Second visioning workshop doubles attendance
Officials from the Town of Fort Myers Beach and Larue Planning & Management Services were pleased to have more than 70 Estero Island residents, business members, visitors and guests attend the second part of a planning process called “Vision Our Town” at the Community Visioning Workshop last Wednesday. The attendance doubled from the first workshop a month ago.
The workshops serve as an evaluating and improving process for the Town’s Comprehensive Plan, a blueprint for how development will occur in the future (next 10 to 25 years) and what the Beach community may look like during that time.
Jim Larue served as the facilitator and lead speaker at the event, which offered an introduction and explanation of the session as well as an outcome summary of findings of the first workshop, summary of the online survey which more than 150 people filled out, input participation on four distinct outcome areas and a summary of the ‘outcome statements during the wrap-up.
Subject outcome areas (which were first discussed during the first workshop) included Infrastructure, Community Character, Natural Resources and Transportation.
“We were trying to make sure that we got subject areas that were important if you were going to do a vision for the Town of Fort Myers Beach and what important issue categories would be necessary for that vision and where your community will be in the future,” said Larue.
After the explanation, Larue asked participants to walk to assigned tables and vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ through green or red dots on certain categories within the subject outcome areas.
(BOLD) Before doing so he provided percentage figures resulting from those who took the online survey. Some are as follows:
Residency:
n 63 percent stay on the Beach more than six months of the year;
n 89 percent as owners of the unit they stay in and 8.6 percent rent it out;
n 92.5 percent have lived here more than one year;
Issues that were most important:
n 80 percent – small business incentives
n 75 percent – bicycle paths
n 66 percent – a vibrant and active downtown area
Issues deemed somewhat important:
n 44 percent – availability of boat rentals
n 40 percent – public transit
n 38 percent – plaza and outdoor entertainment
Transportation priority issues ranked in importance for the future:
n Expand the trolley service
n Additional parking
n More sidewalks
Overall priority issues ranked in importance for the future:
n Traffic congestion
n Environment
n Quality of infrastructure
n Cost of infrastructure
n Community character
n Commercial intrusion
(BOLD) After the voting, participants were given a short summary of the results involving the rough numbers of responders. They are as follows:
n improve water quality – 60ish said yes
n pedestrian/bicycle lane on sky bridge – 60ish said yes
n sewer/water improvements – 60ish said yes
n town should acquire more parks for town – 40ish said no
n town should construct amphitheater – 50ish said no
n town should acquire a cultural arts facility – split down middle
n specific architectural style required – overwhelmingly no
n wall art/murals in public places – 60ish said yes
n create a view corridor with height variances – 40-50 said yes
n town should purchase existing building for town hall – 40ish said yes
n transportation roundabout on Estero Boulevard – overwhelmingly no
n trolley lane on Estero Boulevard to improve traffic – overwhelmingly no
(Once the full results are available, Larue will provide data to the local newspapers for publication.)
Community Development Director Walter Fluegel thanked the workshop’s participants for their opinions and asked them to continue to take part in the on-going process by checking the Town’s website at www.fortmyersbeachfl.gov and clicking on “Your Government”, “Departments”, “Community Development” and “VISION OUR TOWN” halfway down the page.
“We are going to be continuously reaching out to you to get input,” said Fluegel. “We are going to go back to take a look at the results of what you gave us, look at where we think there was confusion where we need to narrow an issue a little more or focus in and try to understand something a little more, then put another survey up on the website probably within the next two weeks. Please share this with your friends, neighbors, relatives or anyone who couldn’t be here because they are out of town.”
Fluegel called the process “ongoing feedback” with the need to “stay connected” to help the Town’s Community Development Department pick up on community issues for future usage.
“Somewhere down the road when we get done with all this assessment of the comprehensive plan and how effective it is now, we are going to go into what’s called the ‘ear-based amendments,’ which is re-writing certain policies of the comp plan based on your input and our analysis to try to be more successful,” said Fluegel. “That’s the next stage of the process. We will come to you again for your input probably through some workshops and public hearings possibly nine months to a year down the road. This is not an end. This is a beginning.”