Celebrating Pine Islanders: Noel Anders
Pine Islander Noel Anders said, if he were going to, although he runs 8 different companies, he would describe himself as a palm tree farmer.
“I raise the palm trees and I sell them to all the small landscape guys here down at the Center. I grow the trees. I’ve always liked growing things,” Anders said.
Although Anders is a 5th generation Floridian, he said he came to Pine Island in 1991. Before landing on the island, however, he attended Florida State University where he received a master’s degree in geology. A love for this area came easily he said, as both his father and grandfather were boat builders.
“They built a lot of boats for the fishermen on Pine Island and sometimes I got to go with my father to deliver the boats by water. We would camp out on Cayo Costa and I started buying property out there. One of the things my family and I did was we donated 4 acres, right on the beach, to Lee County,” Anders said.
Anders shared that he is also a real estate investor and that he and his family own over 200 properties throughout the west coast of Florida, which he manages with the help of his wife, son and daughter. Something which attests to his love for Pine Island is his contribution in helping in the beginnings of the Greater Pine Island Civic Association. He credits a woman named Anna Stober, a retired administrative nurse, and a man named, Gene Boyd, two of the GPICA founders, with his getting involved.
“Stober talked me into serving to represent Pine Island on the Lee County local planning agency. So I was involved with the local planning agency for 17 years in Lee County and I was instrumental in writing a lot of the development proposals that were approved throughout the last 25 or 30 years. I also served as chairman of the county local planning agency at the same time I was chairman of the committee that re-wrote the Pine Island Plan, ” Anders said.
Anders said he really wants folks to understand why the majority of people on Pine Island admit their desire to keep the island the way it is. The reason Pine Island makes folks want to keep it, he said, is due to a handful of people, such as himself, the Boyds and Stobers who were instrumental in getting policies passed. The late Phil Buchanan, he said, was also extremely helpful with making certain things such as a height restriction, limiting building requirements on Pine Island.
“We have a lot of different protections on the island that are not in the rest of the county,” Anders said.
He maintains that there is an organization which represents all of the Pine Island planning community. Things such as public informational meetings on the island to notify islanders before qualifying for an application deemed sufficient in planning and development with the county.
Anders’ ultimate wish is, of course, for the fundamental benefit of Pine Island and the islanders
“I would like to see us develop a program to identify water quality issues over a period of time and try to get grant funding for septic-to-sewer conversion. It’s very important that we retain our height restriction on the island — that is number one right there, because if we do away with the height restriction you’re gonna get too much density. There are thousands of lots on the island that are already fully vested for a home. Our best bet for keeping the island the way it is, is to encourage more density moved off the island,” Anders said.
To reach PAULETTE LeBLANC / pleblanc@breezenewspapers.com, please email