for because they're part of the RSA program. And how many could have been there if they were villages?

If it's 2042 acres times four units is 8000. plus or minus 8,168, if I'm doing that in my head quickly, new units if we did villages.

Right, so then you're just bringing those 8,000 units into...

I'm actually bringing in less. I'm bringing in 6,700.

So in my eyes, I'm seeing that this was already going to happen. It's just now you're putting it in a different boundary. That's why I said transportation, it was going to happen anyway.

Well, somewhat fundamentally what you're saying is yes, but when the original town footprint was approved, it didn't include these lands. Even though these lands were eligible to be developed on, the original program limited the size of the town. And then, from my recollection, I think we've had two different amendments over the 20-something years of the RLSA program, Rural Land Stewardship Overlay Program, which one of them was increase the size of the town. So now they're coming in under that to increase the footprint of the town. Based on the criteria that we're asked to review and that results in this change. It's this increase.

It is a significant increase Try more try the pink area when it was approved was approved for basically 45,000 acres of SRAs Okay, 45,000 acres of SRAs. And the comp plan anticipated that it could be up to four units per acre for those areas that are designated as SRAs. So the contemplation was, and we're well under the 45,000 acres of designating SRAs, So in your sense, was this specific piece identified? No, but it was identified through being part of the 45,000 acres of the open area that could be designated at up to 40 units per acre. So yes, it was contemplated, it was planned for, it was anticipated, as long as we met the designation criteria, which we do.

Subject to compensating lands being put in preservation through sending... Or sending areas. Correct. And that the acreage to compensation, I can't remember if it was two to one or whatever.

It's whatever it was. It's worked out to be roughly two and a half acres to three acres for each acre of SRA. Right.

So like Mike is concerned, there's 6,000 more units coming.

And this is big. This is 6,000 home community that we're just adding.

But are we really just adding? Wasn't it?

Well, we are adding to Ave Maria, but they could come in tomorrow and then anywhere within the pink area designate another township. We're going to deal with the next item is another township, which is the... What is that?

The Big Cypress.

The Big Cypress.

Yeah. So let's say we don't approve this. Then they turn this into...

A village. I'll come in with three villages. Yeah. And I'll be 8,000 units.

Yeah.

They could. They could.

Yeah, they could.

Right, I'm just saying. They would legally have the right to do that. The alternative is a bigger footprint.

Yeah, the original concept 20-something years ago, and Rich started that at the beginning, it was this preventing of urban sprawl. One unit per four acres was going to happen all the way through the county. We were placed under a moratorium, moratoria at that time, and we were told to come up with a land program. The RLSA was very unique because three major landowners pretty much funded the entire study and developed the criteria for the RLSA. That was back when Wilson Miller was Wilson Miller and there were other Collier Enterprises and Barron Collier. There were three or five major landowners who... Six or eight.

Six or eight, yeah.

It was completely different than the rural fringe. And then we basically presented this concept to the state, which then we were allowed to remove the moratorium and allow for development to take place. But the development was designated to take place in any one of these areas as designated, as Rich called it, the pink area. which was anything that was designated as low-value. Typically, they're formerly used croplands that were considered of lower value from an environmental standpoint, which became receiving areas to allow for development.

And if I may...

I was going to say that Rob, even, of the neighborhood, has mentioned the benefit of combining these... Areas into, you know, he sees the bed. I mean, they clearly there seems to be an acknowledgement that there's a benefit.

Well, when it was a good point about this, when it goes to the state for ERP, environmental resource permit. The state's going to look at this collectively, how it's impacting all of the development out there, and they look at the water management aspect of it, and it's not handled independently. It's looked at as an entire system.

If I may add a couple of things. One, towns have a higher requirement of providing retail and office than villages. So we're providing more support services to the residents of the lands we're adding than you would if you did a village. Again, helping to increase the internal capture and going off the road. I started this, I'm not denying that this isn't a big project. I'm not denying that. But remember, you go back to the criteria that we have to meet. And all of the competent, substantial evidence is we meet the criteria. It is a big project, but we meet the criteria.

Well, with that, again, I'm going to make a motion that we approve. Based on the 13 criteria as defined in the LDC section 4.08.07, I recommend approval. There are no subject to other modifications that were imposed by either staff or modifications made by the petitioner, and I would make a recommendation of approval.

Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Like, sign? Nay. We had one nay. Say again. Somebody made a comment in the audience. There was one objection. So one nay. Okay.

Thank you. And it's basically because of the – I don't think the infrastructure can handle 68 homes. In two years, could that change? Absolutely. But I think Collier County doesn't.

Yeah. Mike, with the understanding, I remember walking this land with – The original developers of Auburn Maria, probably in 2003 or 2004, so that's been under development for 20-something years.

No, I understand. Do I think it's going to pass BCC?

Absolutely.

But in two years, could I have a different opinion? 100%. But right now, with the zero planned infrastructure to Immokalee Road, I have to go with my belief on this.

You're allowed to vote. Yeah, you're allowed to vote. No, no issue. Even though you're wrong.

Well, with that, we're going to move to the next item, but I'm going to ask my fellow commissioners. It's 1138. Do you want a break for lunch now before we get into the Big Cypress, or should we at least hear the opening comments?

At the risk, how many public speakers are there for the town of Big Cypress expansion?

Are there any public speakers for the Big Cypress expansion?

Mr. Chair, we're checking online. I don't have any speaker slips.

The only reason I suggest that is I can probably cut out a lot of the discussion about the RLSA program itself as part of the presentation since you just heard it all.

No, I really wanted to hear it again. All right, we're going to move the next item then. That is, this is item 9E, which is PL 20250003046. It's the, oh, sorry, wrong one. Let me go back. I moved on. This is item 9D. This is PL20250001447. This is the town of Big Cypress, east of DeSoto Boulevard, north and south of Oil Well Road. So this is a petition related to the Big Cypress SRA. So with that, I'm going to go to disclosures. Amy, disclosures?

Staff materials only.

None.

Staff materials only.

I did speak to Mr. Yovanovitch about this.

Staff materials conversation with Mr. Yovanovitch. Staff materials only.

Staff materials in conversation with Mr. Yovanovitch.

All right. Persons wishing to speak, please rise to be sworn in. All right. With that, I turn it over to the petitioner.

Still good morning for the record, Rich Yovanovitch. On behalf of the petitioner, Patrick Gutter is the property owner's representative. Bob Mulhare and Ellen Summers are our professional planners. Ellen Summers will be making the presentation. Norbisher Bullcock is our transportation consultant. Dominic Amico is our engineer. Heather Samborski is our environmental consultant. And Lucy Gallo is our economic consultant. The risk of... This is another town amendment. The blue area is the area we're adding. to the town the original town was 1544.46 acres and we are adding 451.75 acres for the town of big cypress um i'm not going to go over this is in the pink area this is where development is supposed to occur this is where sras are supposed to be designated We are again providing the full range of housing and Bob, I'm sorry, Ellen will take you through the master plan to show compliance with the overall criteria of the designation process for sras as you can see we are in the pink area it's this kind of actually the pink of all the pink and cross-hatched area that is part of this process this town is a little unique initially there were three villages we had river grass long water and belmar and the county staff the the border county commissioner said we don't want a bunch of villages we'd prefer to have a town in some villages instead of separate villages they didn't see the benefit of that they preferred the town and the amenities provided by the town so we converted long water village to the town of big cyprus that's how that was originally approved in 2020 We're here now just to add that blue area that I mentioned is now going to be part of the town. What that does is we're going to increase the minimum number of dwelling units by 565 to a total of 2,427. And then a maximum number will be, sorry, I'm sorry, did the math wrong. We're adding the 565 to the minimum, which was 2427, to go to 2,992. So that'll be the minimum number of dwelling units within the project. And we're increasing the maximum number by 1,367 units, which would take the maximum number from 4,432 units to 5,799 dwelling units for a maximum overall project density of 2.91 dwelling units per acre. We're going to increase the open space. We're increasing the affordable housing and we are also increasing Retail and other uses that we have to have the back one side. I'm sorry.

