HomeMy WebLinkAboutJanuary 8, 1990 TRANSCRIPT
$OARD Q,E ~OUNTY ~OMMI SSI ONERS
LUCI E ~OUNmY • FLORI DA
COMPREHENSI VE MF'.FTT 1JC;
JANUARY 1 9 9 0
Com. Trefelner: We will come to order as the Board of County
Commissioners in Special Meeting, this Monday, January 8, 1990,
for the purpose of holding a Public Hearing on Ordinance No. 90-
1, and to consider adopting that Ordinance as St. Lucie County' s
Comprehensive Plan. That is the entire Agenda, there's only one
item, so it should be relatively short this morning.
If I might just outline some of the procedure that we will be
following today, I' m sure, as we go through this Hearing. There
are a number of elements in the Comprehensive Plan - 11 in total.
We wil l be addres s i ng thos e, one at a ti me, s tarti ng wi th Future
Land Use which I anticipate that most of you are here for. We
ask several things. First, the staff will be outlining briefly
those particular elements as we had submitted them to the various
state organizations, as well as their comments, criticisms and
recommendations and then the staff's response to this Board.
After we hear from the staff regarding that matter, the Board
will ask any questions of the staff that they may have at the
time and I will open the Public Hearing for purposes of receiving
testimony. I previously announced, in case someone had just come
in, we have sign-up sheets on either end of the diaz, if you wish
to address a specific element~on the Plan, please pick-up one of
those sign-up sheets, put your name on it, and address the
element that you wish to, check the element, you wish to address
and a member of staff will be calling the names of those -
individuals who wish to speak to go to the podium and address the
Board. I would ask that in the interest of attempting to
conclude this item ~oday, that you attempt to limit your commen;,s
to no more than ten minutes. I am not limiting you to ten
minutes, I am asking that you attempt to limit them to ten
minutes. I will advise you when you are getting close to that
parti cul ar peri od of ti me, and i f you are not fi ni s hed, I will
ask you how long you think that you will be required to - the
time necessary that you may have to conclude. Com. Fenn has
given me the five minute egg timer which we will flip over twice.
Also, the Board has met a number of times on various items in ~
this issue, and we have discussed it, I don' t know how many times
and how many untotaled hours. The most recent meeting we had was
a Workshop last week in which we reviewed the comments from the
various state agencies and we tentatively established some :
policies for this particular Hearing today. I think one of the ~
one's that was established at that meeting, in which I would like
to reiterate for those of you hear today, is that this is a
Public Hearing, anyone, any member of the Public is entitled and
encouraged to speak with regard to this Plan particularly if it
effects that person or his or her client individually. In
regards to those items on the Future Land Maps, certainly if
there is a parcel or parcels that as a result of this process is
going to change or significantly impact what a land owner has had
up here before, we want to hear from it and we are interested in
- your testimony and encourage you to speak. If, however, there is
a parcel of land that someone who is interested in changing the
land use on that has not been effected or changed by the process,
we suggest that you go through the regular plan amendment process
1
that has been established so that we will have an opportunity
both from Planning and Zoning and the LPA and the staff to
thoroughly review that request and eventually come back to the
Board. Unless the acopellate Commissioners have changed their
opinion on that particular issue, I suggest that if you have a
big parcel of land that you wish to change that has not been
effected that you follow the regular process. The Board has made
a determination that will not be taking action on those types of
properties today.
Is there any change in that? That's all the announcement I have
at this particular moment. If we might start the process then, I
will ask Mr. Chisholm, the County Administrator to proceed
further.
Mr. Chi e hol m: Mr. Chai rman, I bel i eve Terry Vi rt a i s goi ng to
start the Hearing off for us.
Com. Trefelner: Okay.
Mr. Vi rta: Yes , thank you Mr. Chai rman, Commi s s i oners . The
presentation that we' d like to make this morning is goin.g to be
relatively brief considering the volume of material that you have
before you; however, having had the advantage of the numerous
Hearings that the Chairman has mentioned, as well as the Work
Ses s i ons that we had i ncludi ng the one 1 as t week, the Board has
been apprised of most of the issues that we anticipate addressing
today in regards to the Plan.
What I would like to do is to generally overview where we are
right now, and some of this is going to be repetitive to what the
Board has heard before, but I think it's important as part of the
record, and then to talk in specifics regarding three issue
areas. One dealing with the urban sprawl issue which was raised
by DCA and its comments to us. The second one dealing with
upland preservation polices, again, an issue which was
addressec., or brought forward by the DCA review o~ our Plan, and
then lastly the capital improvements element just as an overview
as to where we stand today, here and now.
In terms of how we've gotten to this point, as the Board will
recall last July, the closing moments of the month of July, the
Board approved for transmittal the draft Plan to the Department of
Community Affairs. The Department of Community Affairs in turn
distributes that Plan to numerous state and regional agencies for
review and comment, summarizes those comments and also includes
their own review and analysis and submitted to us on the 13th of
November, what we have to come call an "ORC" Report. ORC
standing for Obj ections, Recommendations and Comments, and I tend
to revert to an initialize so when I use the term ORC, that's
indeed what I' m referring to, is the Report on our Plan, the
critic on the Plan that we received from the Department of
C~mmunity Af f ai rs , whi ch I have a tendency to call DCA. So, i f
you hear me ref er to ORC, that' s the Report, and i f I ref er to
DCA, that' s the Department of Community Affairs.
The Department of Community Affairs raised a number of issues
with our Plan and these range in varying degrees to various
substitute issues to verily technical issues, that with a minor
- adjustment to the Plan could be relatively easily addressed. I'm
happy to report that the maj ority of the issues raised in their
15? pages of comments fall ~into this lighter category, the
majority of the issues raised are relatively easily addressed and
2
staff feels it has been done in the recommended changes that are
being presented to you for consideration today.
The format that we've employed is one of using the ORC Report
itself is our format for presentation and in addition to getting
the written Report from DCA, we also obtained, via computer disk,
thei r report i n di gi tal f ormat and we' ve us ed thei r f ormat, the
f ormat of thei r report, as our. vehi cl e and f or bri ngi ng f orth the
recommended changes that are being suggested. This is being done
for two reasons, one is because of the number of areas in which
DCA i s 1 ooki ng f or f urther addres s i ng on our part, i t' s the one
way that we as staff, have the ability to keep a handle on
everything, to keep track of what was going on, and the other is,
when the Plan is adopted by the Board, we have to report to DCA
what changes we have made in response to their ORC, and so again,
depending upon what actions this Board does take in regards to
the Plan, the report that staff has drafted to this point will be
modified to reflect whatever changes are made and at the point
the Plan is adopted, we will then continue to use this report
then as our report back to the Department of Community Affairs.
In that regard, we reviewed this ORC Report and our changes, as
staff had developed them, to that point with the Planning and
Z oni ng Commi s s i on whi ch s erves as our LPA or Loc al Pl anni ng
Agency on the 14th of December and that Agency focused on two
issues, the sprawl issue and the upland preservation issue. As a
result of their meeting that night, I will, as we get into Land
Use, relay to you their specific recommendations regarding Land
Us e. We have, al s o as s taf f, we' ve done i n additi on to reacti ng
to what the•Department of Community Affairs has submitted to us,
we sat down with them early on in the process in Tallahassee to
make sure, (ij that they understood what we had said, and; (2)
that if that in fact is the case, then that we understand what
they are saying so~that in preparing the response we were clear
as to what it was we were specifically addressing.
Following our Workshop last Wednesday, staff again met with DCA
and reviewed the report with them this past Friday in the offices
of the Regional Planning Council, again to get reaction to what
it was staff was recommending in terms of this report, just to
get an idea as staff, as to whether or not our recommendations
were in line with what the Department of Community Affairs was
looking for in terms of changing the Plan. And, I think it' s
important to note that at this point, that the roll staff has
taken since November 13th is one of simply coming up with a set
of recommendations as professionals, as your professional staff,
come up with those recommendations that are necessary to bring
the Plan in line with the changes the Department of Community ,
Affairs is recommending, and that' s the roll that we have taken.
What will it take to bring this Plan to a point, or bring this
Plan along to a point that it would be found compliant by the
Department of Community Affairs.
Fol l owi ng adopti on o f thi s Pl an, as I s ai d, we not onl y s ubmi t
the report that I menti oned, but we al s o s ubmi t the P1 an its el f
which will be reviewed once again by DCA and they will ultimately
make a finding of either it complied with state law or it's not
complied with state law.
In regards to the specific issues, the largest and most far
reaching issue that was addressed in the ORC Report and which has
. taken the majority of the interest, not only on the part of
staff, but on the part of everybody who has been interested in
this process, is the issue of urban sprawl, and, to summarize the
issue, the Department of Community Affairs felt that we had
3
failed to address urban sprawl and had failed to do so in regards
to three general areas.
One, is our agricultural densities. In the Plan, as it
currently is constituted, allows for residential densities of one
unit per acre County wide. The Department of Community Affairs
felt that this failed to contain urban sprawl and that
agricultural densities of one unit per 10 acres to one under per
100 acres was more appropriate for agricultural land uses. Staff
in response to this is recommending to you a scale of densities
of one unit per five and the general locations of these areas,
Dennis Murphy will go over with you in a moment. One unit per
five acres of those areas closest to the urban area, one unit per
ten acres for those areas a little further out and then for
approximately 50 percent of the County, one unit per 20 acres. I
might add that when we discussed these land uses with DCA staff
on Friday, they felt, and I' m trying to give you the flavor of
their comments as close as I.can without trying to quote them
because we didn't record the meeting, but they felt that if these
land uses as recommended were carried through as to the point of
adoption, that this portion of the sprawl issue will most likely
have been addressed; and, the reason that I have put all of those
qualifiers on there is that they weren't in a position of saying
this would or wouldn't generally they were only in a position of
giving us an indication. They went further to indicate that if
the land use densities were less, and I might add at this point,
the LPA, when they reviewed this matter they recommended to you,
and they do recommend to you that we not have the one unit per 20
acre 1 and us e. We have one uni t f or f i ve, as we' ve s hown i t and
one unit for 10 as we've shown it, plus, the remainder of the
County.
