Although the actual proposal to convert Riviera Golf Estates’ 18-hole golf course in East Naples into a housing development may not reach the Collier County Commission agenda for a year and a half, hundreds of residents amassed at nearly six hours of meetings this week to voice their opposition.
Two required stakeholder outreach meetings were hosted Monday and Wednesday nights by Hole Montes, the Naples-based engineering and planning firm representing La Minnesota Riviera LLC, which purchased the 94-acre golf course off Rattlesnake Hammock Road in 2005. The course is intertwined with Riviera Golf Estates, a 55-plus community of nearly 700 homes built around the greens and fairways. A rezoning proposal seeks to develop 346 new single-family attached villa homes on the golf course, a conceptual plan shows. Meetings this week presented the conceptual plan for the new residential development and addressed landscape buffers as well as stormwater management and traffic concerns.
The owner of Riviera Golf Club claims the public course is financially infeasible and has been operating at a loss for years. The course remains in operation, though, advertising nine holes of golf for $28 and 18 holes for $38, well below the cost to play other area courses.
Collier County approved the “intent to convert” application by the golf club owner to transform the course into housing and lakes, but the property will need to be rezoned before that can occur. The property is zoned for golf course and recreational use, so rezoning of the course to a residential planned unit development (RPUD) would be required.
After Evergreen Golf Course in East Naples and Golden Gate Golf Course discussed proposals to convert years ago, Collier County adopted a “conversion of golf courses” process in 2017 intended to address the impacts of golf course conversions on adjacent real property. When the county was offered an opportunity to purchase the Riviera Golf Club, Collier commissioners unanimously voted in November 2020 to not purchase the golf course.
An important factor in the Riviera conversion is a county land development stipulation requiring a 100-foot buffer between existing homes and the development of proposed uses when converting golf courses. The Riviera proposal does not meet those required setbacks. This and flood plain concerns could be tipping points for any proposed discussions or negotiations between the course owner and Riviera residents.
“Well, with 100 feet, there’s really nothing to discuss because you only have a very limited number of units that can be built, and that limited number of units will not support the needed changes to construct the lakes, to construct the infrastructure. So, if everybody dug in on one side that it has to be absolutely 100 feet, then we probably have nothing to discuss,” said Richard Yovanovich, the Naples attorney representing the golf course owner.
Patricia Campbell, president of Riviera Golf Estates Homeowners Association, is concerned that the development proposal could receive a variance for the buffer requirement in the county’s land development code. “If they can’t build within the 100-foot setback then they shouldn’t be building,” she said.
Campbell said Riviera residents have requested a third stakeholders outreach meeting because the audio portion of the Zoom meeting Wednesday night at Florida Sports Park experienced major technical difficulties. Jim Jarvis, a Riviera resident, wants Hole Montes to meet and negotiate directly with homeowners instead of through a meeting format attended by hundreds of people. “I would say you should offer to negotiate with our association so that we can come to a resolution so that we don’t need to make this political,” Jarvis said.
Yovanovich said they are willing to sit down and talk. “Our desire would be to meet with representatives of your association and see if we can reach some type of an agreement,” he said. “We would prefer that versus battling this out. It requires both sides of the table to sit down and enter into open and honest discussions and see if we can reach some kind of a consensus.”
The attorney prefers that both sides resolve their differences and reach an agreement before the issue comes before county commissioners. “I’ve been here a long time,” Yovanovich said. “I’ve represented a lot of developers, and I would say 99 out of 100 times we have gone to the board of county commissioners without a fight.”
Riviera resident George Danz asked when the rezoning issue for the proposed project would be on the agendas for the county planning commission and board of commissioners. Yovanovich said it will take him nine to 12 months after he submits the site development plan before he would get to the Planning Commission and board of county commissioners, so he predicts the plan will not be before the local government boards until late fall of 2023. “That’s how long it takes to get there by the time we submit the application and go through the review process,” he said.
Another Riviera resident inquired about the market value or estimated asking price for the proposed homes. “We are coming to you at the very beginning of this process before there is a developer in place,” answered Paula McMichael of Hole Montes. “But what is proposed would be a market rate development, so it would be however much homes are selling for in your area. That’s what they would be selling for.”