I didn't finish reading. Oh Okay.

Okay, you're good and we are increasing traffic and on basically oil well road and in the previous petition you heard about the improvements that are going to be occurring to oil well road so we are increasing the trip cap we have some minor deviations that we're adding to this process and we're relocating an existing utility site to south of the town core as part of this process again that's a repeat to what i already said that the blue is the area that we're adding i think at this point i'm going to ask ellen to come up after i finish this slide to point out we're not in a flowway stewardship area we're not in a habitat stewardship area we're not in the area of critical critical state concern and as i mentioned in the previous petition in the analysis if we had any lands that scored better than a 1.2 they have to go into a preserve we have four of those acres that scored better than 1.2 and we cannot develop those even though they're going to be in the boundary town so with that i'm going to let ellen come in take you through this slide and the master plan and then open it up to any questions you may have regarding this proposed amendment i hope you don't take my doing this quickly as short shrift to the project because a lot of the concepts that we already discussed in great detail in the last petition we've already discussed and so i've removed that from the presentation with that i'll hold up

Hi, good morning for the record. My name is Ellen Summers. I'm a certified land use planner and a senior manager of planning with Bowman. I have a brief little overview here of some of the changes for the proposed SRA amendment table here with the existing SRA parameters and what the proposed SRA amendment includes. As Rich stated, we are increasing the total acreage. We are also increasing the minimum commercial and light industrial areas, and that is in compliance with the RLSA program, which is required at 170 square feet per dwelling unit. We are also increasing the amount of civic area, which is required at 15 square feet per unit. Rich touched on our increase of the maximum dwelling units. we are also increasing the affordable housing acreage from 88 acres to 99.64 which also correlates with an increase of the affordable housing density from 882 dwelling units to 996. we with this increase we have a requirement which we are meeting with the rlsa program to provide 200 square feet per dwelling unit for our community park our community park acreage has increased to 50 acres 50.78 acres and then again with our open space the rlsa program requires a minimum of 35 percent which we are maintaining and we are actually exceeding with the proposed sra amendment we are providing 47.77 percent of open space To give you a quick little overview on the master plan, I've got a zoomed in version here on the next slide. As Rich pointed out, we have this additional amendment area, which is primarily part of the neighborhood commercial context zone. We have also relocated a utility site that previously sat here in this community that's now designated community park area that utility site which is approximately 5.32 acres has been relocated to just south of or sorry just north of the business park context zone and that relocation has already been discussed and reviewed and approved by Clark County utilities we are also We have also added an additional affordable housing parcel here to the north of Boyle Road, where you have our business park context district. We have also now reallocated this to an affordable housing parcel.

And I do want to also mention what the additional SRA area, which is again this piece here.

We have an interconnection here to the existing SRA-designated lands that also provides a wildlife crossing underneath it from the north to south. You have a perimeter lake system on the eastern side of this additional area, as well as a multi-use pathway on the exterior there. Within a town designation, we are required to have certain context zones. Those required zones are the neighborhood general, a town core, and a town center. Again, the neighborhood general is where we have the most increase and change with this proposed amendment. Again, that's an increase of about 450 acres. Again, this is a predominantly residential with a mix of single family and multifamily dwelling units. We do include an approximate three and a half acre parcel for goods and services a civil use tract we also include a elementary school tract and again some of these items were part of the original town approval back in 2021. we do include a town center again we have nominal changes to this this has not changed as part of this amendment the town core remains the same business park has that slight acreage decrease as again i mentioned we now have an allocated affordable housing parcel adjacent to the northern side of that business park contact zone and then again the affordable housing we have a slight increase from 88 acres to 99 acres with that third affordable housing tract excuse me We have a few new proposed deviations and I'll kind of try to give you a broad view of each of these and I'm happy to ask or happy to answer any additional questions. This first deviation is a deviation from the landscape buffer requirements primarily associated with single family, a single family tract adjacent to a lake where there may be a multifamily or a single family tract on the opposite side of that lake. We are requesting to. As opposed to having a landscape buffer easement, we're proposing a planting plan. We are allowed to cluster those landscape buffer requirements on the single family side. So we're just kind of asking for a separate process for that. These deviations have been reviewed and have a recommendation of approval from staff on these.

Can I ask you a question real quick on that?

Yes. Are we talking about the west side along? Is that DeSoto? Or the streets that kind of split off DeSoto to the west? Are we talking about that landscape buffer? Or are you just talking about inside the community?

Inside the community, yep. The second deviation, that is probably what you're referring to. We have a very small sliver of agricultural land to the east of an existing single-family area. On that other end, on the western side of the agricultural land, we have an FSA. So we are requesting no buffer in this very limited circumstance. Typically, when we have single-family residents adjacent to HSA, FSA, no landscape buffer is required. And then the third deviation here is related to separation of facilities with fuel pumps. We have the business park track, which is on the north side of Oilwell Road. We have a small commercial tract, part of the neighborhood general contact zone on the south side of Oilwell. We'd like to have that opportunity to, if the opportunity presents itself, to have a gasoline service station on both sides of Oilwell. And the only thing I do want to add and note about this is that there is an ongoing land development code amendment that is seeking to eliminate the separation requirement that currently exists within the code today. That's a board-directed LDC amendment. Has not been approved yet, but again, it's kind of the intention, it seems, for the board to move in that direction.

Mike, do we call that the Costco amendment? all right and bear with me here i'm kind of flying through this um does that do you know if i'm sorry the question i meant to ask you mike before naming it the costco amendment is is this language going to mimic what the board has requested to be written it will it close i mean the concepts are the same so yes excuse me all right and then the we have three more deviations to go through these

Two here are related to the neighborhood general context zone. The first is related to providing parking in the front or along the sides of a commercial development. This is for non-residential uses only. As I mentioned previously, we have one location of commercial or civic area within the neighborhood general context zone, which is this piece here on the south side of Oilwell Road. We are primarily intending to develop that with a gasoline service station. The intent of some of these standards in the code is going to be for larger developments, shopping centers where it does make sense to have parking located in the rear or on the sides. We're proposing them a little bit more unique for the type of use that's planned for this location. And then again, that kind of corresponds with the second deviation here on the screen where it is required that a restaurant, grocery store or convenience store be located on an alley loaded site. Again, we're talking about a three acre site that's going to have primarily one use. Oh, thank you. So again, this second deviation is related to having an alley loaded site. Our three acre parcel that we're looking at is intended to be developed with a gasoline service station. So to have an alley-loaded site kind of hinders a little bit more of the development capability of that site. And then our last deviation, I put this at the end here. What's before you today and what was originally part of the packet was to seek a deviation from the minimum size of a gasoline service station with a convenience store. We previously requested this. The code requires 3,000 square feet. We previously requested this to be 5300 square feet. However, after time of review from staff and up to this hearing date, we do have a potential user and with that potential user we would need an increase in that size. So that is something for additional consideration today. Something that we spoke to staff about and I do believe we have the staff support on that request. right we did hold a neighborhood information meeting on february 12th we waited quite a while after the start time we had no members of the public in attendance either via zoom or there in person and then again based on the staff recommendation staff recommends that the planning commission forward this petition with a recommendation of approval and that concludes my presentation we're here for any questions that you all may have thank you

None from my commissioners. Do we have any public speakers?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. One public speaker, Colleen Hines.