The DCA staff indicated that they felt there was a 90 percent
certainty that we propose a one to five and a one to 10 land use
des i gnati ons i n our Ag di s tri cts that that woul d be f ound to be
non-compliant if we recommend less than that, they guarantee that
we wi 11 be f ound non- compl i ant.
The second issue ctealing with sprawl, was the amounts of mixed
use development that were shown on the Land Use Plan. We had
extensive areas in our draft Plan shown as mixed-use development
beyond the urban services boundary. They felt that that was a
definite, in their opinion, that was a definite failure to
contain urban sprawl and once again, we have made amendments,
proposed amendments, to the Future Land Use Plan in recognition
of this concern. ~
The third area that they raised a concern about was the amounts
of urban land shown for urban purposes on our Land Use Plan.
That these amounts were greatly in excess of what we needed to
accommodate our anticipated population for the year 2015. We have
shown approximately 300 percent of our need. That is, more that
two times over what we anticipate needed to accommodate the
population that is anticipated for the year 2015. They felt that
that amount was excessive. The Department has since published a
technical memorandum on urban sprawl, and I' m not certain if its
within the technical memorandum or other material they've
generated, but the Department of Community Affairs has suggested
that 125 percent of need may be more appropriate. The Land Use
Plan that we have, with the changes that are being suggested by
staff, would show, or shows ~ that at the current time, 1. 82
percent of need or 182 percent of need. This is in excess of 125
percent but is less than the 300 percent that is shown on the
draft map that was being transmitted. We didn' t get a clear cut
4
answer from DCA staff on this issue, but they generally felt
positive about what we are recommending at this point.
The other area, general issue area, that there has been a great
deal of consideration and. concern about is the upland
preservation policies, and, before I move on to that, I would
like to turn the presentation over to Mr. Murphy for a few
moments so he can generally run over the land use considerations
as we are proposing them this morning.
Chairman Trefelner: Are you going to start into this map? Before
we do that then Dennis , 1 et me as k Mr. McI ntyre, I as ked hi m
previously, if he would outline for us, and for the members of
the public, the legal procedure and the time constraints and
other legal items that the Board is operating under with regard
to this Plan process.
Mr. McIntyre: Just a very brief overview, the State Legislature
back in 1985 adopted the Growth Management Act which contained
the provisions that we are operating under today and led to this '
Hearing. As the Board will recall there was a required
transmittal hearing back in August of this year, actually I think
we held it July 26th, the Plan then went to DCA, the Regional
Planning Council, the Department of Transportation and various
other agencies where they ended up reviewing the Plan and then
they submitted their comments back to the County, I believe,
November 10, letter~dated November 10, 1989, which Terry referred
to as the ORC Report. Under state law we have 60 days from the
date we receive the ORC Report to adopt the Plan, consider the
recommendations of DCA. After we adopt the Plan, in whatever
form, we have to again submit five copies of the adopted Plan to
DCA, then at that point, DCA has 45 days in which to review the .
Plan and determine the Plan to be in compliance or not in ,
_ compliance. If DCA determines that the Plan is in compliance, '
then there still is the right for effected persons to file a
petition for an Administrative Hearing within 21 calendar days
after the publication of the notice; however, the standard of
proof in the proceeding is the fairly debatable standard, which
as the Board is aware is a fairly easy standard to defend
against. I f after the Hearing the DCA determines that the Plan
is in compliance, then there perhaps is the right of appeal at
that poi nt. I f the DCA determi nes that the Pl an is not i n
compliance then the recommended order goes to the Administration
Commission within 30 days. The Administration Commission being
essentially the Governor and the Cabinet.
If, however, DCA determines that the Plan is not in compliance in
the first instance, the notice is forwarded to the Division of
Administrative Hearings, which holds a Hearing under the
provisions of Section 12057. The standard of proof in this
proceeding is that the County' s decision shall be sustained
unless it is shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the
Comprehensive Plan is not in compliance. The Hearing Officer
will issue a recommended order and then that order will go to the
Administration Commission. If the Administration Commission
determines that the Plan is not in compliance, the Commission may
provide for the County to lose certain state funding as
identified in Section 163.3184 (1)!
Mr. Chairman, recognizing the complexity of that process, I did
attach a copy of a flow chart which I received in some seminar
5
materials that I attended earlier which I'm not sure clarifies
the issue, but perhaps states it clearer in graphic form.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you, Mr. McIntyre.
Com. Minix: Mr. Chairman, question of Mr. McIntyre.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Mr. Mi ni x.
Com. Mi ni x: Dan, we rai s ed thi s ques ti on at the Works hop and
you' re tal ki ng about an Admi ni s trati ve Heari ng i f we' re f ound to
be not in compliance. How can this Administrative Hearing show
us not being in compliance? For example, I understand there are
some counties that have been approved with no more than five
acres per unit. Now, how can they be found in compliance and at
the same time they ~find us not in compliance if we did the same
thing? Has that been researched?
Mr. McIntyre: Commissioner, as my answer to you would be the
same as it was back at the Work Session, that would, that is
certainly going to be an argument if we get to that stage, that
we will use. Other counties like Brevard County, I believe was
five units per acres, I know that for a fact because that's what
the settlement stipulation I believe there are other counties
Com. Minix: I think Collier County.
Mr. Mclntyre: I believe that' s accurate, although I` m not as
clear on that. Certainly, that would be an argument that we' d
raise if our circumstance is similar to theirs and they were
allowed five units an acre we're being asked to approve 20 to 100
units per acre, obviously t2iere is a problem there for DCA.
There would need to be some explanation. Again, that would be
something we would have to deal with at the Administrative
Hearing level would be an argument that we would be raising.
Com. Minix: Well, let me ask this question. Has anyone from
our staff questioned the staff of DCA as to why this discrepancy?
Mr. McI ntyre: Commi s s i oner, I haven' t. I di dn' t meet wi th DCA,
perhaps Mr. Virta, who did meet with DCA on Friday, could answer
that question.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Mr. Vi rta.
Mr. Vi rt a: Mr. Chai rman, Commi s s i oner Mi ni x, we di dn' t as k
that question specifically; however, we did discuss the issue in
general and DCA staff indicated, along the lines of what I
indicated at the Workshop, that this was an area where the
policy has been evolving and at this point DCA feels it's evolved
to the point where that they may have allowed one unit per five
- in some of the earlier counties they reviewed, but that was, in
their opinion an inadequate standard and as a result they have
been requiring a greater standard in that regards. And, they
pointed out as examples, Citrus County, which is north of the
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Tampa area had a one unit per acre land use designation and
they've just recently entered into a compliance agreement and
that compliance agreement provides for their eastern areas, which
is the equivalent of our western areas of designation, right now,
one unit per 40 acres.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay.
Com. Rrieger: Mr. Chairman.
Chai rman Tref el ner: Com. Kri eger.
Com. Kri eger: Jus t a ques ti on f or Mr. McI ntyre. Mr. McI ntyre,
if DCA were to rule that we were not in compliance and the
Administrative Hearing upheld DCA, and we were inclined to take
this matter then to the District Court of Appeal, would we during
that process lose state funds or would the Court issue for
instance, an injunction of some type that would prohibit the
state from withholding those funds until this matter were
resolved in the Courts. The bottom line is, if we were to get
into litigation over this Plan, would the taxpayer's lose dollars
that are rightly theirs, in St. Lucie County, during that
period? .
Mr. McIntyre: Commissioner, I think what we would do, assuming
if we ever got to that stage, is we would apply for a stay of any
proceedings or penalties that the State Cabinet would impose on
us, and we would apply for a stay, and, I would like to think
that we would be successful during our appeal process in getting
that stay. Inarguably, if the District Court of Appeals upheld
the state's determination, then they would still have the ability
to penalize us at that time, but I think what we would try to do
is apply for a stay and I think, I would feel confident that we' d
be able to get the stay.
Com. Krieger: If we were able to get the stay, if the Court
ultimately ruled against us, those funds we received during that
period when this whole thing was being litigated, we have to turn
them back?
Mr. McI ntyre: Commi s s i oner, that' s a di f f i cul t ques ti o~n to
answer really. . . . . .
Com. Rrieger: That could play havoc with our Budget Process.
Mr. McIntyre: Yes, I think what we would try to do exactly on
that basis is that we would try to argue that any penalty should
be prospective in nature due to our budgetary process, and I
think the state would be receptive to that, in that, if we had
already expended those funds and budgeted those funds, you would
like to think that the state would be reasonable in, I mean the
bottom line would be is that they're trying to penalize us to
force us into compliance, so you would like to think that they
would make those perspective but that's not a guarantee. That
- would be something we'd have to riegotiate with the state at that
poi nt.
_ _
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Com. Krieger: Thank you, Mr. McIntyre.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you, Commissioner. It's always good to
know the abs ol ute di s as trous downs i de of any i s s ue. I' m s ure
that this will sail right through and we won' t ever reach those
bench marks.
Mr. Murphy: Hopefully, this will work. Mr. Chairman what I' m
going to do is briefly just highlight the map, we went over it at
our Workshop Meeting last week, and I think most of the
interested parties, at least that' s at today' s meeting, have
already looked at this thing at least once, so I'll be brief.
