Estero Development Report
Volume 2, Number 11
Issued March 2003
Edited by ECCO--the Estero Concerned
Citizens Organization
For further information, to provide
information or to add names to our mailing list, Email Don Eslick at
doneslick@worldnet.att.net or call him at 949-4050
Estero Development Activities during
March 2003
April Opportunities for Citizen
Participation In Protecting Estero's Quality of Life
|
Date |
Time |
Event |
Location |
|
Tuesday,
April 1st |
6 p.m. |
Roadway
Landscape Advisory Committee Meeting |
County Community Development Building,
Conference Room 3A, 1500 Monroe Street,
Ft. Myers |
|
Wednesday, April 2nd |
9 a.m. |
Hearing
Examiner Hearings on Longwood Villas RPD |
County Community Development Building,
2nd Floor Conference Room, 1500 Monroe Street,
Ft. Myers |
|
Tuesday,
April 8th |
5 p.m.
|
County Hearing on the Evaluation of the Comprehensive Plan |
South County Regional Library |
|
Tuesday,
April 8th |
6 p.m. |
Estero
Fire Commission Meeting |
Estero
United Methodist Church--Founders
Hall |
|
Wednesday, April 9th |
5 p.m.
|
Estero
Design Review Committee |
The
Perry Room of The Vines Country Club |
|
Thursday,
April 10th |
9 a.m. |
Dedication of the Stoneybrook Fire Station |
Stoneybrook Fire Station |
|
Friday,
April 11th |
2 p.m. |
ECCO
Council of Community Leaders Meeting. |
Marsh
Landing Clubhouse |
|
Monday,
April 14th |
6 p.m. |
Estero
Community Planning Panel Meeting |
Marsh
Landing Clubhouse |
|
Wednesday, April 30th |
9 a.m. |
Hearing
Examiner Hearing on zoning the Park Circle project
|
County Community Development Building,
2nd Floor, 1500 Monroe Street,
Ft. Myers |
|
Wednesday, April 23rd |
5:30 p.m. |
Estero
Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours-- speaker Smart
Growth Director Wayne Daltry
|
Grandezza
Clubhouse
|
Community
Planning Activities
ECCO presented its first "Village with a Vision" power point
presentation to the
Villages of Country Creek
Annual Meeting on
March 11th. A second program was presented at The
Vines
on March 31st. The program opens with a colorful
20-minute Power Point presentation that traces the history of
Estero, the Estero Core community boundaries and the effect that
Estero's Community Plan now has and will have on the area. The
presentation is followed by a 40-minute period in which the audience
questions are fielded by a panel of active civic leaders.
Eight additional
groups have scheduled "Village with a Vision" presentations during
April. If your community would like to learn how Estero is
developing and how that development will be guided by the
Estero
Community Plan and the statutes that flow from it, please call
Andrea Bach at 267-7000.
On March 5th
the ECPP met with many representatives of the commercial development
community to discuss the signage overlay proposed by the ECPP for
all the commercial corridors of Estero. In order for the County to
enforce the regulations they must be approved by the Board of County
Commissioners (BOCC) as part of the County's Land Development Code
(LDC).
After extensive
discussion the ECPP decided to break up the proposal into two parts.
The first component would continue in the current LDC review cycle
and consist of the following major elements:
- A
requirement that in the future all commercial development signs
shall be "monument" signs-- a freestanding sign where the base
is on the ground and the width at the top is no more than 120%
of the width of the base.
- A
prohibition on Pole signs and Pylon signs.
- Establish
more stringent regulations for the sign area of a sign
structure.
- A set of
regulations governing the use of commercial temporary signs.
The second part
of the sign regulations would be submitted in the next cycle of Land
Development Code changes-- later this year-- and govern the
following:
·
- The size,
appearance and height of project, outlot and multiple user
monument signs for different kinds and sizes of commercial
developments.
- The size,
appearance and other characteristics of wall signs on all
commercial developments located in the Estero sign overlay area.
In addition a
commercial developer workshop to produce a proposal addressing these
deferred issues would be held on March 25th. That
workshop produced several specific recommendations concerning the
size and appearance of all monument signs for each kind of
commercial development within the Estero sign overlay. Dan DeLisi is
formulating that proposal for presentation to the ECPP soon.