Hello my name is Colleen Hines I'm a resident of Collier County since 1971 when there was a plan for the estates way before all these changes and all these new developments are going in the water issues the road issues the transportation all these you say the roads are going to be updated but there's no houses yet but there's construction going on in five different locations in that area that have caused a lot of traffic issues and they're just going to get worse by the time you still put in houses and more residents my problem is water is being restricted Our water from the estates is being shipped in to downtown Naples by the way of 60 wells. Now, you guys have approved all these new developments that need lots of water and this last thing with Ava Maria, they're adding new lands to it. But do they add more reserved lands with it? Also, then you've got the big cypress thing going into and. we can't burn right now there's no water we can't keep our gardens alive because we're restricted on how much water we can use you guys keep approving of all of these developments when we've got empty buildings and empty shops and all this stuff sitting idly by and you're approving all these new developments with all these new locations and no new roads Amokley Road, Oilwell, Everglades, DeSoto. All that traffic is coming out Amokley Road and Golden Gate Boulevard. they don't go out 29 they can't go out everglades or de soto that's all dead ends so everybody's going out on two roads you got more and more developments going on oh well they're not built yet but the construction is very heavy there's big trucks dump trucks lots of employees using the roads that wasn't using it before they were approved When you approved this Alva Maria thing, did that include more reserved lands with it, or are they just hitchhiking on the existing allowance that you did? And this new big cypress thing, how much of that is going to be conserved? Because you're putting that right in the middle of one of the most sensitive habitats for bears, panthers, foxes. even the ghost orchid they live out there and you guys are mass clearing land even between alligator alley and golden gate boulevard behind that rock pit that they build out there and you guys are twiddling around about wilson boulevard four studies have been done on wilson boulevard still no money for putting land together, they've changed their mind three different times, and now they figured out that the wells are in the way, so they gotta change the road altogether. You guys keep approving of all these big developments, and the roads don't have to happen until the houses are up. That's crap. Riding in from Golden Gate today took me 40 minutes, and I didn't even get stuck in any traffic. It was a nice, clean ride in. No traffic. I got behind one bus, and it took me a bit to get there, but Davis Boulevard's a mess, Pine Ridge is a mess, Immokalee's a mess, and now you guys are spreading it east without any new roads. little roundabouts yeah that's going to slow traffic up but we need lanes of road for 6 000 new houses and all these houses and developments and what do you call affordable housing you're putting it in a mockley instead of out by ava maria is that make everybody happy that they put ala maria's name on something in a mockley for affordable housing it doesn't make any sense that you guys keep putting all these developments out there and we don't have roads or water and all the amenities that we need for it and you're encroaching on very sensitive habitats south of the alley has been taken away from us i'm i'm from alligator alley my house is on alligator alley since 71 and i've watched it all move stop it you're killing our world our our peaceful golden gate estates has turned into a mosh posh of uncontrolled chaos you don't keep your code enforcement handy i've made three complaints they are not anonymous anymore so now my neighbors are mad because i reported them for building without permits and the county won't get back to me about it and they're just building away no permits oh well we don't have the manpower well how do you get the manpower to build all these other places and not keep an eye on your people okay thank you thank you for your comments

Are there any other public speakers?

No other speakers.

All right, staff. Sorry, I passed you first, but staff.

Staff recognizes that the petition is adding acreage to the town, increasing the dwelling units to 5,799. This has been peer-reviewed. The economic analysis has been peer-reviewed by Jacobs, and there is a conclusion. fiscal neutrality the deviations that are suggested staff is supporting the the aspects of where this is at with no development now this is when you want to you want to identify what deviations and how the the town is going to feel before you get your residents in the houses are starting to show up this is where you set the stage we believe that they've met all the requirements related to the square footage associated with the goods and services the the civic and institutional uses as well it also has opportunities for business for business park for job creation all those things are the things that the the rlsa is requiring of towns specifically to be able to be as self-sustaining as possible and that has a lot to do with some of the conversation you had with ave the larger the more economies of scale that you get the more households you get the wider range of commercial uses that could be supported the wider range of economic employment opportunities that become available the more fulfilling that the town can become to that overall goal of what the rlsa is to provide for self-sustaining towns that provide for a balance of of of development of commercial square footage as well as parks recreational uses and other amenities and for all those reasons staff is uh supporting the the petition

answer any questions that you may have related to Chuck how many acres went into protection on this the good rule of thumb is about three to one yeah this particular project is using the restoration credits that have already been set aside as part of an SSA a lot of times not a lot but ssa's get designated prior to sometimes prior to the sra coming so there's already approved sra with with restoration credits to uh designate this additional lands that would be three to one so three acres into preserve for every one acre developed yeah the general rule of thumb is two and a half to three two and a half to three so even on a light side of two that's twelve hundred

Just about 1,200? Already set aside.

Remember I told you there's roughly 50,000 acres already set aside in SSA.

and then this land was originally AG so it's not like it was a preserve that was then sold off to a developer and if a farmer had come in and wanted to crop that land they would have just leveled everything and made a farm correct because there is no requirement to retain any type of vegetation or trees yeah it was already partially a farm as well it's already farmland yeah it was already farmland cleared so all right I just wanted to get that on record that there is lands in preserve All I have for right now.

Mike? Mike, when is Vanderbilt Beach Road opening? When's the opening day? Any day now. Because there is a new road, and it's Vanderbilt Beach Road. It's going to take a big heat off of Immokalee Road, but any day.

Good morning. Again, Mike Sawyer, Transportation Planning. Good question. We are anticipating the opening sometime this summer. We don't have an exact date yet, but we are working towards getting that date and the opening established.

And then right after that, Phase 2 starts?

100 pairs are right behind it, yes. Perfect. just as a note on this also in the work program right now is the four laning of oil well itself so that will be four lanes um where you right now we neck it down to two lanes and it'll be expanding to full four is there a project date on that sir um it is in the in the five-year work program that we've got right now i don't have an exact date this morning okay Okay.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Okay. With that, applicant, anything to rebut or add?

No. Other than we meet all the criteria, we request that you make a recommendation of approval.

With that, I close the public hearing open for board discussion. Any discussions? Or do I have a recommendation? I...

I'm a little concerned with the amount of units being added to the max. All the other deviations I'm fine with. It's just the increase of units given, as Mike had pointed out earlier, the lack of

lack of transportation although let me ask this question rich this this plan shows a road going to golden gate boulevard east as part of this community first of all vanderbilt beach road will obviously be up and running before we put a single house on there but the long range plan has big cypress parkway And we, through a separate agreement, a landowner agreement, have been working with the county to get them the right-of-way for someday building that other north-south way out.

How far out are you going to plan on building on this new portion?

How far out?

Yeah, so like last time you told me two years, this is plus that, right?

We'll start clearing in about eight years. start We're gonna start land work site work in about 18 months So you're talking two years probably safely maybe more before they say any house is actually occupied These additional lands So Chuck with your concern what what can we How can we address that?