Before you is the original draft of the Land Use Map, that is the
underlying Map of the County that is colored in. The various
colors tie back into the original or the transmitted land use
des i gnati ons that we s ent to the Department of Community Af f ai rs ~
back in August. On top of it, and it' s strictly in the eastern
part of the County since the western part is essentially under a
one uni t one des i gnati on. We have a ti s s ue overl ay whi ch s hows
the new recommended land use patterns. Now, this is obviously a
small scale map so you' re losing something in specificity. We
have in front of you also, the detail one in 200 sheets which
have on a property line specific basis the various land use
classifications. For the most part, and with practically no
exceptions that I'm aware of, the land classifications that were
previously transmitted and in the eastern part of the County, are
still there, there is really nothing changed. There may be some
terminology changes, but essentially the designations are all
still in place.
Where the area of the biggest changes occurred lies roughly west
o f the Turnpi ke, Ki ng' s Hi ghway, I- 9 5 Corri dor. Starti ng at the
north end of the County, and working our way south, what we
are proposing to do is first of all, as Terry mentioned, we
received a adverse comment, relative to the number and size of
the area designated mixed-use under the previous plan. What we
have recommended to do is eliminate all of the mixed use areas,
west of the interstate with the exception of those in
conjunction with in Turnpike or interstate interchange and one
small pocket out here in the vicinity of Shinn Road, Orange
Avenue, where we already have some mixed type of development
activities. You can recall that you had some zoning activity in
that area over the last several months. What this leaves then,
is a couple of things, first of all, we are recommending in this
region here, that lies to the west of Lakewood Park, is an ,
Agricultural designation as opposed to what was once a
residential suburban designation. An Agricultural designation of
one unit for every five acres, that would came down to the
vicinity of I-95, in this region right along over here. On the
west side of I-95, and then traveling southward roughly the
length of the County, approximately a mile or two to the west of
the 95/Turnpike Corridor, we have a land use designation,
recommended land use designation of one unit for every 10 acres,
this would encompass the properties in the vicinity of Brocksmith
Road down hear around McCaraty Road, traveling down in through
the Duda Land Holdings and into the Metropolitan Life grove areas
down here on the Rangeline Road. Between that, one to 10, and
the interstates themselves, interstate and turnpike themselves,
we are recommending.a classification of one unit per five acres,
- this area is looked at as a tran~itional area between our rural
activities and our more densely developed urban activities. As
we touched on at the Workshop, the Department is apparently very
concerned about gradual transitions of use but they prefer to see
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a very clear delineation between urban and residential activities
where our old Plan accounted. for, if I can show you this, a
little diagram, a general slopping of intensity, meaning the
highest intensity would be off to my right, the lower intensity
off to my left. The Department is looking at a much steeper
grading so that there is a very clear distinction. This Plan, we
think, at this present format is close to what they want, and
based upon the comments received from the Department's staff on
Friday, we think we can get us a pretty good shot.
The area then, that lies to the west of Shinn Road, which was
previously classified as Agricultural is still classified as
Agricultural, but it now carries a residential density
restriction of one unit per 20 acres. Now this was, as Terry
pointed out, discussed at the LPA meeting back in December and
the LPA did not concur with that density classification of our
recommendation as we pointed out as to present a Plan that we
think best meets the guidelines at the present time.
With that, what we've got down here in the lower part of the
County is some other reductions of uses. The Gatlin Boulevard,
I-95 area, which is recognized as a future development area
previously was shown as being much more intense than it is right
now. What we have had to do in this vicinity is cut back the
mixed use to a roughly a one-half mile by three-quarter mile
square, then there is a band of RS type activity then we move to
the Agricultural classifications around it. This is an area that
we recognize as being a future development area, but we are of
the opinion at the present time that it would be more appropriate
to consider more specific lanes, classifications and :
distributions in conjunction with an application Por developer
regional impact. That kind of a process would afford the County,
this County, the assurances that the services can be provided
be c aus e at the pres ent ti me, we' re not s ure we coul d do what we
had to do to meet the intesting concurrence in that part of the
worl d.
As I mentioned, the islands, and all like that, have pretty much
stayed the same, the urban parts of the County again, have pretty
much stayed the same. There has been some reduction in
densities, but in no cases am I aware of it being any lower than
what it was under the previous classification. There are some
instances where we showed a higher original intent but that has
been cut back. We are now showing on the Land Use Plan
approximately 46, 800 acres of residential, urban residential
land use, now our minimum criteria need, assuming a straight line
proj ection of population per capita per 1, 000 residential acres
comes in the vicinity of about 25,000 so we are approximately 85 ,
percent or 82 percent, excuse me, over our minimum need. That
is, as Terry pointed out, in excess of what the Department looks
at but we feel we can justify such a higher number within that
range on a variety of factors, including our own from other parts
of the Plan which speak to the need to preserve habitat, create
habitat, we also recognize that some of our areas have designated
for urban intensities cannot be developed, or will not be
developed at those indicated intensities for whatever reasons as
well. Also, we are looking at choice location, or the factor of
choice, if you don' t always want to be right here it creates an
option, it creates a fill in opportunities. We have attempted to
address these additional comments within the Plan and I think you
will find it in the ORC Report itself that identifies which
direction we are headed in to.
As far as commercial and industrial development goes, again, we
are running about the same percentages over, any where from 60 to
9 ~
80 percent over our minimum criteria again. Much of that is
around existing areas, we' re not really proposing to create `
massive new areas of commercial or industrial other than what may
be associated with along the King's Highway corridor which is the
policy positioned by this Board for the last several years to „
spread some of these in that area.
With that, again, a lot of this is old news we' ve discussed it
before at the Workshop, if you have any specific questions of ine
at the moment.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Denni s, I as ked at that Work Ses s i on that
at the very northern end of the area, particularly between
Lakewood Park and the existing Spanish Lakes Development and the
Capron Trail Community Development District that's sandwiched in
between those two roughly following the outline of the Florida
Turnpike, is what you dropped back to an Ag designation from an
RS, f rom a res i denti al s uburban whi ch res i denti al s uburban bei ng
a maximum of two units per acre. I asked at that meeting if you
could be prepared to comment on an RE, one unit per acre
des i gnati on and the ef f ect that woul d have on our percentage of
residential land use for the meeting. ~
Mr. Murphy: I can' t give you the exact number right now, but
when I get back to one of my terminals I can do that. But, what
we are looking at is approximately 5,000 acres in this range here =
which would be converted back into essentially a residential or
an urban designation. That probably then would adjust our :
percentage over to some where in the vicinity of 220, 210, and
then when we start adding chunks like that we'll have to get back
into the whole thing. I can get you a more realistic percentage .
in a couple of moments, but, the bottom line is I guess is that
when we go to that one unit to the acre classification we cannot
classify or we cannot consider this agricultural we'd have to
consider this as urban designation. ~
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman
Cha~~m~n Trefelner: Com. Culpepper
Com. Culpepper: Dennis, I don't believe I asked you this the
other day but we've had much discussion as to the evolution of
the policy that DCA has been putting forward in recent months.
The percentage of future use policy, has that been an evolving
proces s as wel l and i f s o, where di d i t begi n and obvi ous 1 y, we
know where it is now, at preferred 125, do you know?
Mr. Murphy: Truthfully, no mame, I don' t.
Com. Culpepner: Is it a new creature?
_ Mr. Murphy: Perhaps in how it' s being applied on a state
level, now it is, yes, their looking at defining your needs as a
pure mi ni mum, pure s trai ght 1 i ne mi ni mum, and then gi ve you s ome
initial flexes, minor flex.
10
Mr. Virta: Mr. Chairman
Com. Culpepper: Well, if I might, Mr. Chairman would you mind if ~
someone from Planning made an attempt to come back to this
Meeting with some determination as to the evolutionary process,
if any, this percentage business has been taking? I think it' s
critical because it' s an omission of choice for individuals that
move toward this County or are within this County wishing to
either relocate a business or to cause some,property to be
purchased for some useful purpose that even this Board would find
a good purpose.
Com. Minix: Mr. Chairman, I' d like to add to that if I may?
Chairman Trefelner: Commissioner
Com. Minix: I' d like to ask if our staff knows those counties
that have already been approved at no more than five units, or
five acres per unit, what their percentages are? Do they go
above the 125? I'm sure they must.
Chairman Trefelner: The Ag, I understand, is not considered in
that calculation.
Mr. Murphy: That's correct. The Ag would not be considered.
Com. Minix: Would not be considered?
Chairman Trefelner: Considered in those percentage calculations.
Mr. Virta I think, has the answer perhaps, to Com. Culpepper.
Mr. Virta: Mr. Chairman, I don' t believe I have the answer,
but I have j ust a point I would like to make. We do have Mr.
John Healy, who I will introduce at the conclusion of our
comments, who is here on behalf of the Department of Community
Aff~irs and certainly you can address that question to him. I
don' t know if he' s in a position to answer, but he is here on
behalf of the Department and I'll be introducing him shortly.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Virta. In the strictest form of the
letter that was addressed to me January 4 it said that the
Department's representative is authorized to restate our position
as expres s ed i n the Department' s November 10, 198 9 obj ecti ons .
Whether or not Mr. Healy would be willing, and I~ d certainly be
willing to accept an answer from him, to tell us the evolutionary
process, if in fact it has been one of those are you
authorized to answer a question such has been imposed?
Mr. Healy: (Speaking in audience - not able to hear). ~
~
Com. Culpepper: Could we have him on tape, please.
11
Chairman Trefelner: Let me ask, Mr. Murphy are you finished?
Mr. Murphy: Unless you have any further questions of ine. ~
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, did you have any further comments?
Mr. Virta: Not regarding Land. Use, no sir.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, I believe then, opening the Public
Hearing and Mr. Healy was scheduled to be the first person to
address the Board, and if he might, Is that correct?
Mr. Virta: Yes sir, that' s correct.
Chairman Trefelner: come to the podium and don~ t be afraid,
we have a very efficient deputy sheriff back there who will keep
order in this place in case it gets a little unruly. Actually I
j es t!
Mr. Healy: Good morning. My name is John Healy.
Com. Fenn: Pull your, pull your
Chairman Trefelner: Could you pull your microphone down please.
