Clarification: Last month, Gulfshore Business reported on the status of the development planned for a portion of Alva in Lee County, including a sewer line whose potential path may have taken it under a Lee County Commissioner’s rezoned land. Although Gulfshore Business did not properly attribute that information, the publication wants to make it clear it came from attorney Ralf Brookes, who represents a group of Alva residents opposed to dense development, and from Amanda Cochran, the group’s leader. As Gulfshore Business reported, the commissioner has declined repeated requests for an interview. We apologize for any confusion.
The next step in transforming the northwest quadrant of Alva from ranch and rural lands into a modern American suburbia is scheduled to take place at 9:30 a.m. Jan. 17 at the Old Lee County Courthouse, 2120 Main St. in Fort Myers.
A planned, clustered subdivision of 1,099 homes by Neal Communities off North River Road, just to the east of a planned shopping center and apartment complex on land owned by Lee County Commissioner Mike Greenwell and fronting the Caloosahatchee River, needs the promise of a sewer connection before it can proceed with permitting and construction.
Lee County commissioners are expected to amend the Lee Comprehensive Plan, which would allow a sewer extension that will help Neal Communities build more homes than it could with septic tanks to handle wastewater.
A group of Alva residents known as “Alva Strong” plans to urge commissioners to vote against the sewer extension amendment during public comment at the Jan. 17 meeting, said Grant Fichter, who is among dozens of Alva residents concerned their rural way of life and property values are endangered by growth in housing density.
“The area is a rural land-use area on the future land-use map,” Fichter said. “This is provided by decades of foresight. Why would we immediately change that now?”
Neal Communities owner and former state lawmaker Pat Neal, who according to campaign finance records has donated at least $1,000 to each of the five sitting commissioners, said he is sure he will get the votes needed to proceed with building the sewer extension. He also said his company would contribute $10 million for the sewer project. The new community will have 1,099 homes on 315 acres, with 473 acres being preserved, said Keith Cary, one of the involved landowners.
“We would be allowed to build 788 single-family residences on the Cary-Duke-Povia property with septic tanks,” Neal said in an email. “We will do so even if we do not get the proper approvals.”
An adjacent property called Owl Creek, purchased for $5.5 million in May by Neal Communities, is already zoned for 440 additional homes on 342 acres.
Neal lobbied for a state stewardship jurisdiction that would have alleviated the financial burden on his company in getting the sewer project done, state Rep. Spencer Roach said. But Roach’s law proposal wasn’t voted upon last year and will not be a part of this year’s legislative session, shifting the sewer decision to the county. The Lee County Planning Agency voted 3-2 against the sewer expansion in September, but the commissioners’ decision on amending the Lee Comprehensive Plan will override that vote.
“The LPA did not approve it,” Fichter said. “There’s only one other time that I know of in the last five years where the commissioners have gone against the LPA, the LPA being a citizen-based, technical group of experts. It’s important that our leadership listen to the LPA. That’s one of the things that make it a little more controversial and open to going either way.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to money. Neal doesn’t live here. He’s not in the neighborhood. If this were coming to his neighborhood and doubling or tripling the population of where he lives, he probably wouldn’t be for it either.”
Lee County originally advertised the vote to take place Dec. 6 but rescheduled it for Jan. 17.
The land has been owned mostly by four families for multiple generations, including the Cary family, which established Shady Rest Ranch almost a century ago, Cary said, and the Povia-Flint families. Mary Flint Povia did not return calls seeking comment.
The land long ago ceased to be profitable and sustainable as cattle ranches, Cary said. The families decided against dividing the land into hundreds of individual parcels to be developed as in eastern Alva, where homes tend to have at least one and often more acreage to them. Instead, they succeeded in creating the North Olga Planning District and hired Neal Communities as their developer of choice. The North Olga and Alva districts are supposed to work in conjunction with one another, the Lee County government website states.
Cary declined to divulge the pending land sale price. He compared the forthcoming development in favorable terms to Grand Palm in Venice, a gated community of about 1,700 homes and dozens of retention ponds. The homes start at just less than $500,000 and range up to $1.2 million, according to the Neal Communities website.
“I’m not the developer,” said Cary, a retired circuit court judge and fourth-generation Floridian. “I’m just selling the property.