I was just putting out as one of my concerns. I mean that the Max. Your case is increasing to 5799 units. Maximum allowed. Adding 1300 adding 1300 and change so that was just it was just a concern I had but. You're looking at two years out the five-year work plan on oil well again traffic is always constantly something that we hear oil well being already rated an F as of the last 2024 AURI it's just a concern that I had But it's in the five-year plan It's in the works for it to take that relief there so

that's well i'm fine with every other deviation as planners is there something that we can do to address these concerns i think i think i mean that's our role right well yeah that's the thing is we've got to look at you know we keep coming back to this thing on the safety with the roads keep coming back with

amount of cars traffic things that we've been hearing the conversation that's above our free pay grade to to talk about that future land use and I would I would almost just off the top of my head think about restricting it back to the villages that are already in conception or planning remain and the rest of them we've got to we've got to lighten it up to increase the

safety and the roads themselves to allow people to get around this is the lawyer of me there are criteria exactly that's what I'm saying we need the criteria if you want to change the criteria go through the legislative process of changing the criteria today you're not planners you are quasi judicial decision makers and we have put on the record the competent substantial evidence to support our request this isn't something that you may not feel like but again you have to apply the criteria make you want to make legislative changes that's a different arena we meet the criteria all the testimonies there that we meet the criteria oil well road counts as if it's there because it's programmed to go forward and venerable beach road counts as if it's there because it's imminently to open with all that is there traffic in collier county absolutely but it's traffic that meets the adopted level of service

And is there anything that we can do to advance the widening of oil well road?

No, that's the...

They're doing it right now? Put it on record.

Put it on the record from a standpoint, but it's in the work plan on Collier County. It's a matter of the funding in order to make it happen.

You know, the transportation is always a problem that we have because it's a common theme we hear from the general public. And we experience ourselves. But there's a whole separate process that governs that and what they may have to pay to help contribute to accelerate some of these. Maybe the thing to do is have, we've got a lot of new members, have them try and explain to us. Because we think about it like, We're looking at the roads being planned for the ultimate population that you could support with all those pink areas if you're in the RLSA. That's not what's going on. And the vehicles that you count aren't always the vehicles that we, you know, they have a certain trip count, but they're not in the waiting system yet until they get into the development plan, right? Until we pull permits. So it doesn't even get calculated when you do the AUIR. It's not in it.

Right, but there is a mechanism.

Yes, that's my old point.

The traffic statement. Remember, you're approving the project. We do another TIS when we do a plan. We do another TIS when we do a site development plan. So there's always constant review about traffic throughout the process.

there's an analysis you do at the at the designation stage and then and rezones but again they meet the criteria but again it did at the board's direction they directed to take the three villages and convert this to a township and that was based on What they thought, I think, at that time was, and this is just my recollection, revenue that would develop the traffic or the road network to support.

To keep them there.

To keep them there. The goal was to keep people there. And you need rooftops to support the retail and the businesses in order for traffic, people not to go. they're probably more going to the east javi maria than they are going west into town because we're starting to get those businesses the program's working the program's working they're keeping them local they're not coming as west as often okay well i closed a public hearing i'll open it for board discussion and anybody want to make a nomination recommendation otherwise

I'll make a motion to approve with the requested deviations as presented.

Yeah, the one change deviation for the 6400 square feet, I think it was.

I'll second that.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed like signed? Passes unanimously. With that, we'll take a lunch break. We've got several items to go, so let's take at least a 30-minute break.

Anybody think you want more? 30-minute break.

We'll reconvene at 1245.

¦ ¦ ¦

You don't have to go You're the poetry man You make things all right So once again, it's time to say so long and so we call the law of life. You're going home now. Home's that place somewhere you go each day to see your wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah, to see your wife. You're the poetry man. You make things all right.

I don't know what's gonna happen to you, baby, but I do know that I love you. Walk around this town with your head all up in the sky. Watch out. Let's dance. Let's shout. Shake your body down to the ground. Let's dance. Let's shout. Shake your body down to the ground. Let's dance. Let's shout. Shake your body down to the ground.

Let's dance. Let's shout.

Shake your body down to the ground.

Your tears went with your loving to flee hard together. Live mic.

All right.

We're just ordering it now.

If I could have your attention, please. We're going to start again. And let's see. We heard from the petitioner, and now we're what? Any public?

You haven't heard yet, but if you want a free motion to approve, I'm glad.

We have no public speakers. We closed the public hearing, so I'm opening it to a board discussion. Do we have any public speakers on this matter? No, I haven't called it yet, Joe. Joe, we haven't called it yet. What? We just finished. Just finished his presentation. Oh, I was going back to Big Cypress. Sorry. Thank you.

Now we got to start over. We already voted. Let's go right back to Ave Maria.

Oh, going back to Ave Maria. Call everybody back. Call back all the public speakers. Somebody call Rob. Get him on the phone.

All right. Well, I'll go to the next item then. Next item is 9E. 9E? PL 2025-0003046. This is the Windward Landing RPUD south of Holly Avenue and west of the terminus of Bayshore Drive. And this petition does require EAC approval as well. With that, I turn it over to the petitioner.

The disclosures.

Oh, thank you. Disclosures.

None.

Staff materials only. I did speak to Mr. Yovanovitch about this petition as well.

Staff materials conversation with Rich Yovanovitch. Staff materials only.

Okay. And Michelle?

Disclosures?

Oh, okay. Reviewed staff materials, spoke with Mr. Yovanovitch, and visited the site.

Okay.

All right, with that, then, persons wishing to speak on this matter, please rise to be sworn in. Mr. Ivanovich, it's all yours. My original note said good morning, but that might have been a little ambitious.