Mr. Healy: My name is John Healy
Chairman Trefelner: And the button needs to go toward you. No,
I guess you turned it on.
Mr. Healy: Again, my name is John Healy, I am the representative
of the Department of Community Affairs. Com. Culpepper has
referenced a letter that you have received which indicates what I
am authorized and not authorized to say. I'd like to just
paraphrase that letter if I may. As representative, I'm
authorized to restate the Department's position expressed in the
ORC Report and to listen to all parties. It is; however, the
Department's position that the adoption Public Hearing is not the
proper form for modifying the Department's position or approving
proposed revisions to the Comprehensive Plan. As the
Department's representative, I will be without authority to
modify the Department's position or approve proposals discussed
at the Public Hearing. Our roll, with respect to approving the
proposed revisions will begin upon adoption and submittal of the
Comprehensive Plan.
If you ask me to speak to the evolutionary process, it has
changed throughout time. We'd like to believe that we're
refining it and making it more reasonable as to the exact
permintation as it goes from plan to plan, I do not have personal
_ knowledge of that, we do; however, look at each Plan in the
context of that particular County we're looking over.
12
Com. Culpepper: Well it would seem to me that it perhaps would
be a changing situation as counties are different, one from
another, but that in fact, if the policy didn' t exist to begin
with, that would be something I would be interested to learn and
then the process that it' s taken since the initial transmittals
began with the Department. Did that policy always exist, or was
that one that perhaps became added as a policy period and is now
going through the evolutionary process, or was it always there?
Mr. Healy: The issue of urban sprawl was always there.
Com. Culpapper: No sir, the percentage situation?
Mr. Healy: The percentage situation. That is related to the
issue of urban sprawl, and when you get into exactly what the
percentage is perceived to be reasonable, over above minimum,
then that has been subj ect to, the evolutionary process. It has
never been established as a specific percent, as we try to be
flexible with each County.
Com. Culpepper: If I might, Mr. Chairman, I thought Mr. Murphy
just indicated to me that those properties to the west of those
lines that he indicated, which were the urban sprawl areas, were
in fact not effected by these percentages, so, if I
misunderstood, I stand to be corrected. Did I hear you correctly
Dennis? Did you not say those properties, when Com.- Trefelner
asked you why you didn' t move the line. You remember Mr.
Tref el ner j us t a f ew mi nutes ago as ked you why you di dn' t move
the line. You said if you did that, that in fact you' d add 5, 000
more units.
Mr. Murphy: Ri ght, i f I moved f rom what we had cl as s i f i ed as
agricultural to a residential estate or a one unit per acre
designation that moves it from an agricultural consideration into
an urban consideration. That then goes to the percentages of the
c al cul ati ons .
Chairman Trefelner: Yes, the theoretical densities apply to
agricultural land use is not used in the calculations of the
percentage of necessary land. In other words, it's assuming that
agricultural land use, although theoretically has currently one
unit per acre, the proposed one to five, 10, 20 theoretically
although it has that, it's not likely, and highly improbable that
it will be developed at least any time in the foreseeable future
any where near those total designations; therefore, there not
even taken into consideration. Am I correct Dennis, in that
calculation; however, in a parcel sandwiched in between Lakewood
Park and Spanish Lakes and Capron Community Development District
were taken out of agricultural and put into something else, other
than that, then eventhough it be a low density of one unit per
acre, a 100 percent of those theoretical units are applied into
thos e thi ngs ,
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time.
,
Chairman Trefelner: Did you wish to continue on any other
Any member of the Board? Mr. Minix.
_ _ 13
Com. Mi ni x: Mr. Chai rman, I have a ques ti on. Mr. Heal y, the
question I have is that some of the counties have already been
approved at no more than five acres per unit. Why does DCA then
take a different posture with other counties like ours?
Mr. Healy: The law is not meant to be applied uniformly
through each county or each local government; therefore, each
Comprehensive Plan is viewed in the context of the particular
condition or circumstances of the local government and also, as
has been mentioned~that this has been an evolutionary process
with the policy developing; therefore, situations might not be
comparable or we have moved further along in our policy
development.
Com. Minix: I think Collier County is one of them that has
been approved at the five, or at least I was told that, that might
be in error, and they come very close to being similar in nature
to our County in size and growth and all, and that would be a
comparable one. Now, Brevard County has a lot higher density
than our County and that's another one that has been approved at
five acres per unit, but I can't see some being 40 acres per unit
and then down to five acres per unit.
Mr. Healy: The position of the Department is that those will
be reviewed within the review stage after adoption of your Plan .
and transmitting it to the state. I am not able to comment on
the appropriateness of what ever the Commission decides to do as
far as designating land uses.
Com. Minix: Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Any other questions from the Commission.
Thank you Mr. Healy for being here with us today. I presume you
will be here throughout our Hearings.
Mr. Healy: Until 4 0' clock.
Chairman Trefelner: Until 4 0' clock, okay. We also had a request
from another government of fi cial in an adj oining county, I
believe to address the Board generally on its Comprehensive Plan.
Mr. Vi rta.
Mr. Virta: Yes Mr. Chairman, Jeff Rrauskopf, who' s the Vice-
Mayor for the City of Stuart. '
Chairman Trefelner:.Good Morning.
Mr. Krauskopf: Good Morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board.
My name is Jeff Krauskopf, I am the Vice-Mayor of the City of
Stuart. Happy New Year; and greetings from the City. I have
Raren Luria with me, the Planning Director and she'll be handing
- out to you a letter that we 'are going to submit as our
participation in the assuring consistency among enter
governmental agencies on the Treasure Coast. We have two
comments in our letter t~ you, one of them deals with the housing
14
element and the second item is the coastal management element.
Our comments with regard to review of your Plan, in the housing
element, the City of Stuart endorses a policy in the County's
Plan which states that the County, St. Lucie County, will
investigate the advantages and disadvantages of having the
Housing Authority of Fort Pierce expand its operation to include
uni ncorporated areas of St. Luci e County. And, bas i call y, what
we' re saying there is that that' s an encouraging statement
because down the line may help us to relieve some of our
congestion that we have in the waiting lists in our Housing
Authority.
In the coastal management element, we would like to see a policy
added to insure co-ordination, hurricane and nuclear disaster
evacuation routes if at all possible, and those are basically the
two comments that we had. One was an encouragement and one was
adding intergovernmental co-ordination under the coast element
for evacuation routes. .
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you very much Mr. Krauskopf, we
appreciate the input from the City of Stuart on our Plan. One of
the items, as you note we currently have in the Plan and I :
believe that when we get to the intergovernmental co-ordination
part of the Board, of this meeting, the staff may have some
additional comments on your suggestion. Yes.
Com. Minix: Mr. Rraskopf, I have a question on the first part,
of your housing element. I' m totally confused as to how St.
Lucie County needs to provide more low cost and affordable
housing for Martin County because in every discussion we've had
here and with the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, it's
St. Lucie County that's asking Martin County to supply more
affordable and low cost housing to relieve the burden on St.
Lucie County, because, as a matter of fact, a tremendous amount
of your empl oyees are unabl e to fi nd af f ordabl e hous i ng, I' m
tal ki ng about peopl e that work i n Marti n County, and have;
therefore, bought houses or rent houses in St. Lucie County and
drive across the line to work. And, we have asked on the
Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council level, we have asked
Martin County to do exactly what you are asking us to do, so I'm
sorry, but I don't understand where we feel we don't have a whole
lot of housing that isn't low cost and affordable in our County.
Mr. Krauskopf: In the overall view, Com. Minix, I tend to agree,
you' re correct. We' re speaking specifically as per a technical
Housing Authority under HUD guidelines, in that area.
Com. Minix: Well, the only Housing Authority is in Fort
Pierce, the City of Fort Pierce. I don' t think the City of Port
St. Lucie has one and the County doesn't have one.
Mr. Kraus kop f: Ri ght, and what we were doi ng, i s as ki ng that you
just look at the advantages or disadvantages of expanding that
Fort Pierce system. It's a very narrow scope within the general
scope that you spoke of.
Com. Minix: Thank you. Thank you, for answering my question.
. ,
Chairman Trefelner: Yes. Mister . . .
15 . _ _
Com. Fenn: Thank you Mr. Chairman. In addition to what Com.
Minix, and you some what agreed with him, I was wondering about
the statement you made that the City of Stuart Housing
Authority's now providing sub-standardized housing to residents
from St. Lucie County area. I thought it was the other way
around, I didn't know the City of Stuart was supplying housing
for our residents.
Mr. Krauskopf: Correct. Technically under the HUD system that
our Authority is under, we have to provide, because it was
federally funded, we have to provide housing for an area that is
larger than the City of Stuart. When you take the moneys from
the Fed, they give you strings and these are the strings that go
wi th i t, and i t' s an area, a 1 arger area. So, what we are s ayi ng
is that we have a waiting list of people specifically
Com. Fenn: From St. Lucie County?
Mr. Krauskopf: Specifically in Stuart, that would like to get ;
into our Housing Authority, but the federal guidelines preclude
us from saying that we can only select people from our area.
Because we took federal money, we must take it from everybody, so
what we're saying is we encourage your looking at the advantages
or disadvantages of the Fort Pierce, whether it is going to
expand into the unincorporated.areas or not. `
Com. Fann: And, by the way, the Housing Authority of Fort
Pierce has expanded into the County, into the unincorporated
areas. Thank you.
Mr. Kraus kop f: Thank you, Commi s s i oners .
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. Okay, Mr. Virta, we have our
- sign-up sheets here and you have a list available. We're on the
first element then which is Future Land Use, if you can begin by
calling those people who wish to speak.
Mr. Vi rta: Yes , Mr. Chai rman, the fi rs t pers on, or the next
pers c~n I have, is Mr. Douq Bourni que.
