Kiker talks community visioning
Armed with county staff to help out, Lee County Commissioner Larry Kiker spoke to San Carlos Island residents about development and their community.
The Beach Area Civic Association invited Kiker to speak Jan. 5. Many of the residents’ main concerns revolve around the Bay Harbour Marina Village development, which is currently back in the planning department after being remanded in November.
The development includes both a comprehensive plan amendment and a rezoning request. Because zoning requests are quasi-judicial in nature, Kiker is not allowed to discuss pending applications with the community or the applicant, so he brought along Richard Wesch, County Attorney, and Michael Jacob, Assistant County Attorney, to make sure he stayed in the legal boundaries of the discussion. County Manager Roger Dejarlais, Assistant Manager Doug Meurer, Planning Manager Mikki Rozdolski and Community Development Director Dave Loveland.
Rozdolski explained the planning process and the layers of regulations on properties – how a land use amendment varied from a zoning change – as well as the Lee Plan’s current objectives and goals for San Carlos Island.
The plan includes a vision statement for the island, which was last discussed in 2007.
“It’s been 10 years, I imagine that vision has changed,” she said.
The county is in its infancy stages of a major comp plan update that will define the county out until 2040. Part of that update includes meeting with different areas of the community, something Rozdolski said she planned to do with San Carlos Island. However, that update is years in the making and will be a long process.
Residents were not swayed by the county’s presentation. As conversation shifted to Bay Harbour and redevelopment, questions and concerns bubbled to the surface – especially after the long battle that island residents have fought against it, attending county meetings and zoning hearings for a year.
Many residents expressed their discontent that the county commissioners had remanded the Bay Harbour application at the Nov. 16 hearing – an action which was requested by the developer – instead of just denying the application and ending the debate.
“The time to finish it was at the last meeting,” said one of the meeting attendees. “We don’t feel you are supporting us.”
But Kiker asked the residents to look at the remand as “another shot.” He encouraged the residents to start speaking to the developer about the project and come to the table together for a compromise. Since
the developer owns the property, it can keep coming back to the county with applications, so the battle could continue.
“You can talk to the developer about what you want,” he said. “It can’t just be no, no, no. You have to compromise.”
The Inkwerks applicant did attend the meeting, and said he were there to listen to what the residents had to say, however, he declined to be interviewed for this story.
Charlie Whitehead, president of BACA, said he hoped to have a meeting with the developer to discuss the project in the near future.
“They have expressed a willingness to have a conversation with us,”
Other residents were unhappy that the planning staff recommended approval of Bay Harbour even though the Local Planning Agency and the Lee County Hearing Examiner both recommended denial, and dozens of residents had spoken up against the project, too.
“Part of our job is to look at applications and be objective,” Rozdolski said.
When the planning department receives the applications, staff has to review them – it’s their job. And when a plan is submitted that closely ties a comprehensive plan amendment to a rezoning request, they operate under the assumption that the amendment would get approved so that they could consider the rezoning request.
Under current standards, the Bay Harbour development is not consistent with the Lee Plan or the property zoning. However, if the land use amendment which the developer requested was approved, the zoning request would be consistent with the Central Urban land use designation.
“You cannot turn away a rezoning application just because the comprehensive plan amendment hasn’t been completed,” she said. “We have to review it. We make an assumption that the CPA is approved, but if it’s not then the conversation on rezoning is short.”
“If we allow such massive deviation, we might as well have no plan,” said resident Nick White.
Traffic was also a major concern for island residents. When San Carlos Boulevard is congested, island residents can’t leave their homes. Main Street is only a narrow two-lane road, and when the Key West Express arrives, it gets traffic caught on the island’s residential streets.
However, according to state law, the county can’t reject an application just based on traffic.
Also, the planning staff has a “differing opinion” on what should be built on San Carlos Island, said Principal Planner Brandon Dunn.
“Our view was that Central Urban was more compatible than industrial,” he said.
The project’s promise of affordable workforce housing was one aspect in which staff thought the project would be a good fit. With a lot of service industry employees on the beach, it would put the work force closer to their jobs in more affordable living conditions, Rozdolski said.
The original plan proposed 38 workforce-priced housing units to be included in the 113 proposed condos.
Resident Mary Schull doesn’t think it would matter if Main Street was widened, however.
“You have to say at some point, we’ve reached out saturation point,” she said. “It’s not about cars, it’s about saying enough.”
Kiker said the community should come together and then come to the county with what they want in their community. He described North Fort Myers’ attempt to bring in development – they want people to come there, he said – and how they presented a plan to the county.
Gayle Bell lives on the other side of San Carlos Island. She hopes she can help her island work on a plan for their community. She volunteered with the City of Atlanta when it was trying to find a vision for its city, so she hopes to take what she learned from that experience to San Carlos Island – especially on the cusp of redevelopment, she said it was important to not have a “helter-skelter plan” for the island.
“It’s the crown jewel of Lee County,” she said. “This is just the infancy of growth.”