Good afternoon. For the record, Rich Yovanovitch on behalf of the applicant and on behalf of the team. Toll Brothers is the applicant, and Beckman is here from Toll Brothers. Patty Kulik from RBI is our professional planner. Nick Walters is our professional engineer. Norm is our transportation consultant. And Andrew McCauley is our environmental consultant. I'm going to just do a brief overview of the project, and then I'll open it up to any questions you may have. Obviously, the entire team is here to answer any questions. The property is a 71.4 acre parcel. it's just south of the current terminus of bayshore drive as part of the project we will be extending bayshore drive to our project entrance uh and constructing improvements to bayshore drive and i'll go through that briefly When I get to that slide, you have Holly Avenue right here, and you have two portions of Isles of Collier Preserve here and here as our neighbors to the north, east, and west, basically conservation lands to our south and west, east as well. The property is zoned residential, partially zoned RSF3, partially zoned AG, and I will show you that on the visualizer in a moment. Our request is to develop a maximum of 90 single family homes, detached single family homes with the standard height of 35 feet zoned and 45 feet actual within our development standards. we made some changes to our project as a result of our neighborhood information meetings and meetings with the CRA there was concerns about what would if construction traffic damaged Bayshore who would be responsible for that so we included a provision in the PUD should we damage Bayshore as a result of our construction traffic we are obligated to repair that Pickleball was greatly discussed. Where was it gonna be on the site? We have made it really simple. We have not even, we have prohibited pickleball with in the project we're close to where the pickleball courts are anyway but there'll be no pickleball courts as part of this project and we made some modifications to the buffers as a result of comments raised by residential neighbors and I'll show you where we made those made those changes The current future land use designation for 66.4 acres is urban coastal fringe. And we have a five acre conservation area under the future land use map. i'll show you the calculation of what the future land use map would allow for density in a moment and to the right is the current zoning on the property this is the rsf 3 property and this is rural ag under the comprehensive plan future land use designation urban coastal fringe acreage is entitled to ask for up to three units per acre which would be 199 units and the conservation portion of the property would be uh we would be allowed to request up to one unit per five acres so under the comprehensive plan we can ask for 200 units we're only asking for 90 units and those 200 units could be multi-family they could be single family they could be townhomes it could be whatever we've obviously are asking for less than half the density allowed under the comprehensive plan and we're only asking for single family detached as the allowed use, which is consistent with the Isles of Collier properties to our east and west. So from a compatibility standpoint, we have low density and we have similar product to our neighbors. We went to both the CRA Advisory Board and the MSTU Advisory Board in December of 2025. Both boards at separate meetings recommended approval of the proposed project. We committed that should the MSTU decide to extend their boundaries, To encompass all of our property, we would not object to being included in the MSTU boundaries. We're partly in the CRA, and we're partly, this exhibit shows you the CRA's yellow, and so is the MSTU area. isles of collier preserve over here had a similar commitment in their project to allow the mstu boundaries to ex extend over their property and we'll we're willing to do that as well so the entirety of our project is within the mstu This is the proposed master plan. Again, I mentioned we're 90 single-family detached dwelling units. You can see quite a bit of our property is green, which is preserved. We have lakes. The R tractors, the yellow areas, as part of the We have along the north portion of our project where Holly Avenue is our northern neighbor, we have a buffer that includes landscaping and a wall, which is one of our deviation requests is to be able to have a taller wall. And likewise, on this portion of the property, we have a wall and landscape buffer combination where our residences are adjacent to other residences. other than that the preserves serve as our buffer we are not walling ourself in believe it or not we had people had comments about making it easy for wildlife to make their way through this and get to this preserve area here and there were concerns that if we walled in the entirety of the community wildlife would would be hindered so we agreed not to wall in the entirety of the community as part of those comments We are going to have dark skies compliant lighting as part of the project. And as I mentioned, we are going to extend Bayshore from where it currently ends to our project entrance. We will be creating a roundabout at our entrance So if a fire truck or ambulance comes down and missed Holly Avenue, they won't have to come into our project to go back. They'll have a roundabout to go back to the north. Both the extension of Bayshore and the roundabout area will be public lands, but we will maintain them. So those improvements to Bayshore and the roundabout will be, maintenance obligations will be as part of the development. For staffs recommending approval, as I previously mentioned, both the CRA Advisory Board and the MSTU Advisory Board are recommending approval. It's an infill, low-density project. It's consistent with the density allowed under the future land use map. Actually, even the underlying density gets us there for zoning. We're compatible with surrounding residential development. Our preserve areas exceed the LDC requirement, and we're consistent with the growth management plan. That's an overview of the project the entire team is here to answer any specific questions you may have our request is that you forward this request to the Board of County Commissioners With a recommendation of approval and that's both in your capacity as the AAC and as the Planning Commission Mike that's it question

yeah my question is related to the lighting I saw that it was 3,000 K Kelvin but I don't see a height on the light poles we actually have an obligation to meet dark skies that was the other project that I think you're comparing it to

we didn't have an obligation to meet dark skies and in that one we we did specify the heights and we did special specify the calvins and this one we're we're consistent with dark skies okay and i'll let norm for bill cox come up and tell you what that means yeah i would like that if i could but for clarity you can always ask for no you know dark skies compliant no more than whatever height perfect thank you

Hi good afternoon Norm Trebell-Cock and I help with the lighting design and I'm professional engineer certified planner My question is in the past I always liked to request that the light poles not be higher than 15 feet but I don't see that on this On the report, anyways.

Sure. So, yeah, so the county, the default standard at the county would be 25 feet. And typically, like right at the entrance area, we'll often do that with like kind of cobra head type lights or something like that. But within the subdivision itself would normally be the lower lights, you know, which are in the $15. uh foot range but we weren't doing a specific restriction but like rich said it we would comply with dark sky in other words be no up lighting and go with 3 000 kelvin or less but within within the lotted areas normally we would do the lower height but right at the entrance so we would want to maybe potentially have the the higher height just to get the foot candles so would you be able to just because there's

this is surrounded by preserve, would you be able to commit to doing the 15 foot throughout the community, but higher at the entrance?

so should we i want to make sure it's because heidi and i are going to have to write this up um where where would you just say where the residential lots are you want it to be 15 feet does that work okay so where where we're adjacent to resident a residential tract we're capped at 15 feet and at the project entrance and however far in we have to do that to be appropriate right it could be 25 feet yeah this is just what we've

had in the past and yep no that's that's perfect um i just say we'd say a 15 foot mounting height but we can write it up and work with staff on it perfect okay that's great yep that's good oh i had a question for norm rich what would be the height at the amenity center uh there's one at inter the internal amenity center could be at the 15 feet okay thank you we yes if we build one yes

was all for me Chair I had a question for Norm yes Michelle go ahead please Norm I drove by the site this morning and I saw that there's a brand new roundabout there that I didn't know about until I did the driver and now my concern is that your roundabout is too close to the new roundabout

Okay, so yeah, let me clarify that is really it's ours is really a More of a cul-de-sac a turn around a vehicle turn around but it would be just fine though That's a little mini roundabout there the the one that you see at the aisles intersecting with the aisle so it's um, it's got the paver Center Island and everything but it would be just We're really not proposing specifically a roundabout itself, just really a turnaround so vehicles can turn around readily at the end of the roadway.

How do you do that? Because that road is so narrow right now. And I should clarify that I talked to Brenda, who's in the audience, who will be speaking. And we share the same concern that that's a really narrow road. How do you do it?

Right. So he's there. Oh, thank you. Exactly. That's perfect. See, he's done a nice cul-de-sac. This is the engineer. It's designed like they work with the fire department to make sure a fire truck can take it and everything. But it's like we call it a teardrop type of thing.

And then where's the existing new roundabout? Is that just to the north?

It's just to the north. But quite frankly, you know, I like roundabouts, but there is not an issue with them being in proximity to each other. It really isn't. Even we have a term called a peanut roundabout where you have two roundabouts that are connected by a piece of – And that works really well too in certain circumstances. That's the whole flexibility of roundabouts. You can accommodate kind of different situations that we can't with traditional design. yeah and this is an interesting design i've never seen this before so it's like like a dog leg left or something yeah so is this rich is this yeah i'm turning to you for my technical expertise here oh thank you so what the car does is does this i mean they've done a nice job with with this because it's it's just got a nice island it's a nice look um and so it's it's

It's really on the property.

What the lawyer should have said is we created a cul-de-sac so the fire trucks could turn around and EMS can turn around if they go past Holly Avenue or they miss your roundabout that you were talking about. So they wouldn't have to come into our project and then work their way back. I should have said cul-de-sac.

Okay.

So let me correct the record.

That makes more sense.

Cul-de-sac.

Okay. Thank you. That's my fault.

since you're talking about fire safety let me go back to your major overview of the property did fire have any concerns about because there's only one access in and out of the property is that correct yeah fire everybody was fine right we're 90 units yeah so but uh to go in and they're going to drive south Kind of go around and they go, no, go back. I'm going to. They're going all the way up to north. And they were fine with that? They were fine with that stretch. Basically, they didn't require any type of other access to that northernmost terminus.