Mr. Bourni que: Thank you Mr. Chai rman. I' m Doug Bourni que, I' m
the Executive Vice-President of the Indian River Citrus League,
and I' d like to read the follo~ring letter I' ve just passed out to
you. Can you hear me all right?
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Yes .
Mr. Bournique: Into the record.
Dear Mr. Chairman:
I would like to offer the following comments to the St. Lucie
_ County Comprehensive Plan on beh~lf of the Indian River Citrus
League's 1600 grower members who grow citrus in a six-county area
from Palm Beach County to Volusia County:
16
The Indian River Citrus League is a trade association supported
by our grower members and the 34 affiliated packing houses in the
Indian River Citrus District. The district is comprised of
approximately 220, 000 commercial acres of citrus. St. Lucie
County's portion is growing daily and now has 100,OQ0 acres
dedicated to citrus which produces 26.5 million boxes of citrus.
Of that, the 10 packing houses in the county pack 15. 2 million
4/5 bushel cartons, or about 22 percent of the total packed
volume for the entire State of Florida. During the 1988-89
season, the FOb value of St. Lucie County citrus sold fresh was
approximately $100 million. This equates to approximately $700
million in economic activity to St. Lucie County alone. The
industry employs 1 out of every 5 people in our work force
providing one of the cleanest, lightest industries an area could
hope to have, employing more and more people with each passing
year and producing a large gr.een belt, a healthy product and a
very steady, secure financial base for St. Lucie County. It
doesn't take someone long to figure what an area would look like
without its economic base for we merely need to look at Lake,
Marion, northern Polk and other northern counties where citrus
used to be and was froze out during the 1983 and 1985 freezes.
That area has had to cut its services, close its schools and cut ~
its budget to continue forward. Citrus in St. Lucie County is
currently an extremely viable and healthy industry but one that
also needs friendly, local support in order to maintain a .
prosperous outlook.
Citrus has historically migrated in the State of Florida since
its inception where early plantings in north Florida have
m•igrated continually south seeking warmer climes and a friendly
local reception. There is no question, that citrus in St. Lucie
County is here in a big way and wants to continue to stay here.
The Indian River citrus production is primarily exported. Of the
32 million 4/5 bushel cartons packed in the district last year,
22 million, or about 66 percent, was exported to Japan and Europe
and the Pacific Rim. There we compete with fruit from around the
world, Cuban, South African, Australian, Texan, Israeli, South
Ameriaan, for an increasingly, smaller and smaller market. In
that market quality and price is essential to moving our product.
~ The the regulations that are proposed here today, asking that 25
percent of the uplands be preserved, we feel that would subject
our industry to an insurmountable production cost increase -
basically taking us out of some key markets throughout the world.
Currently, the United States has the toughest standards for
citrus in the world. We have to comply with Federal, State,
local, water management, Army Corps, and other regulations asking
for more and more of our property and of our income where other ,
c ountri es not onl y don' t have thes e regul ati ons , but i n s ome
situations subsidize their industries and we have to meet this
competition in a world market where price is a very critical
component.
We f eel that thes e regul ati ons 1 ower the value of our property,
thus, reducing borrowing power to our growers which is essential
when hard times hit. In the event of a freeze, which we just
had, or a canker outbreak, a grower needs to borrow against his
property. If the value of that property is reduced by local
rules and regulations that bank won't afford the grower the
opportunity to come back after a freeze or after his groves have
been scarified due to a canker regulations. In effect, these
regulations reduce a growers productivity and borrowing power by
_ 25 percent. We urge you not to pass this plan as proposed and
work with agriculture to come up with a more livable
comprehensive plan for the people that live and work in St. Lucie
County.
17
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you Mr. Bournique.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman -
Chairman Trefelner: Com. Culpepper -
Com. Culpepper: Can I ask Mr. Bournique a question?
Chairman Trefelner: Yes.
Com. Culpepper: Are you familiar with the Plan that we
ori gi nal l y s ent as i t pertai ns to agri cul ture, and i f s o, was
that Plan at that time acceptable to what you believe your Trade
Association would find workable?
Mr. Bourni que: I' m f amili ar with the ori gi nal Pl an.
~
i::
Com. Culpepper: Yes sir, the one that was sent and has sense
come back, was that ~ okay?~
Mr. Bournique: We still have a problem with the upland ~
preservation portion.
Com. Culpepper: But, that wasn' t a part of the first. Was it?
Chairman Trefelner: No.
Mr. Bournique: I have not seen that one that came back.
Com. Culpepper: That' s what came back.
Mr. Bournique: Well, I didn' t~ see that.
Com. Culpepper: Okay.
Mr. Bournique: That' s been eliminated.
Com. Culpepper: It wasn't there in the first place, it has been
recommended and came back that way.
Mr. Bourni que: Ri ght.
Com. Culpepper: And that what, 2 believe you' re talking to
today.
18
N:r. Bournique: We' re talking to, that we want to have that
agriculture exempt from that completely and suggest maybe
incentives rather than disincentives.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you, Mr. Bournique:
Mr. Bourni que: Thank you.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: I' m s ure there are s ome, qui te a f ew other
people here today to speak on that issue as well.
Mr. Vi rta: Ji m Cummi ngs . Okay, Harry Gray. -
Mr. Gray: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Ladies and Gentlemen.
My name is Harry Gray, my residence is 7501 South Indian River
Drive, and I'm a real estate appraiser. I specialize in the
appraisal of income producing real estate in this and surrounding
counties. I'm hear to represent the agricultural interest today,
and specifically speak against the upland preservation
requirements. As I understand it, the upon preservation ~
requirement would require the property owners to designate 25
percent of their uplands as a park, if you will, something that
they cannot develop, cannot plant citrus trees on or grow crops
on. This I believe would be a substantial factor in reducing the
property values and removing them from the tax space. I believe
we can go a step further and say this may be inverse
condemnation. Condemnation without compensation. And folks,
lets call it what it is, it' s. stealing. If we want to take 25
percent of the County and put that in a park, if you will, let's
buy thi s and compens ate the f ol k' s f or i t.
I would like to speak against the upland preservation issue.
Thank you.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thank you. Mr. Vi rta.
Mr. Virta: Steve Cassens.
Mr. Cassens: Good morning Mr. Chairman, members of the
Commission, I' m Steve Cassens, I reside at 1876 S. Shinn Road, in
Fort Pierce, and I'm President of the St. Lucie County Farm
Bureau. I would like to just read into the record a letter on
behalf of the members of the St. Lucie County Farm Bureau.
The members of the St. Lucie County Farm Bureau wish to go on
record as objecting to the St. Lucie County Comprehensive Plan.
There are two major points of concern to the members of the
agricultural community. The uplands preservation set aside and
the lowering of housing densities on agricultural land. The
- uplands preservation is a hardship for all development but is an
extreme hardship for agricultural development. Concentrated types
_ of development, commercial, residential, etc., do not use 100
percent of their property for income purposes, and can use the
uplands for aesthetic purposes, whereas agriculture's only source
of income is their land. It is the Farm Bureau' s position the
_ _ _ 19
upland's set aside should not be required at all. If that is not
possible, then we would support an agricultural exemption to the
uplands set aside. The lowering of residential densities of
agricultural lands may significantly lower the growers equity
through lower land values. This is especially concerning, in
light of this season's freeze and the grower's use of their
equity, as a reserve for this type of emergency. The members of
the St. Lucie County Farm Bureau urge the County Commission to
carefully consider our positions on these two critical points in
the Comprehensive Plan as they relate to the agricultural
community.
Thank you. Is there any questions?
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thank you, Mr. Cas s ens .
Mr. Vi rta: Mi ke Adams .
Mr. Adams : Thank you, Chai rman and Commi s s i oners . I' m Mi ke
Adams, at 26003 Orange Avenue, as that might denote I'm at the
western edge of St. Lucie County.
It's certainly a pleasure to be here today. I gave you some
concerns of ours with the Comprehensive Plan, just some general
thoughts, as to property values of agricultural land and how
important that is. I guess in early 1980, we bought a place in ~
Herford, Texas for a considerable some of money and I guess we •
have been trying to sell it for the last three or four years.
That is an area that has really been struck by economic hard
ti mes f or agri cul tural reas ons , you know, the i nfl ati onary peri od ,
we've been through, but there land values have collapsed out
there. That property that we purchased then is worth probably 45
percent of what we paid for it. During the same period, out in
the mi dwes t, of c ours e you' ve s een al l the f arm cl os i ngs and al l
that sort of things, the local- bank there in Herford, Texas, has
gone under. Those kind of things have really put some
perspective how important property values are for agriculture.
During the same period, we were able to re-finance alot of our ~
mortgages here in St. Lucie County and in Florida, whereas, out
there, no one would even talk to you about re-financing,
borrowing money or any of that nature. So, we really, anything
that really affects property values are things of great concern.
Of course, the conservation of these uplands set aside programs,
those directly will set your asset base as a business and, you ~
know, the density issue as well, will have effect on your asset
value. These kind of things are what is important. Agriculture
is a very dynamic industry, it could change over night, like it
did last week, you really can' t see 10 years, 15 years down the
road, what kind of conditions you may have 2t that time.
Agriculture is subject to market conditions whether disease or
just a multitude of other things, and these are some of our
concerns and I sure appreciate your time today. Thank you.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thank you Mr. Adams .
Com. Fenn: I have a question of Mike.
Chairman Trefelner: Commissioner.
_ _ T_
20
Mr. Adame : Yes s i r.
Com. Fenn: Do you have, what would your response be to the
agriculture density of our one unit per 20 acres in the western
part of the County which you are basically located, one unit per
20 acres, what would be your response to that?
Mr. Adame: That' s really difficult for me to say. I can' t say
that i t' s worth " X" number o~f doll ars as to our val ue of our
property. I really, but I know that it would have some
significant . . .
Com. Fenn: So you eluded to it, you know, in your memo, and I
just wondered whether or not it was acceptable to you or not
acceptable to you since you're one of the principal owners in the
western part of the County.