(very large stores within their retail category)
the development of Estero's commercial
corridors is in its infancy but accelerating rapidly. During the
last two years 18 commercial projects containing over 800 acres have
made presentations to the ECPP or been rezoned with input from the
Estero community. These vacant properties will ultimately contain
about 40% of all of Estero's commercial facilities.
Estero's
commercial corridors contain 18 large vacant parcels that include
over 1,200 acres. These are both a blessing and a curse. A blessing
because:
- they are planned
developments -- providing more opportunities for community input
- their smaller number
enhances the community's ability to manage Estero's commercial
development, and
- they are usually
undertaken by larger, more responsible businesses and developers.
The disadvantage of these large
parcels is they:
- attract "big box"
retailers that generate lots of traffic, noise and other kinds of
pollution, increased crime and are generally unattractive with huge
parking lots, large signs, poorly designed buildings and
insufficient landscaping.
- often sell parcels for outlots to national chains seeking to develop unattractive
"cookie-cutter" stores with incompatible architecture and
inconsistent landscaping around the perimeter of the project.
Because of these
land patterns Estero and the ECPP has recently been approached by
several developers seeking to build "big box" buildings on some of
these parcels (see last month's article about The
Estero Town Center
project and the article this month about the proposed Wal-Mart
project). The Estero Town Center proposal has made a substantial attempt to satisfy and exceed the
Corkscrew Road Overlay requirements of the Land Development Code
(LDC). As part of that effort they have provided several good ideas
for some "big box" standards that should be applied throughout our
commercial corridors. They encouraged the ECPP to establish some
"Big Box" standards so that developers would know what to expect
regarding development of these properties, thus reducing their
uncertainty and cost.
The McHarris
Planning and Design Company, a nationally recognized "big box"
building design standards firm, has agreed to work with the ECPP to
develop a comprehensive set of "big box" standards for the Estero
community. It is expected that these standards will be available
soon so that they can be used by the ECPP in negotiations with the
existing "big box" applicants and be added to the Estero provisions
of the county Land Development Code (LDC) as soon as possible.
Meg Judge, Chair of the Estero Chamber
of Commerce, is heading up a committee whose goal is to ensure that
all Estero residents are served well by an
Estero Post Office. At
present The Brooks and the portion of
Pelican Landing in Estero are
served by the Bonita Springs Post Office and the Estero Post Office
is increasingly inadequate for the needs of our growing community.
Several committee
members recently met with Post Office officials from the regional
office in Tampa.
They indicated that there currently is a five year moratorium on new
post office construction, and that during this period they are
encouraging the use of Contract Postal Units (CPUs). CPUs provide
postal services from gas stations and other private facilities with
easy access that are frequently used by postal customers. CPUs are
economical for the Postal Service because they rely solely on the
existing personnel of the private business, thus reducing personnel
costs.
The committee is
also investigating the use of special postal designations while
using the same post office and zip code for emerging areas of Estero
that otherwise might be served by the Bonita Springs Post Office
because of the inadequacy of the existing Estero Post Office. Miromar Lakes recently changed their mailing address from
Fort Myers,
Florida to Miromar
Lakes,
Florida while still receiving service from the Fort Myers Post Office.
The Estero
Community Plan recognized that Estero has a long and significant
history and several significant historic buildings in the vicinity
of US 41 between Broadway and Corkscrew Road.
As a result the Plan includes policy 19.1.6 which states "By 2004
Lee County will evaluate historic resources and draft a proposal for their
designation under Chapter 22 of the Land Development Code." Chapter
22, the Historic Preservation Ordinance, "provides for the
designation of those sites, buildings an districts that contribute
to the cultural heritage of Lee County,
Southwest Florida,
the State of Florida
or the nation."
In order to
implement this policy Mimi Straub, President of the Estero
Historical Society, and Bill Brown, past Executive Director of the
Estero Chamber of Commerce, will soon begin working with Gloria Slago, the Lee Count Principal Planner who manages this program for
the county. At present the County has four historic districts and a
number of scattered historic sites. The districts are located in
Boca Grande, Bokeelia, Burgess Island and Matlacha.