No we'd had to go through people's yards at Holly Avenue and also the reason you have these cul-de-sacs is you can see the preserves yes you know we were doing this to make sure that the preserves were manufactured I would I would have to assume that you've already probably had a an evaluation of protected lands and we're working on that designed around this in jurisdictional wetlands we're working on those agencies as you speak

okay that's all we have that's all you have all right with that i see no questions from my fellow commissioners so we will open to if the there are any staff presentation first and then registered speakers uh no real presentation as contained within the staff report uh this is a relatively low density uh in this location we think it is appropriate at the 1.27 units an acre

compatible with the 0.91 units an acre that's associated with the aisle that's in close by the 22.13 is excessive in terms of the preserve so more preserved than what's required this project is definitely low impact and it's at the end of the term is a base for drive it's it aligns well with its geographic location from a transportation network standpoint For all those reasons and the staff's individual review we've found that it satisfies the the growth management plan and staff is supported they are requesting eight deviations and staff is supporting those are typical deviations that we approve any questions you may have Well I noted and I'll ask the question of the petitioner as well there so there were 60 people that attended the NIM

Rich, you already stated on the record most of the issues that were raised at the NIM you've already accommodated. I'm assuming they were mostly from the neighboring communities.

I will tell you Pickleball was a big discussion. There were also questions, they wanted more additional information about how far south was Bayshore going to be extended as part of this project. And you can see where that is. And then is there a chance that someday the county may come in and extend Bayshore further? Maybe. Sure. Who knows? But they just wanted to know basically what the sight lines were going to be without Bayshore being extended. And I think they became very comfortable with that. with the vegetation that's already there, and our additional commitments to the wall and vegetation.

Yeah, you have an 8-foot wall and a 10-foot type A buffer.

Yeah, so I think those were the predominant concerns, and we had a second NEM to tell them the revisions we were willing to make.

I didn't get any objections in my email, so... We'll see what happens with public speakers. But Michelle, you have a question?

Yeah, for Mike Bosey. Mike, is there any plans to expand that Bayshore Road that leads to this new development? Because it's so narrow. And it's a bus route because I got stuck behind, I mean, like all these kids on the side of the road.

I'm not aware of any plans for Bayshore expansion I would look to transportation focus and back to provide any clarification or correction if misstated Just as a safety concern Good afternoon again Mike Sawyer transportation planning no there currently there is no plans for making additional improvements on Bayshore and that's not to say that it won't become

Like in the city there's you know phases where they go ahead and redo the streets like is there at any point It's Bayshore will be treated as any other road segment as far as when it gets to a point where it needs to be Improved with overlays that sort of thing, you know additional layers. Those are going to be scheduled through our road and bridge department

I do not know what that schedule is But you have a maintenance schedule and then you have a new road schedule so maybe the maintenance schedule is sooner to do these kinds of projects I can't answer that question that's a different department I don't have access to their records or their schedules

Okay, with that, we have any registered speakers?

Mr. Chairman, we had one, but they are not responding, so no.

There's someone in the audience that wanted to speak as well, I think. Did you fill out a?

I don't have, you're welcome to come to the podium, ma'am. I just don't have. Brenda Sandberg?

Sorry, Ms. Sandberg.

good afternoon and thank you so much for this opportunity to address all of you my home is on just the other side of this property i live off a yucatan court and my home will be impacted visually by what i see on the other side so i'm just coming before you this afternoon i was not able to make the neighborhood meetings i do have other neighbors that were there But I just come before you this afternoon asking for a couple of considerations. Just that that buffer between my home and the home that I'll see on the other side of the wall is very large with lots of landscape. You know, right now I have a beautiful treed view, which I love. I know it's going to go away. but lots of landscape would be very much appreciated for those of us on that other side of the wall at the Isles of Collier Preserve that's number one number two I do share the concern of the very narrow road on Bayshore and also the sidewalk situation there I drive Bayshore multiple times during the day the number of young kids on bikes in the roadway and likely a part of that is because the sidewalks are so bad you almost cannot ride your bike on a sidewalk there without it being a trip or a fall hazard so I have concerns about that that I hope that that will continue to be addressed how can we improve that roadway there And then my final concern would just be environmentally. We do know, I am glad to see the amount of preserved land, but we do know we have bald eagles back there and just kind of what the accommodation would be for the natural habitat for this endangered species. So thank you for your time. Thank you for all that you do to serve Collier County and best wishes for a great rest of your day.

Thank you. You too.

Brenda, thank you. I think we've already discussed there's going to be a wall and a 10 foot Buffer? They have their buffer on their side. And they have a buffer on their side.

And you have the vegetation that's in the existing right-of-way, and then you have our buffer.

And it's interesting, because when I spoke with Rich, I remember when Winding Cypress came in, this potentially may have been part of Winding Cypress, but of course they were never able to... This is Sable Bay. Sable Bay, yeah, whatever it was called, Winding Cypress, I'm sorry, Sable Bay, when it came in, and they were going to make this, this piece of land was potentially... was identified as a possible expansion, but they never secured the property. Now it's, of course, another developer. So I don't know how the street pattern would have been had Sable Bay.

It would be exactly like it is right now. Probably. Because I did that alone.

And I know this property. Again, I suspect the amount of preserve is pretty much because of either just traditional wetlands or other protected species. And I think, is your environmental consultant here? Yes. If he could speak, because I believe the bald eagle is not endangered anymore, but listed. Is that correct?

the record uh andrew mccauley senior environmental consultant for tech environmental um yes bald eagles are still protected uh historically there was a nest on the property um the tree itself was lost in a hurricane a few years back i think it was last documented activity was 2013. There is an active bald eagle nest within a mile to the northwest, so on the other side of the Isles of Collier. And then there's another eagled nest that's, I believe, about two miles to the east of the property.

Okay. And it's a listed species, right? Yes, it's federally. Not endangered.

Federally, correct. Federally listed.

Okay. So if there's already an existing fence or wall, then why is there still a concern for landscaping from the speaker?

Why is she concerned? I don't want to speak for anybody, but look, nobody ever wants to see anything developed around them. And we ran into those comments at the NEM. We don't want to see anybody else. well i don't think that's i think it's just that you just want to well not see another house you don't want to see another house exactly well i i can't i can't it didn't we we explained and showed that the vegetation that exists in that existing right-of-way together with their existing buffer and our proposed buffer you won't see our house you won't see our property now i can't commit till forever that the county won't come in someday and clear the right-of-way and i don't think it's fair or even a reasonable request to say to a property owner they can't develop their property because someone else already developed their property. We have the right, you know, single family is compatible with single family.

Yeah. No, I just think there was just a concern that if there could be additional landscape buffering that you are doing that.

We are. We provide it all we can provide. If the request is to give more than what we're already giving, we cannot agree to give more than what we're already giving. maybe it was just a clarification because this individual couldn't make it to the nims meeting either right i don't know it's just informational yeah right there's an enhanced buffer i can't promise her that she's never going to see a house i think she will it sounds to me like you have there there's probably 10 feet five feet right away there's there's there's it's so what's the right 60 feet 50 feet right away right you've got 50 feet in between we have their buffer yeah 50 feet in our buffer yeah i think that's and a wall yeah i believe they already have a wall and then we have a wall here yes we've got walls on walls okay right but again like i said i can't promise that the county may not someday clear that 50 feet right away

Well, isn't the lot of land salted at all and preserved? There is a potential piece. I'm not saying it would ever be developed. There is a potential piece.

There is a potential piece, yes. That someone might come in and decide they want to go through the expense of extending Bayshore and doing the environmental mitigation related to that. Someone may do that. So I can't.

That's that piece of that. Go back to the, or it's in the staff report. There is one piece of land that's still shown as ag, which would have to be rezoned. That's the piece.

No, I don't think I go. I'm looking to see if I get anything that goes far enough south. I don't think I go far enough south. It's down in this area right here. It's a square right there. It's down in that. Yeah, you're right.

Thank you.

I got old eyes. All right. Okay, with that, rebuttal from petitioner. No, I think that you covered. I think we meet all the criteria. Your staff is recommending approval, and we request that you forward this with a recommendation of approval.