Mr. Adams: I' m certainly, one to 10 would be more appropriate
than one to 20. I guess if my house blew down, I'd have to
relocate in Fort Pierce, because I' d be, you know, in a non-
conforming use. My own personal residence out there is on 10
acres, it if was on
Com. Fenn: Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Mr. Virta.
Mr. Virta: Ruben Carlton
Mr. Carlton: I' m Ruben Carlton, I live at 160 Lamont Road in
Fort Pierce. I would like to make this short and sweet and tell
you gentlemen and ladies that you were elected by the people of
St. Lucie County to stand up and be counted for. Tell the folks
in Tallahassee that you were elected to represent St. Lucie
County and I think you' ve done a good j ob of it this far.
Com. Fenn: Thank you Mr. Carlton. Any question.
Mr. Virta: James Alderman
Mr. Alderman: My name is James Alderman and I'm an attorney and
my office is at 300 South Sixth Street in Fort Pierce, but I -
appear here individually as a land owner of agricultural land in
St. Lucie County and also as a member of the St. Lucie County
Farm Bureau, specifically to speak against the proposed provision
in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan for a 25 percent retention of
upl ands . I woul d s ugges t to the Board, that what we' re tal ki ng
about is basically something which is nnconstitutional, at least '
as applied to agricultural lands. A farmer who has 100 acres who
_ cannot farm 25 of that acres and'has to preserve it in natural
state, the affect of that is that you have taken from him 25
acres of his land.
21 _ _ _ _ _
We have a constitutional provision both in the federal and state
constitution against taking property without due process of law
and without compensation. This would be, in my opinion, inverse
condemnation as applied to agriculture. A different situation
perhaps arises in a residential area, in residential zoning,
where a developer then has 100 acres of residential land with
five units per acre can cluster his units in 75 of those acres
and still get the benefit of his 100 acres and the other 25 acres
he could use for amenities. Make it a part of his project and he ~
has n' t real l y 1 os t the us e of hi s property, but i f you' re gonna
plant 100 acres of citrus you can only put in 75 acres, you can't
cluster the trees out of the 25 that you can' t use into the 75
that you are using. So that, I would suggest to you that this is
a taking without compensation. Let me also comment, echoing
perhaps a little bit of what Mr. Carlton said, throughout the
third references to DCA said this, DCA said that, who are we
talking about? We' re talking about some staff person in ~
Tallahassee, not elected on a state wide basis, not elected in
St. Lucie County, not known to the people of St. Lucie County,
and not actually the head of the Department of Community Affairs
simply a staff person, probably at a low level, whose never,
knows nothi ng about St. Luci e~County, who has no i nteres t i n St.
Lucie County, but is telling us, and making decisions for us. We
do have a remedy. We don't have to accept what that staff person
i n Tal l ahas s ee s ai d. We can s ay no, and as Mr. McI ntyre poi nted
out i n hi s expl anati on, i f we do s ay no and i f DCA does rej e ct
our Plan, the presumption is that you were correct and the burden
will be on DCA to prove otherwise, and we have the opportunity
for Administrative Hearing and then we have the opportunity to go
to court. Before you screw the people in St. Lucie County, I
woul d s ay, 1 et' s go to court.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thank you Judge.
Mr. Alderman: While I' m up here, to save having to get back :
agai n, I' m goi ng to change my hat f or j us t a moment and j us t
simply say that on behalf of an individual client, and this is
going to take 30 seconds. A client on Indrio Road, Indrio
Groves, Ltd., owns property presently zoned low density
residential, two units per acre, I understand the Plan, if
adopted would change their land to one unit per five acres, my
client objects to that, for the record, so that we preserve all -
legal rights, I make that obj ect, I' 11 file a written obj ection
with the Clerk. Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you Judge. Did I take fr.om your
comments that you were volunteering your services.
Mr. Alderman: I' 11 take it under consideration.
Chai rman Tref el ner: Thank you. Let me poi nt out that the 2 5
percent issue was a result of the, not of DCA' s comments, am I
correct? But, as a result of the Treasure Coast Regional
Planning Council, so while we' re shooting arrows at DCA some of
the arrows go in different directions. Okay, thank you Judge.
_ Mr. Virta: Vernon Smith '
Mr. Smith: Mr. Chairman, Commissioners and staff, Vernon Smith,
_ 2 2 _ _ _ _ _
3213 River Drive, Fort Pierce. What we' re talking about here
today is basically whether you're going to reduce the land values
in St. Lucie County by 100' s of millions of dollars, or not.
When everything is going good, you know, values have maintained
their level of increase we have a freeze and we see a big change
in values, or possibilities of a big change in values, without
the ability to use the property for other uses. You're going to
see a very unstablized property values for the County. Also, if
you go with the lesser densities, you're really talking about, as
the Judge said earlier, you' re really going to be reducing the
tax base of the County, and that will effect all of our services
on a continuous basis in the future.
As representatives of the people, you must stand up against the
bureaucrats in Tallahassee, and fight for us, we would appreciate
that. Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you, Mr. Smith. Mr. Virta.
Mr. Virta: Jack Carmady.
Chairman Trefelner: Let me ask, so far the issues that have been
raised by the individuals speaking has been on agricultural
classification as it relates to density and the 25 percent issue.
Perhaps if we could, and I don't know what you are about to speak
with, maybe it is exactly those subjects, but if we could deal
• with those subjects and perhaps the Board explore it further,
resolve the issue one way or other, before we get into specific
1 and us e des i gnati ons . Now, I don' t know, Mr. Carmady, whether
you're wanting to address that or address a specific designation.
Mr. Carmady: Mr. Chairman, I will be talking site specific, and
to be perfectly honest with you I'm enjoying riding in on the
coat-tails of what I' ve heard, so I' m more than willing to step
back and wait till you get to that. .
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, perhaps we can deal with this issue
first and then, so we don't hop-scotch around. Mr. Virta. I
know you c an' t tel l f rom the s heets s o, 1 et me as k, thos e peopl e
who have signed up on the sheets who have not yet spoken who wish
to specifically address the issue of the 25 percent conservation
of the remaining upland habitat, or the density designation of
agricultural land. I' ve got one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine. Rather than trying to shuffle through those
sheets, we' 11 j ust start from this end and work our way around
that end and as you address your name, you can probably check
them off on there. So a hand right up there, right there. Yes
sir.
Mr. Schultz: For the record, my name is Robert J. Schultz, I
reside at 702 SE Sea House Drive, in the City of Port St. Lucie.
I'm here today to speak for the Treasure Coast Builder's
Association. I want to read into the record a letter l delivered
to the Chai rman.
The St. Lucie County Chapter of the Treasure Coast Builder's
_ Association is troubled by the level of state mandated
development issues found in the present ORC Report. St. Lucie
County's Comprehensive Plan, we recognize, that there may be some
desirable technical changes made by the ORC Report, but the
23 _ _
original Plan submi~ted in August by the County respected of all
issues was fine, particularly troubling is the 25 percent
division for upland preservation. Though it may severally hurt
agriculture, if I set aside 15 percent for roads and drainage and -
25 percent for upland, residential development is now at 50
percent, i t' s too much. We thi nk that the Commi s s i on s houl d
appeal this Plan, go back and submit the original Plan and we ,
will publicly support that appeal. Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. Okay, you can be next.
Mr. Collins: My name is Neal Collins, residing at 409 SE St.
Lucie Boulevard in Stuart. I'm speaking specifically to property
I own on Mi dway Road, agri cul tural z oni ng. I' m s orta j us t addi ng -
to the list of objections here, I have submitted my objection in
writing as to the loss of value of property. I am also a builder
and part of the Treasure Coast Builder's Association.
I t appe ars to me that, as was ~ s ai d be f ore, that the DCA i s s ort
of the ammuni ti on and thei r maki ng you f ol ks be the revol ver s o
to speak, and really have no control over what is done in the
County to the degree of stating that if you don't do what we want
you to do, you'll no further be funded with the moneys we have
given you before. That's, it puts y~u all in a very difficult ,
position, but you are also putting the land owners in a very
difficult position if you go ahead and pursue the reduction as is
specified by DCA. My property is set up, or was set up and has
been for one unit per acre, which I had anticipated producing.
At this point, it' s not economically feasible to go to one unit "
per five or one unit per 10, especially with the agriculture.
Thank you. ~
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thank you, s i r. Mr. Prui tt
Mr. Prui tt: Mr. Chai rman, members of the Commi s s i on, my name i s
Ren Pruitt and I reside at 312 S. W. Collings Drive in Port St.
Lucie. I have two specific recommendations. Number one is to do
away with the 25 percent uplands preservation and perhaps, staff
would know better than I do, but perhaps the LDR's, which will be
written later on, will take care of this. Number two would be to .
recommend one unit to the acre, one unit to the two and one-half ;
acres and one unit to five acres, respectively where staff and
the state has recommended these lower densities. I also would
just like to add to what has already been said, and add to it
that as a local planning agency member, and I sat through some 40
meetings, some until 2: 00 A. M, to help write this Comprehensive
Plan, now, the state sends back over 150 pages of recommended
changes we are suppose to intelligently go through it in two
publ i c meeti ngs . To me, i t j us t does n' t make s ens e. I f we
accept these recommended changes then perhaps we'd be better off
disbanning this Commission, disbanning all the Advisory Boards,
tell the state to keep the small karat of revenue that they send
to us and let them run this County. We are slowly allowing the
state to box us into a corner, and as a messenger you are
becoming the sounding boards. It is time to take a stand and
tell the state, "no more", the repercussions of this Plan would
have a 50 percent drop in construction employment and service
related jobs. Citrus owners would think twice before investing
in St. Lucie County for the fear of losing their investment.
_ This would be devastating to all 'of us. It will be a recession
that never ends in our County. Let them take their unproven
theories and the pie in the sky ideas somewhere else. Wantingism
may work some where else, but it's not needed here.
