Less than two years after the town of Ave Maria grew by 1,000 acres, Collier County agreed to remove the 5,000-acre cap on town sizes.
The Board of County Commissioners, with no discussion, agreed to remove the maximum size for a town in the Stewardship Receiving Area, and agreed “goods and services” required within town and village SRAs may include employment centers, such as manufacturing and Florida Qualified Target Industries, rather than limiting them to retail and office uses.
The amendment to the county’s growth-management plan must receive final approval by the Florida Department of Commerce and would expand the size of all towns in Collier. Ave Maria Development LLLP’s petition also received the unanimous approval of the Planning Commission.
The petition said the amendment would boost the Rural Land Stewardship Area’s ability to create mixed-use, self-sufficient SRAs that could share services, facilities and infrastructure; increase economic prosperity through development of planned land uses and employment centers, such as Arthrex; and reduce vehicle trips and long-distance travel.
“Towns and larger developments provide greater flexibility and more opportunity for smart growth by creating areas that can create jobs,” the petition said. “… The resulting increase in population provides a larger consumer base and demand for a variety of goods, services, and amenities. This increase in population is attractive to investors and businesses looking for new markets to help meet this demand.”
It asked to expand the town, not add a village or compact rural development. Collier’s villages total 300 to 1,500 acres, while a compact rural development is 300 acres or less. By expanding the town by just 1,500 acres, Ave Maria Development’s petition said, 4,000 more homes could be added, along with 630,000 square feet of goods and services, 1.38 acres of government or civic uses and 18.37 acres of community parks.
In June 2023, commissioners agreed to increase Ave Maria’s 4,000-acre town cap by 1,000 acres, allowing it to add land it owned that was used for crops, sod farming and cow pastures. That total didn’t include Ave Maria University and didn’t allow Ave Maria to go beyond the 11,000 homes it was approved for. About 5,000 have been built so far, but lifting the cap further will allow more homes and strengthen and diversify the economy.”
Allowing state -Qualified Targeted Industries means the expanded town can include corporate headquarters, research and development, manufacturing, global logistics and trade,; financial and professional services,; information technology,; aviation and aerospace,; defense and homeland security,; life sciences and clean technology.
Arthrex manufactures the majority of its medical devices in Ave Maria and Chilean-based Dialum Glass is building a $25 million factory on 10 acres just east of Arthrex’s manufacturing plants. Dialum’s plant, the first in the U.S., is expected to open this quarter. In the future, the company said it expects to expand the 100,000-square-foot facility by 60,000 to 80,000 square feet.
The county established the RLSA program in 2002 to address environmentally sensitive land and ease growth pressures in eastern Collier County, planning documents show. The program’s goals are to retain agricultural activities, direct incompatible uses away from wetlands, enable rural land to be converted into other uses, discourage urban sprawl, and to encourage creative development and land-use planning techniques through incentives.
The RLSA totals about 185,000 acres and includes eight Stewardship Sending Areas, about 48,000 acres of protected sensitive lands, with three more totaling 5,128 acres pending approval, a total of 53,000 acres. County planners will now have to include the total SRA acreage by that date against the 45,000-acre cap every time a new town or village is reviewed.