The following projects were reviewed by EDRC during March:
On
March 11th representatives of
Colonial Bank made their
second appearance before the Estero Design Review Committee (EDRC).
The ERDC made the following recommendations for improving the
developer's project design:
- The hedge
should be planted on each side of Ben Hill Griffin and the entry
road;
- Add one more
handicapped parking space (above code);
- Connect the
sidewalk from the front entrance to the public sidewalk
- Paint the
building in a slightly different color than the other buildings
in order to provide some contrast;
The developer's
revised plan satisfied all the other recommendations made by the
EDRC during the earlier review.
The
Fire District presented their
plans for this new station to the EDRC although they were not
required to do so. The ERDC made the following suggestions for
improving the proposal:
- Plant Sabal
Palms in the 12 to 20 foot range in order to break up the roof
line;
- Plant one
Alexander Palm adjacent to the pillars in the front of the
building
- Relocate the
fuel tank and screen it from view.
In addition
County staff has encouraged Bank of America to consider making some
architectural changes to its proposed building in order to gain
community support and in the interest of being a good neighbor. Such
changes were recommended by the ECPP when the project was recently
presented to them.
Estero's Continuing Growth
During February 267 new
housing units were permitted for the Estero community, up from 108
last year and 143 in 2001 and 252 in February 2000. Unlike recent
trends two hundred eighteen (218), or 82%, of all the February units
permitted are multifamily units, most of them in buildings of 5 or
more units. The largest contributors to this growth spurt were
Lighthouse Bay at The
Brooks with 76 units and a new project,
Gardens of Estero,
with 74 units permitted.
During the month
Estero produced 38% of the total unincorporated Lee County permitted residential building value and 29% of total building
value. During February Estero's permitted building value for all
kinds of property was almost 3 times the comparable value for Bonita Springs.
This differential resulted from Estero's housing growth equaling 5
times that of Bonita Springs.
Development
Projects in Process
On March 5th
the Courtelis Company’s representatives discussed the proposed
Estero Towncenter project with the ECPP. This project would be
located on a 33-acre site at the southeast quadrant of Corkscrew Road and Three Oaks Parkway.
The developer proposes a community commercial shopping center with a
maximum of 265,000 square feet of retail including one tract that
would have a maximum building size of 180,000 square feet.
The developer is
seeking a deviation that would reduce from 75-feet to 30-feet the
setbacks from Corkscrew Road required by the Corkscrew Road overlay for parking lots, access streets and drives setbacks in
order to use some of this land for the required on-site parking and
to provide more design flexibility for drive-thru facilities. In
exchange the developer would provide heavier landscaping in front of
these areas and some limits on the percentage of front footage that
would be allowed under the deviation. In addition the panel reviewed
all the requested uses for each of the three tracts in the project
and indicated the ones that the community typically finds
objectionable. The most objectionable uses included two fast food
facilities and one gasoline/convenience store.
On March 3rd
representatives of Wal-Mart Corporation made a presentation to a
large group of Vines residents at The Vines Golf and Country Club.
At the meeting Wal-Mart indicated that they had not purchased the 33
acre parcel immediately to the south on the northwest corner of
Koreshan Boulevard and US 41 but had a contract to purchase that property from Keystone
Communities. Wal-Mart is proposing to build a 208,000 square foot
super center (including a grocery store) on that site along with
17,000 square foot on two outlots along Koreshan Boulevard for a
total of 225,000 square feet. Present zoning on the property permits
as much as 300,000 square feet of retail space and 20,000 of office
space.
The proposed
building would not be the usual Wal-Mart design but would use
"Costal Mediterranean" architecture. In addition the proposal would
orient the front of the building toward the west so that the loading
areas would not be immediately adjacent to The
Vines; would include
internal loading docks; substantial setbacks and buffering along the
northern perimeter of the property; lower lighting standards in the
parking lots closer to The Vines in order to minimize the project's
impact on The Vines. Finally, the proposal included an access road
south from The Vines through the Wal-Mart parking lot in order to
provide Vines residents with an alternate exit to south
US
4, rather than the unlighted exit at the entrance to The Vines.