24
I t s eems that the s tate thi nks that we` re on a mi nd s et to
des tructi on. Wel l, I ki nda thi nk that we' re i ntel l i gent, 1 ogi cal
and reasonable people. Many of us in this room, are life long
citizens of St. Lucie County, and we only want what's best for
our County and our children and for our future.
Thank you very much. ~
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you, Mr. Pruitt. Okay, over on this
side, and working our way back. Any other people, okay, over
here, up front.
Mr. Minton: I' m Michael Minton, with the law firm of Dean, Mead,
Egerton, Suite 200, 1903 South 25th Street. I' m here on behalf
of the Minton family interests. I' ve submitted a letter earlier
which lists those interests, so I won't enumerate them all again.
I'm here to echo primarily Justice Alderman's comments and
concerns about the densities on agricultural lands and the
unrecently restricted densities being proposed by both the DCA
and by staff. As far as we're concerned, DCA has sited a goal of
avoiding urban sprawl as the primary need for the lower densities
in agriculturally zoned properties. It is our belief that
legislature is clearly stated that the concurrency requirement
should be the means of limiting the development of property ~
rather than arbitrarily designating a certain class of property
to have unreasonably low densities, and .we would follow along '
wi th Com. Mi ni x' s c omments and ques ti ons today, that thes e
densities should be no worse that one unit per five acres.
Other comment deals with the upland preservation, and not to
delay the fact, we would suggest that there be an agriculture
exemption for agriculture developed properties. And, finally
our family interests own significant amounts of property along
the Johns on Road, I ndri o Road Corridor, and we woul d als o j oi n i n
Justice Alderman' s obj ection to reduce the densities in what is
now presently, a mixed-use category which had been in the
previous Plan submitted designated as two units to the acre and I
believe staff's proposal is to change that to one unit to five
acres, and we would object to any change that reduces the
densities from the original Plans.
Thank you very much.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thank you. Next. Okay.
Mr. Ll oyd: Mr. Chai rman and Commi s s i oners , my name i s Robert M.
Lloyd. I' m an attorney with offices at 311 South Second Street
in Fort Pierce. I' m here speaking on behalf of Mr. Roger
Toplawnd who is a property owner, residential property, and
basically, I'd like to make a couple comments and also like to
reserve the right to speak later on other issues if necessary.
Just philosophically, as I understood the original Comprehensive
Management Plan, it was to be in general terms, and I don' t know
that Chapter 163 has changed that greatly. And, as I have read,
or tried to read through the comments that have come back under
ORC, and I might add, it' s pretty difficult, it' s a long involved
document, they get very very specific it appears to me on certain
_ issues and somethings were not really clear to me from ORC and
the County's response to ORC. One of them was this upland
preservation issue. Unfortunately, I didn't have the chance to
get with staff, and that's my fault I should have gotten with
25
them earlier, but I' m not sure that I understand it. In other
words, on residential property is the ORC proposal and response
by staff that you have a 15 to 25 percent preservation of native :
vegetation, and I guess my question is, what is native
vegetation. In other words, if you have a site that has pepper
trees and Australian pines, is that going to require that you put
native vegetation back on 15 to 25 percent or are there certain
areas that this would not be applicable to? In other words, this
requirement, residential properties for example, are there
certain areas that can be designated or shown that it would be
applicable to? Other words, that have natural growth at this
time or natural vegetation that this would be applicable to,
because as I understand it, from talking with engineers,
developmental engineers, that by the time you take care of storm
water retention, parking and other requirements for residential
development and then add on top of that this preservation, you're
going to make it real difficult.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. That was not explained before
we started the process and I think Mr. Virta indicated that he
was. We're half way through this part of the hearing but it
might be a good point to do it at this point in time.
Just to start off, the 100 acres that Judge Alderman was
referring to, the theoretical 100 acres that he was referring to
before, if it contained 100 percent undisturbed native upland
vegetation, then the correct 25 percent, as proposed, would have
to be set aside. But, I guess what it comes down to, is what is
the definition of native upland vegetation or habitat, and Mr. .
Virta might be able to explain it in more detail.
Mr. Virta: Yes, Mr. Chairman. What the policy, where this
laminates from, if I could back up to that to try to set the
whole stage, as you indicated earlier, the Department of
Community Af f ai rs di d not s ay we had to have a 2 5 percent rul e,
what they pointed out in their ORC Report is that we did not
adequately provide for their preservation of upland habitats and
referenced the fact that the. Treasure Coast Regional Planning
Council's policy plan did have such a standard and they're in
line.
Scrub, Sand Pine flatwoods, etc. such satisfied habitat shall be
preserved in viable condition within intact canopy, understory
and ground cover. The intent here is not to create habitat, but
to preserve habitat, so in fact, if you have lands that are
covered with Australian pines or other invasive exotics or if you
have land that' s been used for other purposes, such as improved
pasture, or whatever, you know longer generally have native
habitat, it doesn' t have all those conditions present. I f it' s
been clear cut and has been invaded by pepper or Australian pine
or whatever, then certainly you don' t have native habitat
whatsoever. But, the criterion here that we' re looking for are
those components of habitat that make it a native plant community
and those include the canopy, understory, ground cover.
Chairman Trefelner: If any one of those criteria were missing,
then, of course again, this is very vague it's intended to be
dealt with in the LDR' s this summer.
~
Mr. Virta: This research, Mr. Chairman, would be contained in
the LDR's and it varies by type of vegetated community, for
_ _ _ .
.
26
instance, the cover portion, the tree cover portion in a pine
flatwoods is far different than it would be in a scrub, but
certainly those are the characteristics of habitat they are
looking for, canopy, ground cover and understory.
Mr. Mi ni x: Mr. Chai rman.
Chairman Trefelner: Mr. Minix.
Com. Minix: Mr. Virta told us at the Workshop there was three
criteria that must be met to qualify as natural habitat. Is that
changed now or
Chairman Trefelner: He just outlined the canopy.
Mr. Virta: There' s canopy, understory and ground cover.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay.
~
Com. Minix: Thank you.
Mr. Ll oyd: Mr. Chai rman, I thi nk that helps , I thi nk i t hel ps
some, other words, the question is going to be if you have a 20
acre parcel just of piney woods that you' ve owned forever that
may have a residential classification, we're still not clear that
25 acres of that have to be set aside, you're saying that the
LDR' s will be more specific on that issue as to what has to be
done?
Chairman Trefelner: That' s correct. That' s why this is
certainly more specific than what you and I thought it was going
to start out to be, but then again, it' s not specific enough in
order to be able to answer all of the questions today.
Mr. Lloyd: Correct, but that's the concern I had. In other
words, why are we even at this stage in a percentage area, an~' I
assume it`s because of something that the Treasure Coast Regional
Planning Council has come up with. I question their authority to
c~me up with specific percentages at this stage. It seems like
to me that they woul d better , addres s ed i n the LDR' s at a 1 ater
point. Legal staff can give you their recommendation on that,
but I woul d s ugges t that the ori gi nal propos al, that i n general
terms is policies and goals setting out preservation of goals and
policies would be sufficient without going. into specific
percentages.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay.
Mr. Ll oyd: Thank you very much.
- Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thank yo~, Mr. Ll oyd. Worki ng our way
back, i n the thi rd, f ourth row, anyone in the f ourth row? Yea,
over here.
27 _ _ _ _ _ - _
Mr. Nel s on: Good morni ng, Chai rman, Commi s s i oners , r~y name i s
Greg Nelson, I'm representing two land owners in ~t. Lucie County
here today, Bernard Egan and Ten Mile Creek Groves.
I' d 1 i ke to j ust begi n by adopting the s ame obj ecti ons that have
been made by Jim Alderman and Michael Minton with regard to the
Indrio Road Corridor where the zoning has changed from two units
per acre, one unit per acre, to one unit per five acres. Mr.
Egan is owner of property in that area and objects there.
I' 11 try and keep my comments as to property very brief because
we have submitted written comments and I would just incorporate
those obj ections as part of our obj ection for the record. But,
let me just say, that in addition to that property, Ten Mile
Creek Groves, Inc. and Mr. Egan own property between 95 and
Glades Road, west of the Turnpike at Okeechobee Road and along
McCarty Road and at all those places zoning has changed from one
unit per acre to one unit per 10 acres or one unit per five acres
and we object to that change.
My purpose in speaking here today is to preserve the ability to
participate in the process should this go to Administrative
Hearing down the road. I almost hope that it does, and encourage
the County to take that stand, I think it's the proper stand
here. I believe that the criteria in which the Department of
Community Affairs has dictated to the County here as far as urban
sprawl is without any legal basis. It's incapable of definition,
they have been asked to define it several times and they' ve been
unable to do so. The legislature has twice been asked by the DCA
to incorporate an urban sprawl criteria into the statutes and the
legislature has objected to that criteria twice. So, I would
object to the use of that urban sprawl criteria in this process,
and I would in fact say that the use of urban sprawl is
inconsistent with the Growth Management Act in itself at Section
163.3161 in describing the intent of the Growth Management Act,
it is said that the process of Comprehensive Plan is intended
that units of local government prevent the overcrowding of land
and avoid undue concentration of population. Now, with the
criteria that the DCA has dictated to St. Lucie County here, they
are actually doing the opposite, they're trying to concentrate
all of the population onto the coastal area and not allow people
to chose to live in a rural or suburban district, so I would
object on the basis that the Plan would be inconsistent with the
objections of the Growth Management Act.
I would submit for your consideration that this Board could take
a position that in the agricultural areas to the east of Shinn
Road that the use of two and one-half acres, one unit per two and
one-half acres to the east of Shinn Road would not be an
inappropriate criteria, that, as previously stated, would not
fall into the percentage formula which DCA is trying to impose
because those lands would contain agricultural classification,
and would not be considered part of the urban area. My
understanding is that the Shinn Road area is proposed as a major
corridor in the future, connecting to Range Line Road in Martin
County and extending north in Indian River County connecting with
66th Avenue. I know that in Indian River County areas to the
east directly bordering 66th Avenue have a density of two and
one-half units per acre in what they call rural fringe district.