“We made a decision to go with Neal Communities, because they’re a family-owned, private company. They’re not a national builder. They’re a regional builder owned by Pat Neal’s family. We liked them. We went up to their office. We’re dealing with Pat Neal directly. We’re not dealing with someone who answers to someone in New York City. We’ve done our due diligence. We like Neal Communities.”
Cary said he has known many of the Alva Strong members for decades. He said he respected and understood their efforts to try and limit the oncoming density of homes that contradicts the current Lee Plan of maintaining a rural and agricultural character. But change is happening in this corridor of the county, Cary said, regardless of his actions.
“There’s a thousand people a day moving to Florida, and where are they moving to?” Cary said. “This area of the county has already changed. And it’s not us changing it. It’s Babcock Ranch. There’s going to be a four-lane road built there. We have nothing to do with that. That’s a done deal.”
Plans to widen State Road 31 from two to four lanes began more than a decade ago. Under the current plan, the existing State Road 31 will become a service road, while a new, four-lane road that could be expanded to six lanes will be built just to the east of the existing road, records show.
The debate has grown contentious and personal between Greenwell and some of the citizens who live in his District 5.
In June 2006, Greenwell paid $4 million for 76 acres that had belonged to the DiLoreto family, property records show. The land fronts State Road 31.
Diana DiLoreto said Greenwell told her he planned on building his home there and asked for the family to remove deed restrictions on the land so he could build a produce stand.
Instead, in September 2007, Greenwell sold the same property to Babcock Ranch for $8 million, to the chagrin of the DiLoreto family.
Syd Kitson, owner of Babcock Ranch, said he wanted the property that had belonged to DiLoreto and then Greenwell so he could control as much land as he could north of the Caloosahatchee River, knowing one day he would need State Road 31 widened to accommodate the eventual, 20,000-home buildout of Babcock Ranch.
Greenwell ensured he will pocket more money in rezoning his current homestead, also fronting State Road 31, from agricultural to commercial, when the state accesses the acreage it needs via eminent domain to build the new State Road 31, as the state pays more for commercial land than it does for agricultural.
Prior to the rezoning of his land, Alva Strong organizer Amanda Cochran said Greenwell approached her in a grocery store and insisted she stop trying to interfere with his land rezoning. Instead, Amanda and her husband Darius Cochran each spoke out against the rezoning because it went against the agricultural plans set in place for Alva.
After Greenwell got the rezoning, he put up a red, white and blue sign advertising the property for a shopping center that will be about 25% bigger than Page Field Commons in Fort Myers.
Greenwell formally recused himself from voting on his land rezoning because he would profit from it. He has declined repeated requests for comment.
Ralf Brookes, an attorney representing Alva Strong, filed an injunction to have Greenwell recuse himself from voting on the sewer issue Jan. 17.
Brookes said he learned from the county the sewer line would originate from the North Treatment Plant in North Fort Myers. One of the paths being considered would have taken the sewer line under Greenwell’s recently rezoned property, Amanda Cochran said she learned from talking to two county staff members. That plan was not produced as part of the county’s records for this project when Gulfshore Business requested them.
“This would reduce the overall cost and expense to Mr. Greenwell of extending utilities to his newly rezoned commercial property owned by Chair Greenwell,” Brookes said. “This creates an indisputable special benefit and conflict of interest, as well as a prejudice or bias, in favor of extending water and sewer directly adjacent to Chair Greenwell’s property.”
Lee County communications department and attorney Richard Wesch, who answers to Greenwell, did not respond to an email seeking an explanation on why Greenwell would be allowed to vote.
Regardless of other approved developments, Fichter said he hopes the commissioners choose to keep North Olga like Alva, a rural and agricultural-themed community.
“We’re fond of the rules we have in the area and want to keep it the way it is,” Fichter said.
Longtime Alva resident Rob Fowler, who lives on the river just south and east of the planned development, said he wished other county residents would take an interest in the issue.
“It matters because someone that doesn’t live in Alva has the opportunity to really explore how Florida really is and was,” Fowler said. “It’s the only place left in Lee County.
“It’s hard to explain how important this issue is. It’s not money to me. As I told you, I could have sold this land long ago. I was offered extreme amounts because of the riverfront. Again, it’s a way of life. People have to explore and get beyond the gates of their community. Get beyond the beach and come and see real Florida. That’s how we live here. That’s how we live in Alva.”