The residents of
The Vines expressed numerous concerns about the project at the
meeting including the following:
- the impact that the
traffic generated by the store would have on their ability to exit
from The Vines southbound on US 41;
- the increased traffic
that might be attracted to their entrance by the access road
proposed by the developer;
- the 24 hour per day,
seven day per week operation of the store and the noise and other
pollution that this would cause their community;
- increased crime
resulting from the 24 hour per day operation of the store in such
close proximity;
- noise from delivery
trucks entering and leaving the property at all hours of the night;
- the impact that such a
store would have on property values in The Vines;
- parking of trucks on the
premises to provide seasonal storage;
- Wal-Mart's reputation
for not keeping their parking lots clean, thus having lots of trash
blowing around and for permitting recreational vehicles to park
overnight in their parking lots.
Wal-Mart's
representatives have indicated that they will soon be seeking to
make a presentation on the proposed project to the entire Estero
community under the auspices of the ECPP. After receiving this
community input Wal-Mart will decide how to proceed with the
project.
This cellular communications company is seeking county approval of a
proposal to add a cellular antenna bay at the 200-foot level of the
existing 230-foot FDOT communications tower located in the southeast
quadrant of I-75 and Corkscrew Road.
When T-Mobile
made their presentation to the ECPP on this matter they were asked
to landscape the ground surrounding the site. The company agreed to
do so as long as the Florida Department of Transportation, the
property owner, would approve the landscaping and provide the
maintenance.
Last year Lee County proposed and the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) approved a
grant for landscaping the intersection of I-75 and Corkscrew Road,
where the tower is located. Thus FDOT and Lee DOT were contacted and
have agreed to explore incorporating the landscaping around the
tower into that project. If this arrangement is not feasible the
county has agreed that the zoning for T-mobile will be conditioned
upon T-mobile providing the Estero community with an equal amount of
plant material for use elsewhere on Estero's roads.
On March 5th
representatives of ECCO and several representatives of
Marsh Landing
presented testimony before the Hearing Examiner assigned to this
11.3 acre commercial project located immediately between Marsh
Landing and US 41. The objections raised by all the Estero
representatives concerned proposed uses for the site, especially
automobile service stations; car washes; convenience food and
beverage stores and fast food restaurants.
The testimony
noted the provisions of the Land Development Code that require
compatibility of commercial projects with their residential
neighbors and the need to protect these residents from problems
created by adjacent commercial users. These concerns had been raised
with the developer's representatives earlier, but to no avail.
Should the Hearing Examiner not respond to the testimony of the
Estero representatives and residents, those that testified are now
eligible to speak to the BOCC when they hold their hearing on the
matter and decide how the property should be zoned.
A team of state
officials planned to come to Estero for a site visit in mid-March as
the second step in approving "Florida Forever" funding for
acquisition of this important historical property. Several months
ago State decision-makers had authorized staff to obtain an
appraisal of the property. The trip was abruptly cancelled when the
College of
Life Foundation informed the State that they were not willing sellers at this time.
Florida Forever is authorized to purchase property for preservation
only from willing sellers.
About the same
time the College of Life asked for and received an extension on their long standing zoning
request for the property until November 2003.
For the third straight year
The Brooks was ranked in "The Top 20 Best Selling Master Planned
Communities in the United States"
with 2002 sales of 836 units, up 10% from 2001. Two of the four
Brooks communities, Spring Run and
Copperleaf, are now sold out and
have been turned over to the community.
Lighthouse Bay is now in its final phases and should be turned over to the
residents later this year. Sales in this 3,500 unit community will
undoubtedly decline this year and beyond because the community only
has sites for less than 1,000 additional units.
from Corkscrew Road to San Carlos Boulevard
FDOT has screened three
engineering firms and will soon be selecting the firm that will
design this last segment of US 41 to be widened between Ft. Myers
and Naples. A committee consisting of leaders from all the
communities along this route is now being formed. The committee will
work with the State's consultant to ensure that the concerns of all
the property-owners along the road are effectively addressed.
The road design
is expected to be completed early in 2005. However the long range
budget for the next phase -- the right-of-way acquisition
phase--does no provide funding for this phase until July 2006, 18
months later. Funding for widening this road is not in the state's
existing 5 year plan which ends in 2008. Thus under current plans
this segment of US41 will not be completed before 2010, five years
after all the other segments have been completed. The Estero
community cannot tolerate the gridlock that this bottleneck would
create for a 5 year period.
