Progress report on the Pine Island Plan rewrite
My progress report is that there has been little progress over the summer – and that’s good. I have tried hard to do what little I can to delay any important actions until the majority of our residents return from summer hiatus.
But I can’t delay things much longer. Lee County has reportedly scheduled a presentation of the draft rewrite for 5:30 p.m., Oct. 14, at the Lutheran Church. Not many of our residents will be back by then, but those that are should please plan to attend.
The county legal and planning staff and their contractors have generally done a good job of rewriting the Plan. Thus far, they have resisted efforts by developers and wannabee developers that seek to build another bridge to the island and dilute provisions protecting our environment.
Existing Pine Island Plan provisions on building height limitations; keeping commercial fishing equipment at home; prohibitions on subdivision entrance gates, fences and walls; Old Florida commercial building standards; street layout rules; aquatic preserve buffer requirements; and sign restrictions remain completely unchanged.
The heart of the rewrite replacing the 810/910 rules is the compromise of allowing one dwelling every 2.7 acres and requiring developments to have 50 percent open space. The proposed 2.7 density is a serious compromise for us, and developer proposals that it be changed to one house per acre are completely unacceptable.
The 50 percent open space rule is also an essential component of that compromise. 50 percent open space is the amount of land the developer has to set aside as native habitat. That’s what keeps Pine Island a rural community.
After we accepted the 2.7 density and 50 percent open space compromise, county staff announced that the developer could count the lot – buyer’s back yards – towards the open space requirement. That notion would turn the open space requirement into a joke. Developments would look like those in Fort Myers (with 7-foot side set-backs), but have huge back yards ? areas big enough for a horse or chickens, but restricted (no construction in open space) so that the horse could not have a barn nor the chickens a coup. People not interested in (or restricted from) using the 2-acre or so back yard would probably just allow it to go back to melaleuca or Brazilian pepper (2 acres is too small to farm and too big to mow). This would be very bad land planning, and lead to much strife and difficulty, in addition to the failure to preserve a rural-type community. On Pine Island, we have always required that the open space be a native contiguous area ? restricted by permits, and/or deeds, and/or conservation easements prohibiting construction, mining, etc. Contiguous open spaces work well and should continue to be required (or as suggested below one of two alternatives).
Retired architect Roger Wood (also president of the GPICA and co-chair of the Pine Island Planning Committee) has suggested an interesting alternative called “envelope housing.” In envelope housing, the native habitat open space is located between the house lots. If 1/4th of the 2.7 acres (.675 acres) were on each side of every house, the rural setting would be very well maintained. Even after space for roads and utilities are deducted, lot owners would still have over an acre of unrestricted property left out back – plenty of room for a horse, chickens, garden, whatever, and no restrictions on building barns, etc. That would make for a very nice rural community.
I suggest that the Land Plan give developers two options ? either separate contiguous open space (with cluster housing) or envelope housing (the latter would market very well). But in no case should the open space be relegated to wasted back yards behind Fort Myers-style housing with 7-foot side set-backs. Thus far, my suggestion (made numerous times) has been ignored by Lee County.
I expect that the 2.7 acre density for housing and the 50 percent open space requirement will be the serious issues of concern at the Oct. 14 meeting. Unfortunately, the meeting is scheduled too early in the season and may thus be poorly attended. There will, however, be numerous other meetings (probably all in Fort Myers) between late October and perhaps next spring. Several small committees, plus the Local Planning Agency, will hold meetings to review the Plan on week-day mornings, and the County Commissioners will hold at least two meetings (probably at 5 p.m. on a week-day).
King Ranch and other developers have been making large campaign contributions and will have their lawyers and planners at these meetings, some pushing for another bridge, reduced environmental protection, 1 acre per house density or back yard so-called “open space.” Pine Islanders will have to attend some of those meetings in large numbers (and eventually prevail) if our coastal rural way of life is to survive ? please do so.