Fort Myers Beach Council, LPA meeting on comprehensive plan focuses on enforcement

In a joint meeting between the Town of Fort Myers Beach Council and Local Planning Agency held at the temporary town hall at Bay Oaks Recreation Center, the subject was the comprehensive plan and whether any updates will be made to it following a community engagement report which found a community seeking to preserve its small-town nature and to limit high-intensity development.

The conversation whittled down to whether the town’s leaders and town council would follow the comprehensive plan in reviewing development projects as much as any changes that will be made to the plan.

The town is required by the state to go through a comprehensive plan review process every seven years.

Town planning consultant Jason Green said updates are being made in response to the town council’s request for more community feedback before updating the plan. The comprehensive plan spells out the vision for the town and guides the land development code and other planning regulations.

Edward Ng from the Corradino Group has been helping with the town’s comprehensive plan update review since before Hurricane Ian. Ng said an initial update had been submitted to the state but the town council requested more community input last year before it could be finalized. An extension with the state for a second reading expires Dec. 1. Ng said the plan is to return to the Fort Myers Beach Council with an updated second reading for a comprehensive plan update in September.

There were three town engagement sessions, with two in March and May at the Fort Myers Beach Public Library and another in April at Bayside Veteran’s Park. An online survey of 118 residents was also conducted on what residents want their town to look like in the future.

“Overwhelmingly, folks don’t want, don’t really prefer high-rises,” Ng told the two boards during a discussion this past week regarding the community’s feedback.

“This community is very interested in preserving or protecting our natural resources. That’s in your comprehensive plan and the attitude is also reflected in what the public has provided back to us in feedback,” Ng said.

Ng said there was also a large desire in the public to see a medical office and urgent care facility. The town had an urgent care facility before Hurricane Ian at Santini Plaza and has had medical and dental offices in the past.

Based on the community input, Ng and town planning consultants drew up a comprehensive plan visioning statement. “What we believe we heard was ‘the Fort Myers Beach of the future is a safe, multi-generational community where residents can grow older with our families together with the town, peacefully and quietly enjoying scenic views of the Gulf and the beaches,'” Ng said in reading off the vision statement. Ng said there is also a desire in the community to have access to restaurants, music, banks and medical facilities.

Local Planning Agency (LPA) Chair Anita Cereceda and Vice Chair Jane Plummer talked about the importance of protecting views. Cereceda and Plummer said the view from the Matanzas Pass Bridge needs to be protected. “That view is shared by everyone who comes to Fort Myers Beach,” Cereceda said.

LPA member John McLean said he wants the comprehensive plan to have more language about protecting natural resources.

Councilmember Scott Safford said he wants the plan to have more clean water protections. Green said one way the town can do that is to have tougher stormwater runoff treatment regulations, particularly for redevelopment plans. “That is a must. You have to,” Safford said.

Councilmember Karen Woodson questioned if the survey and outreach had interacted with enough people. “We need to take a broader view of this. Where is the economic development in any of this?” Woodson said she was looking for language about making the town “economically sustainable.”

LPA member James Dunlap questioned whether the comprehensive plan surveys and updates took economic impacts enough into account. He said the town should create incentives for economic development. “Any incentives the town needs to create in order to stimulate that kind of a conversation,” Dunlap said.

Dunlap complained about the number of vacant lots in the town that haven’t been redeveloped since Hurricane Ian. “Nothing is happening on these lots,” Dunlap said. “Their homestead exemptions have been extended years now with nothing happening and some of them are for sale. And they still benefit and the town is paying the price for not having the ability to either (incentivize) something happening there or inflict some sort of consequence for that tax conversation you are inevitably going to have here.”

Mayor Dan Allers said without residents, there will not be enough support for local businesses. Allers said the town needs to entice quicker redevelopment of residential lots.

Ng said the town has undergone a supply and demand market shift where more vacation rentals and investment properties have displaced the single-family residential homeowners.

Allers asked how the town could manipulate the market. “If we keep going down the trend we are going, there won’t be residents. It will be tourism only,” Allers said. “Right now, people I talk to that have lived in neighborhoods for decades who thought they were living in a neighborhood that was protected, they feel there is no protection. Another neighborhood thought they were living in a neighborhood that was protected. Everybody was talking back two years ago ‘no one is ever going to buy up residential land and convert it to commercial.’ Guess what? It just happened. What is going to stop that? What is in here that is going to stop that? If I am looking to make this my residence, what guarantees do I have through this comprehensive plan that I am not going to have one of those two scenarios in my backyard?”

The answer Ng said was to stick to the land use regulations in the comprehensive plan. “If it says residential and you don’t vary from that, that piece of property is residential,” Ng said. Ng said that the town has to delineate residential areas and “stick to it” and not allow commercial uses in a residential neighborhood.

“It is not a problem with the comprehensive plan,” Ng said. “The problem is adhering to the comprehensive plan. No amount of me trying to wiggle around the comprehensive plan use as your consultant is going to change that fact.”

Green said the regulations are in place to protect residential neighborhoods. “You have to enforce it,” Green said to Allers. “Enforcing the regulations you have to protect the streets that want to stay residential.”

Ng said the town can have more strict regulations for allowing variances from the town code. The town council can adopt guidelines that only allow variances in certain circumstances that are rooted in the comprehensive plan and codified in the land development code.

“We can write anything we want on this piece of paper. If we don’t adhere to it, it doesn’t mean anything,” Allers said. Allers said the Lee County School District’s mission statement is to create world-class schools. “We have one here and they want to take it away.”

Allers said there are some minor tweaks being done to the comprehensive plan but it is similar to the original one. “This hasn’t changed a lot,” Allers said. Allers said it was up to the town council and future councils to follow the plan.

Plummer said there needs to be more code enforcement in the town. She said there were four properties on her road that had open septics. “It took six months for anything to happen and that is ridiculous,” Plummer said. “We need to have the landowners taking care of these properties.”

Allers said more code enforcement was a question of finances. Councilmember John King said it was also a question of “property rights.”

Town Manager Will McKannay said there is a list of properties the town is watching though more resources are always welcome.

Vice Mayor Jim Atterholt asked the consultants how the town’s comprehensive plan update would be affected by Senate Bill 180, a bill passed by the state legislature which could prevent local governments from adopting amendments to new land development codes and comprehensive plans that could be deemed to be restrictive or burdensome. The bill has been opposed by environmental organizations concerned about its impact on local government’s ability to implement land use regulations.

Green said the comprehensive plan updates would take that into account.

A joint town council and LPA meeting is expected in September to take up new changes and updates to the comprehensive plan by the town’s consultants.