Guest opinion: Lee County seeks to push future commercial establishments on Pine Island into rural areas
By PHIL BUCHANAN
At a Local Planning Agency meeting on July 27, the Lee County Planning Staff presented a proposal that would change the Pine Island Plan to allow rezonings for nearly unlimited commercial construction in the rural areas of Pine Island. The only proposed condition would be that buildings and parking lots (impervious surfaces) in the rural areas total not more than two acres each and the buildings themselves could not exceed 5,000 feet without an approved “deviation.” Speculators, large landowners, developers and their attorneys and representatives attended the meeting in force and were exuberant in their enthusiasm for the proposal. The president of the Bokeelia Civic Association stated that his organization also strongly supported the proposal. Only the Greater Pine Island Civic Association was there to defend the existing Pine Island Plan.
The effect of the county proposal would be to open up the rural areas along Stringfellow Road to what the proposal calls “day to day commercial needs” — language that is clearly wide enough to cover everything from gas stations to fast foods joints to pawn shops to tattoo parlors, or anything else the developers can argue would serve the “needs” of the residents of Pine Island. The commercial portion of the Pine Island Plan would be gutted and Stringfellow Road would eventually turn into a smaller version of Route 41. Developers like the proposal because it emphasizes short-term profits and negates long-term planning.
The Pine Island Plan currently strives to “Promote and preserve the rural character of Pine Island.” Under the current plan, commercial facilities are to be built at Pine Island Center (our designated “Urban Center”) and in the villages of St James City, Bokeelia, Matlacha and Pineland (our designated “urban areas”). The county proposal turns all that on its head by specifying the rural areas (not the urban areas) of Pine Island as the intended location of new commercial facilities on Pine Island. The proposal will, in the short term, increase property values in rural areas (where the speculators own properties), and it will decrease property values in urban areas (where Pine Island businessmen own properties). In the long term, the proposal will decrease property values throughout Pine Island, and irreversibly damage our growing tourist industry as well as our environment and quality of life.
The county staff insisted that their timetable requires that this matter be voted on not later than August, and the LPA thus voted to extend review of this proposal for only one month. All Pine Island residents should immediately contact their county commissioners and insist that this matter not go forward without an opportunity for Pine Island residents to be heard -hopefully at a hearing held on Pine Island. You should also insist that the hearing be delayed until at least November, when many of the residents return to the island. Addresses for the commissioners can be found at GPICA.org. You might also want to call the county staff officers that presented this proposal, which are Paul O’Connor and Matt Noble on 533-8900. Tell them the Pine Island rural areas should stay rural, and that commercial construction in the rural areas should continue to be limited to farm and rural-related enterprises.