Close the public hearing. Open to board discussion.

I'd make a motion to approve with... with the dark sky amendment that requires a max height of 15 feet within the residential community, excluding the entrance. I'll second that. Okay.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. Next petition. This is the 9F, the Vanderbilt 2 Tower, conditional use. 1598 1589 Everglades Boulevard PL 2 0 2 5 0 0 0 7 1 0 7 and With that disclosures Amy Staff materials staff materials only staff materials only staff tears only

This one's the State Road 82?

No, this is the cell phone tower. Cell phone tower.

Oh, right. Okay. Staff materials only.

All right.

With that, any persons wishing to speak on this matter, please rise to be sworn in.

I did.

With that, I turn it over to the petitioner.

Good afternoon. Mary Solick, 121 South Orange Avenue, Suite 1500, Orlando, Florida. I've practiced law for 36 years and tricks are not part of my MO.

Was that from the earlier meeting? Yes, it was. I took offense. Everybody keeps wanting to go back to off and read.

I took offense. I'm sorry. you have a very thorough staff report and i have a presentation you've also had a very long morning and you have more items after us i'm going to breeze through this because there's not much in here that's new to you so here's an aerial overview of our site we're proposing 150 foot shrouded tower on property at the southwest corner of Everglades Boulevard and 16th Avenue Northeast in the Golden Gates area. There's a four-foot lightning rod on the tower. We're south of the existing home that's on the building. We access off of Everglades Boulevard. This is our compound area. Another close-up of the compound area and our access out to Everglades Boulevard. Four carrier pads in the compound. 50 by 50 foot compound, 10 foot landscape buffer. This is our tower design. It is a shrouded pole. On the left here, you'll see the four different mounting heights for the four carriers that this tower can support. The shrouding completely conceals the presence of all antennas. We are proposing a 50-foot fall zone radius. The right side is the letter from the engineer that certifies that the fall zone radius will be 50 feet. The structure on the property is 92 feet away from the tower, so the fall zone radius is not close to the existing structure on site. These are the T-Mobile coverage maps. I should have recognized my team. I'm sorry. Alan Ruiz is here. He's the principal of Vertex Development. Jen Frost is here, senior vice president of real estate and operations. And Keenan Chinook, who is the T-Mobile RF engineer. I'm going to go through these two maps, but if you have more questions on the T-Mobile RF information, I'm going to have to call Keenan up here and walk you through those. So this is the existing T-Mobile service, and here's the site. The white means there's no service. That's what's going on out there now. This is what we pick up with the new site. It goes to green and yellow. This is a map. You've had several applications come before you for towers in Golden Gates. This is the second one I've brought to you. This is the tower at issue right here. These are three other locations that T-Mobile is either in process of developing. I think they've all been approved. And when you get all of those four sites on air, the coverage greatly improves out in this community. This is the existing and approved towers map. This is in your package. Here's our site. You can see the distances from all the towers that are in the area. Nothing close that we could use to support carrier equipment. I'm going to steal a line from Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. This is a letter from AT&T. It's a letter of intent that we have received since we submitted the application. AT&T now wants to use this site, and they will go in on the tower underneath the T-Mobile antenna. So out of the gate, we're going to have two carriers on the pole. This is an interesting slide. I'm going to just cut to the chase down here at the bottom. 88.5% of all 911 calls come into your sheriff's office via cell phones.

Landlines 2.5, voice over internet 8.9.

That's how important reliable cell phone coverage is out anywhere you have people in your county. And this is just to remind you that you're seeing all these towers come through in Golden Gates because until recently they were not allowed to be built out in that area. It's a very, very large residentially developed community that was completely underserved by wireless coverage. And your county commission adopted a comprehensive plan amendment in 2019 that allowed cell towers to be developed in Golden Gates estates. But they added a couple of conditions. And one of them was that they have to be on properties that are at least 2.25 acres in size. And they have to be located on a collector or arterial road. This particular property is 2.65 acres in size. And it's located on Everglades Boulevard, which is a collector road. And that amendment, the staff report from the Land Development Code amendment that implemented the GMP amendment indicated that that amendment originated from a majority of residents in that area being surveyed and wanting and needing expanded wireless coverage in that area. That's the end of my presentation. Do you have any questions for me or anybody on my team? I think we have people here either online or in the building.

And one question from Michelle Michelle go ahead please yes, I just thought of something so I'm on the big cypress basin board and we did it a tower and because there are so many birds that crash into these towers a statistic here that 6.8 to 7 million bird fatalities annually occur because of these cell towers and we did something to the cell tower i can't remember exactly what to help avoid these birds from dying crashing into the cell towers mostly i believe at night where they get disoriented

I suspect that you did not allow a guide tower. The guide tower is what causes the bird, crashes the wires. The birds don't see the wires. And you have a provision in your code that requires...

no no guide towers or uh mike bosie plan zoning director when we have a guide wire tower they're required to put bird diverters meaning that they have to put the the actual wires have to have obstructions on them so they become more visible to the birds this is a monocle so it doesn't apply this is probably this would be the least obtrusive from in terms of bird a bird interaction would be the monopole after the monopole would be your self-supporting tower which is more of the grid and then finally the guide the guide wire tower which is a skinny tower with the guide wires those are the ones that are most impactful to uh to migratory birds because of the the non-visibility of those wires during flight

um is there any lights on this no no lighting is proposed we're below the faa threshold for lighting oh okay okay good you still had to get clearance from mosquito control as well that will be part of the site plan approval yes any more questions for me or members of my team i do is there any concern from the neighbors We had a neighborhood information meeting, and we had about, we had 14 people in person and two online. Generally, the concerns we heard were all health-related. And as you know, and as you've been advised in your staff report, you're not allowed to consider the health effects from the towers. But that was the primary concern that we had. There was one person who wanted us to do a monopine versus the shrouded design. And... either way they both stand out well fair enough um it is the the shrouded design for us better meets the need of our customer it allows them no real hindrances in getting all of the equipment that they need up on the tower the shrouded design completely covers and conceals the antennas in a pine tree you still don't get complete concealment there you can still see parts of the antenna sticking up and it's been our experience i've been doing cellar work a long time it's been our experience that the monopines can be just as polarizing as other designs people love them or they hate them but for every person who wants one i'll get somebody who thinks they're just god-awful so We chose what works best for the carrier, for our needs, and what we think conceals the antenna the best.

Thank you. That concludes your presentation.

That concludes my presentation. I'll come back up and rebuttal if I need to.

We worked with Verizon 2018-2019 to adopt our new land development code related to wireless facilities specifically with the estates in mind knowing that that was the area that needed the highest penetration because of the restrictions on terms of where they could be located so we allowed them on any parcel that was over two and a quarter acres on a collector or arterial road that meets the qualifications and because they're utilizing the stealth technology they get a reduction within the within the setback staff is supporting the uh the the proposal we think it definitely is a component that further zoning it's for the health safety and welfare almost 90 percent of your 911 calls are from wireless uh wireless phones and the majority of this area right now as you saw by their RF maps it's deficient adding this tower will help with that deficiency I will note that today when we were hearing Ave I got an email from a Mr. Scott Monette who sent a 68 signature petition of opposition i wasn't able to open it my i.t flagged it uh i indicated that he said he was going to drop it off the hard copy so i'll have the hard copy available for the board of county commissioners um then he sent another email in terms of the areas that environmental and some of the the other issues that he had with the uh just uh truestness from a visual standpoint staff recognize that that is a concern but staff in terms of the cost-benefit analysis we think providing for reliable and dependable e911 service in telecommunication service in the area can justify the the inconvenience of looking at a 150 foot telecommunication pole I always like to say when they were building when we're first getting our phones into our landlines back in the in the 30s or 40s and the 50s they put those telephone poles in front of your house they really didn't give you an option they said this is what you needed for safety and telecommunications are a little bit different today there is a much more of a public input in criteria but at the end of the day we think the benefits of the increased public or the the communication in the public safety outweighs the aesthetic concerns that would be associated with 150 foot telephone pole so to speak and say for that staff is recommended approval all right

I see nobody else. I'm going to ask a question. Is your engineer here on staff? I have a question.