Thus ECCO has
asked both the County and the State to find ways to accelerate
funding for the right of way phase. In turn, Lee County DOT has
asked ECCO to seek short-term private financing to help bridge the
18 month gap from early 2005 to mid-2006. Both Mike Rippe, Regional
Director of FDOT, and Dave Loveland, Lee County DOT Planning
Director, have agreed to participate in a meeting with local
community leaders and developers to discuss how this problem can be
overcome.
In the meantime
ECCO and other community organizations are writing Dick Walsh,
Chairman of the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the entity that
sets priorities for major road improvements in LeeCounty,
to urge them to support accelerating the right-of-way and
construction phases of this project.
Lee County DOT is proceeding with discussions with the US Corp of Engineers
regarding county financing of a new Corp project reviewer position
whose responsibility would be to review only county road projects.
Meanwhile Lee DOT continues to work with Federal EPA to develop a
comprehensive mitigation strategy that would greatly reduce the time
necessary to satisfy EPA concerns in the permitting process.
There are still
decisions that must be made before Lee DOT can apply for US Corp
permits on our two remaining segments of Three Oaks-- from Alico Road to Corkscrew and from Coconut south to Terry Street in Bonita Springs.
ECCO will be working with the County, the Corp of Engineers and
others to find ways to speed up this process.
In October Lee
DOT prepared an analysis of Three Oaks showing the expected
completion dates for each segment. That analysis predicts that the
Alico to Corkscrew segment will be completed about June 2006 and the
Coconut to Terry segment will be completed about March 2007, 9
months and 18 months respectively after the first 800,000 square
feet of the Coconut Point Town Center
regional shopping center is expected to be open for business.
That's why we need to keep working on this project.
On March 11th
the BOCC approved a contract with Cella & Associates to perform the
alignment study for this road between San Carlos Park on the north and Old 41 in Bonita Springs at the southern end. Lee DOT will soon be providing us with a
schedule for the work and opportunities for community input.
Roadway Median
Landscaping Progress
from Alico Road
to Corkscrew Road
and west on Corkscrew to I-75
This roadway will be the most intense, ornate and colorful in Estero
except for the sections running through The
Brooks. Construction
on the irrigation and power supply for the project began in early
March near the entrance to
FGCU. Landscape installation will proceed
south from that point to the intersection with I-75. Planting of the
landscape has now started with the balance of the Estero segment
being installed during the next 10 weeks. The entire project is
expected to be completed by the middle of July.
from US 41 to I-75
On April 2nd
the County Roadway Landscape Advisory Committee (RLAC) will discuss
with County staff what additional plantings, if any, will be added
to this roadway segment. ECCO and the Estero Chamber of Commerce
have asked the County to increase the depth of the existing
plantings and to add trees in some of the gaps between tree
groupings along the length of the road. This decision is important
for Estero and other Lee county unincorporated communities because
it will define what the county means by "intensified roadway
landscaping", a concept that was developed out of our successful
effort to increase funding for roadway landscaping last year.
Specifically what is installed on Corkscrew will greatly influence
what is planted on Three Oaks between Williams Road and Corkscrew and on Koreshan Boulevard between Three Oaks and US 41.
from US 41 to Three Oaks Boulevard
The County has hired Johnson Engineering to design the landscaping
for the medians of this road segment. These plans are expected to be
completed about the end of August, whereupon the project will be
bid. Installation of the landscaping on this road is expected to
start early in 2004. Roadway landscaping on Koreshan is possible at
this time because the major property owners and developers along
this rapidly developing road have agreed to pay the cost of
maintenance for the first year after it is installed. All the
development along this road has planted very attractive trees and
shrubbery on the berms fronting their properties that will
beautifully compliment the roadway landscaping when it is installed.
from Corkscrew Road to the north end of Old 41
The county has contracted with Wilson
Miller Engineering to design the roadway landscaping for this road
segment. The conceptual design drawings are expected to be delivered
to the County this week. They will be presented to the RLAC at
either their April or May meetings. The final plans for landscaping
this road segment are expected to be completed about October 1st
this year. The plans will be implemented as the widening of the road
is completed in late 2004 or early 2005.
