It's About Growth

At their best and worst, Lee and Collier counties are

siblings. For all their differences and rivalries, they are born of the same

region, influenced by identical environmental and economic forces, and grow

with similar problems and opportunities. Together, the counties make up the

nation’s fastest developing region and face the challenge of accommodating that

growth while protecting the area’s resources, economy and quality of life.

To meet that challenge, Lee and Collier have launched

separate smart growth initiatives, although a few small steps have been taken

to tackle the problems from a regional perspective. Efforts incorporate public

and private entities and embrace diverse interests.

Smart growth efforts in Lee have been evolving since July

2000, when the Economic Development Office’s Horizon Council, a public-private

group that advises the county, formed a task force to study the topic. A group

of 36 people representing developers, environmentalists, community

organizations and others focused on land use, transportation, environmental

quality, water supply and community character.

Accusations that development interests dominated the group

prompted county commissioners last fall to reassess the smart growth effort.

They created an 18-member committee comprised of three appointees by each of

the five commissioners. A representative from the school district, a county

commissioner liaison—Bob Janes—and county manager Don Stilwell will participate

in discussions but will not vote. A new department—with a still-to-be-named

full-time director—was formed and up to $340,000 was set aside for the first

year.

The problem areas and items of priority specified by the

Horizon Council’s task force will be forwarded to the new committee, says Janet

Watermeier, executive director of Lee’s Economic Development Office.

In Collier, a group named the Future of Collier Created by

Us (established under the auspices of the Greater Naples Civic Association)

produced a growth report in 1998 that caused county commissioners a year later

to form the Select Committee on Community Character and Design. That group

recommended hiring planning consultants Dover Kohl & Partners to develop a

plan for growth.

Around the same time, the state mandated that Collier

protect its agricultural areas and natural resources. The Rural and

Agricultural Area Assessment is due in June.

After a yearlong study and public meetings, Dover Kohl produced

a report that Collier commissioners approved in April. Twelve people—two

representing development interests, two representing environmental interests

and eight community leaders—were appointed in September to a community

character/smart growth advisory committee to guide its implementation. New

departments have been established, and steps are being taken to improve

neighborhoods and roads and to redevelop communities, says Collier planner Amy

Taylor. For example, sunset provisions for planned unit developments were

shortened from five to three years so the county could re-examine those plans

with respect to land development code revisions. In addition, the master plan

for Golden Gate Estates, which has quickly outgrown its infrastructure, is

being re-evaluated.

Collier has established its guiding principles, says Bob

Mulhere, a former Collier planning director who now works as a planner for

consultants RWA Inc. and is involved in creating Collier’s Rural and

Agricultural Area Assessment. “The next step is to create the policies and land

development regulations that will allow the free marketplace to utilize these

strategies to implement the plan.”

Most of Lee and Collier’s smart growth efforts have been

independent, but many agree that a regional approach makes sense. Recent

symposiums and joint government meetings have focused on tackling growth

regionally.

The basic principle of smart growth, Mulhere says, is not a

concept of no growth. “It’s a concept of developing strategies that would

result in sustainable growth, that is, growth that factors in all these

components,” he says.

The movement has its share of critics who contend that smart

growth plans are overreactions to perceived problems. Some argue that smart

growth is a thinly veiled attempt to allow development into protected,

environmentally sensitive lands that are critical to such concerns as wildlife

habitat, environmental sustainability and Southwest Florida’s water supply.

Advocates, however, say their vision is simply to find ways

to accommodate the inevitable growth without destroying the quality of life.

Reducing traffic congestion, maintaining the region’s air and water quality,

enhancing living and working situations and safeguarding the area’s economy are

among the concerns.

Janes suggests that smart growth eventually will involve a

regional approach on issues such as housing and transportation. “The starting

point ought to be the counties because they are principally the agencies

responsible for land use, planning and developing within their boundaries. But

I look at smart growth as involving ultimately regional cooperation on a lot of

growth issues,” he says. He adds that working together can increase the clout

in lobbying for state and federal funds.

Lee and Collier are represented in several regional efforts

including the privately formed Southwest Florida Transportation Initiative, the

South-west Florida Regional Planning Council, the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem

Watershed, the South Florida Water Management District and the Southwest Florida

Workforce Development Board. Some have regulatory power; others are advisory

bodies. The groups have varying degrees of government involvement.

A regional smart growth group might take the form of a think

tank of professional planners and interested residents, perhaps through the

regional planning council or Florida Gulf Coast University, says Debrah

Forester, a former Collier planner who is vice chairman of the Florida American

Planning Association’s Promised Lands Section. The group recently held a smart

growth symposium in Bonita Springs. “Government has to be involved because

they’re the ones that direct policy as far as land issues go,” she says. “It

has to be a joint effort between the public and the private sectors.”

Janes says he could envision a voluntary, cooperative

regional approach instead of a metrogovernment approach, one method being used

in other cities and regions facing growing pains. But such a body apparently is

not imminent, Watermeier says. “The groups are discovering that we are a

region, our resources are regional, and in long term, that’s going to be

important to successful implementation. But right now, we’re starting at a more

local level,” she says.

Collier’s Community Character/Smart Growth Advisory

Committee

Bruce Anderson, Mark Morton, Kathy Prosser, Michael Bauer,

Sally Barker, Samuel Noe, Jim Rideoutte, Gordon Watson, Ellin Goetz, Patricia

Pochopin, Jim Lucas, Bill West

Lee’s Smart Growth Committee

(More members to be named.)

Dennis Gilkey, Carol Hudler, Wayne Daltry, Brian Griffin,

Lee Ford, Bill Hammond, Ellen Lindblad, Arnold Rosenthal, Steve Maxwell, John

Witt, Tim Kenny, Bob Janes, Don Stilwell