The RF engineer?

Well, mainly the pole itself. It's a frangible pole, so it's designed within a certain radius. But the wind load standard out there, wind load is what, 140 or 130?

I'm going to let Alan come up. Alan is the principal of Vertex. Okay.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. Alan Ruiz with Vertex Development. So in this particular area, the wind speed requirements are 157 mile an hour winds. Oh, okay.

And just to ease the concerns of the folks out there, this is designed to withstand that. And if it does have to crash, the radius is designed and engineered to fall within a certain radius.

Yes, sir. So the wind loads are designed or the tower is designed to sustain those wind speeds fully loaded for carriers on the tower. And then basically the way they design the tower is they design the tower for those wind speeds and then strengthen the first hundred feet of it. So that if there is a failure, what happens is it kind of just bends like a straw. and then when it bends like the straw then it has that at 50 feet from the top down so at 100 feet it has a more vulnerable point for that bend to occur and then the wind is the the the wind load is offloaded off of the tower and then that's basically what happens so when you know i was i've been in this industry since 97 and over the years as hurricanes come i always go to the area to see what's happened to towers and that's exactly what you see is if there's any failure at all on a monopole type tower now not talking about guide towers or self-support but monopole type towers are they just bend yeah okay yes sir i just wanted that for the record thank you i had another question um this is gonna be backed up with a generator correct so the way we there isn't one common generator each carrier has their own backup generator in their lease area inside the compound so what we have is a 50 by 50 lease area that's fenced in and landscaped around the outside inside of there we have the the tower and then we sublease a little like a 10 by 15 for example where a carrier will set their ground mounted equipment and a little generator for themselves

So those generators are there in case of power outages And your code requires that we have backup generators on site for the what is the code require for how long that generator? Has to run it doesn't have a requirement.

It doesn't so you could have Just a 10k out there that runs for one day on a tank of gas and that meets the code I'm gonna Keenan.

Can you answer that Keenan is the RF engineer for T-Mobile and It's in their best interest to make sure that services, but they don't want the service to go down.

Yeah, I mean, I remember after Irma, we had no power for over a week, and we had no cell phone service.

Hi, my name is Keenan Chinook. I'm with T-Mobile, Sunrise, Florida's base office. Two days ago would be my 21st anniversary with T-Mobile.

Congratulations. Thanks.

So, yes, we, during the disaster recovery, and as you mentioned, Irma, Irma was the time when we had a major outage, and that's when it all changed, where we need to back up. And we do have the generators monitored. They are on alarms. and we do have constant fueling and refueling with Cat 5. So everything is all monitored and we do have a EOC command center that anytime a disaster recovery occurs, we all first respond basically to the communication and get it restored and up and running.

How long is that?

I don't want to keep questioning this, but obviously you've got, we've got a generator for our minimum that we want. Even if we can't have a generator there, sometimes we go to batteries, a minimum of 10 hours that it needs to be standby. But then we do in a generator case, we do have low fuel warning. So we do dispatch. So we don't want the site to go out at all.

Okay.

And in your experience, how many times have you had a generator go out on the tower where it took you a couple days to get there to restore power?

The main issues we have were if a generator was damaged during the storm, we dispatched portable generators, big generators that are on trailers, and those would go out to the site. And either the fixed generator would be repaired, and then that would be removed, or power is restored before that is removed. So those are also monitored as well.

But in your experience, what was the longest that you've seen in your in your time of being with?

Just to have a generator fail and go out?

To have a tower down, yeah.

A few hours. A few hours, okay. Maybe an hour at most. Thank you.

Any more points from the applicant?

Not from us, but we're here all day to answer questions.

Staff?

um staff is recommending approval like i said this is uh following the the provisions that uh we we provided for we think the uh documented documentation of need has been provided by with our rf engineer this will fill the gap and it's going to provide for the needed service staff's recommended approval all right and we have any registered speakers yes there are two scott mone is first and then there's a speaker online

Good afternoon. Scott Minette. I live on 16th Avenue Northeast where the tower is proposed to be built. And I represent the local group of concerned citizens. So far we have 68 signatures. So I did a little bit of research. And within a mile of the tower, there's roughly about 80 households. So 68 isn't an insignificant number. So I would just... I ask that you take that into consideration, the weight of my words and the number of people behind me that are represented. They couldn't make it here today, thankfully. I have a little bit more of a free schedule. So I want to point out the Golden Gate Master Plan, the rural sub-element. It talks about preserving the rural character. And you saw a picture of the tower. and and even like one of the the pine brush ones it stands out um this one stands out even more it looks like a giant spaceship i think it's going to destroy the rural character um and i think it's this board's this board's responsibility uh number one to listen to citizens rather than you know developers i'm the only one in this room that lives close to a mile from that tower My family is going to be impacted. My property values are going to be impacted. Studies show these towers aren't exactly oceanfront, don't hold oceanfront allure. People don't move next to cell phone towers. They do the opposite effect. Studies have shown they lower property values by 20%. So I would ask you to take that into consideration. This tower can be seen 18 miles away. It's 150 feet. So if you're looking at this tower with an unobstructed view, you're going to see it 18 miles away. So if we want to continue to destroy the natural beauty of Florida, I would say let's just keep building these towers everywhere if we love them. But we don't love them. That's the honest truth. They're sort of a necessary evil. I understand that. the other thing is the tower is not lit and we had the mosquito plane go over the other night and i just had to do a quick query online how how high do those planes actually fly and they do fly as low as 150 feet so that's not a safety concern that can can easily be ignored lastly It's a mystery to me as a health professional. It's a mystery. When I went to the initial community meeting, I was also interviewed by the news, and the reporter mentioned to me, you do know that they don't consider health impacts. And to me, it blew me away. Like, we all depend on life, right? We're all going to die here. So we're all collectively working to live as long as possible. Yet we're ignoring the health impacts. To me, it just blew my mind. Why isn't there a doctor on the board, a position for a doctor? A lot of the decisions that are being made will have health impacts. And this is one of them. And I will point out that the WHO recently listed cell phone towers as likely carcinogenic.

Thank you for listening to me today. Scott, thank you for your time.

Next speaker, Iris Baylane. We're asking her to unmute.

Go ahead, please, Iris. I can't hear you.

Yes, good afternoon. I am a resident of 16th Avenue, Northeast as well. And one of my major concerns is definitely property devaluation. According to a National Institute for Science Law and Public Policy, 94% of buyers will not purchase a home that's near one of those cell phone tower. And I think that this needs to be looked into. and the residents that live on 16th Avenue and the near street need to be appraised and need to be listened to if their property value is gonna go down.

Okay. Anything else?

I also second the prior speaker's concerns about health. Even though nothing is conclusive, We don't need to wait for 10 years down the line when people are getting sick to say, oh, we should not have put a cell phone tower that close to this residential area.

All right. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Mr. Chairman, there's one more speaker online. We're going to ask Moa Jamil to unmute. He was unresponsive earlier.