- Com. Minix commented that in some fire plans that have been
approved found in compliance by the DCA that the.zoning has been
less than the one unit per 20 acres as the staff has adopted here
and I would say, in Broward County, the zoning allows two and
_ _ _ _ _
28
one-half units per acre in agriculture areas; Sarasota County has
been found in compliance that one unit per five acres. Given
that we have over hal f the County at thi s poi nt i n one uni t per ,
20 acre west of Shinn Road, I~ would think that it would not be
unreasonable to leave some flexibility in agricultural areas at
one unit per two and one-half acres. So, let me just conclude by
saying, I hope that the County will, the Commission will do what
it believes is best for the County and not cave into the
arbitrary and comprecious directives of the DCA. At last count,
there was 72 cases before the Division of Administrative
Hearings, in regard to Comprehensive Plan. Certainly, it is not
an uncommon thing, more of them than not, it seems end up going
that way, and eventually things are negotiated and found to be in
compl i ance. So, I woul d j us t urge you to agai n cons i der changi ng
the densities on the agricultural lands. Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. Next. Cazie.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Trefelner: What - What.
Com. Culpepper: While the next person is coming forward, Mr.
Vi rta or Mr. Murphy, what were the ori gi nal des i gnati ons i n the
agricultural areas that we sent to Tallahassee? With regards to
densities per acre?
Mr. Virta: One unit per acre.
Com. Culpeppe~: One unit per acre?
~ Mr. Vi rta: Ri ght.
Com. Culpepper: Thank you.
Ms. Jackson: Good morning. First of all, on behalf of the Port
St. Lucie Chamber of Commerce, you should have been forwarded a
letter through the LPA which stated our, our feelings against the
densities being reduced in the agricultural areas. If you don' t
have a copy of that letter, I've gotta copy here for you.
(Ms. Jackson passing out copies of letter sent to LPA)
Chai~man Trefelner: Oh, this is a copy of the letter to the
Planning and Zoning Commission.
Ms. Jackeon: Now, on behalf of myself and clients that I
repres ent, I' ve been through, as well as, I' m s ure the enti re
Board has, all of the revisions that have come out on the
Comprehensive Plan, and needless~ to say, we're aware that they
~ have changed consiaerably. Where the 25 percent preservation is
concerned, we have some serious concerns. The first of which is,
if you use the guidelines that Terry is stating that you need
ground cover, canopy, and whatever the third one is, you may have
29 -
a site that's a hundred acres or a thousand acres and it's
completely planted and the site next door may be a thousand acres
and it may be in a natural state. So, are you then saying that
the planted acreage can use a hundred acres or a thousand acres
and that the unplanted acreage would be reduced by 25 percent of
that? Are you saying that the market will, if I go and buy the
grove that's already planted that I'm going to pay this
gentlemen that much more and I'm going to pay that gentlemen that
much less, because what I' m basing it on is basically how much
use of the property and how much cash I can generate from that
property.
The same thing holds true, and no one has mentioned it, along US
#1 or any other corridor where commercial general property is
located, and that to give you an example, as I was driving up
this morning, I thought to myself, okay, dig out a specific area
in the County, and I did. Looking at the area along US #1 south
of Port St. Lucie Boulevard, the County has in its jurisdiction,
approximately 60 acres of commercial general vacant land. Now,
I' m sure you are all familiar that Port St. Lucie is a bunch of
quarter acre lots and we have very very little hope of generating
anymore commercial general property. So, if you take away
between nine acres to fifteen acres, which today on our tax rolls
is valued at between 2.4 to 4 million dollars worth of commercial
general property that we can use today for shopping centers,
strip centers or whatever we need, which would leave the
concurrency standards by the state because, it's my understanding
that they are looking for us to in-fill urban areas which US #1
is an urban area. So, by eliminating those commercial
properties, ~you will be eliminating the services that would be
demanded and therefore, you're going to promote urban sprawl
because we have no other way to go but west, so, it doesn' t make
any s ens e. I t does n' t make any s ens e f rom an agri cul tural poi nt
of view and it doesn't make any sense from a commercial point of
view, and I stand before you today, and I have had client' s that
have said this to me, that if this 25 percent preservation
remains in tact and it goes forth, then they will appeal the Plan
themselves, and I don't want to see my clients be put in that
position. I think it's important as the County Commission that
we look out for the welfare of everyone within this County.
I have other comments in reference to other parts of the Plan but
I' 11 s ave thos e f or 1 ater. The only other thi ng that I wanted to
point out on the 25 percent preservation is that in staff
comments, the language regarding that preservation changes, in
the coastal management element the words and the actual policy
state that we shall preserve 15 to 25 percent. When you get into
future land use and you get into conservation it states that we
will develop criteria for it, so in one element we're stating we
s hal l pres erve a mi ni mum, i n another el ement we' re s tati ng that
we shall develop criteria. So, I think we seriously need to look
at the elements and make sure all the language is correct.
And, then 1 as t but not 1 eas t, a f ri end o f mi ne f axed me a, and I
didn't have time to go back to Martin County, but it comes out of
Martin County policy which deals with native upland preservation.
In their policy, specifically .exempts commercial and agricultural
uses, and I know that at the Workshop, I heard Com. Minix ask
staff to get with RPC and find out what their goals are, because
i f thei r goal s are to get, f or exampl e, on US # 1 a two and one -
half acre piece of property and preserve it in native vegetation
- and have these little clumps all over the County, its not
fulfilling any goal. If we were to segmate them into districts
and perhaps collect impact fees, and I'm not suggesting that we
do that, and put all of those moneys in a specific area and
30
preserve something that is worthwhile, then it makes sense, but
this doesn' t make any sense, and I don' t think that it achieves
anything except inverse condemnation. _
Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you.
Mrs. Dorough: Good morning Commissioners. I' m Frances Dorough,
and I live at 7180 Silver Oak Drive, Port St. Lucie, and I' m a
land owner out just east of Carlton Road where I have cattle that
are now roaming the area. I would like to obj ect very much, to
the one unit per 20 acres. If nothing more, than on the fact
that if the state is going to allow some counties to have five
acres per unit, then why say that St. Lucie County cannot have
that also, that they have to have 20 acres. It is reducing the
val ue of the 1 and, as I s ai d ri ght now, my cows are perf e ctl y
happy to graze on this land. Something can happen in the beef
industry where I cannot afford to stay in the cattle industry.
It's also good land to raise citrus, then I could go into the
citrus business, but then I cannot afford to take 25 percent of
that land for drainage, holding ponds and then another 25 percent
for the upland, whatever you ~zant to call it. That cuts it down
to 50 percent of usage, unless, they can get together and decide
what they are going to do. Twenty-five percent of each parcel or
is it if this parcel doesn't have any under over canopies, or
wetlands, or whatever, that you cannot use it, then it' s okay to
put it into citrus.
Every time that I have actually have come to the County and
asked specific questions of what; it may be related to my
property, I real l y don' t know, and the s ame thi ng that you f ol ks
got this morning when you asked the state man a specific
question, well, I don't really know. When are we going to get to
know what these things that are set out with the state or the
counties, or whatever that relate to us as individuals, when are
we going to be able to know what we're in for? I object to
anything that's going to decrease the value of my property and
the things that I may be in time be able to do with it.
Now, right now, I live where I live, and it' s not shown on, it' s
shown the map there as yellow, which is, and the property around,
as residential suburban, I guess it is. You go over to the over
map, and come to find out that everything around me, where I
live, is going to be MH-5 which is five units to the acre. Mine
is two units to the acre, just in the one block. Why take this
here one block out to, say heah, you can only build at that,
instead of what is in the area? I've gotta live in a place where
it' s low density, right now, fine, I' m one unit to ten acres, and
as long as I' m livin that' s probably what it' s going to stay, but
I don' t want to be locked into something that, just in that one
little block, we can only do one thing, and yet everything
around, I' ve gotta put up with everybody else' s high density. I
very much agree with what Jim Alderman said, I don' t thing the
County should let the state just use you, and as a result use us
as individuals.
Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. ~
Mrs. Tetzloff: Good morning. My name is Holly Tetzloff, and I' m
here on behalf of the St. Lucie County Audubon Society. My
_ _ 31
husband, Larr~, is president of the Audubon Society of St. Lucie
County. I have some comments, not some very popular comments
compared to what other's have been saying, but there very
definite comments just the same.
On behalf of St. Lucie Audubon Society, we whole-heartedly
support the preservation of the upland habitat. We do support
the 25 percent figure. We do have specific recommendations that
we signed up to speak about under the conservation element and
also the coastal management element which I will do so at that
time. We must remember that every acre destroyed in St. Lucie
County means the permanent loss of plants and animals, and we are
very concerned about that, and we ask you to consider those
comments.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thank you. Yes , how many more do we have
on these two issues. Just one more. I think while you're
wal ki ng up here, I thi nk i t' s f ai rl y s ave to s ay that i f we are
lucky we will finish the land use element this morning before
lunch and not get into the transportation mass transit, port and
those other items probably until after lunch. So, if you are
here for one of those items, like I can say right now, if there' s
no obj ection, that the only element we will finish this morning,
hopefully finish this morning, will be future land use.
Go ahead.
Mr. Waltere: My name is Mark Walters, speaking as an :
individual. I' m involved in real estate sales, and one of the
questions I have is we've determined, one of the few of the
questions that I have, have gladly been answered this morning,
and it's been brought to the point about this upland preservation
that it came from the Regional Planning Council of which every
county has members on the Regional Planning, and I understand how
many times things are developed by the staff, at least our local
commissioners that sit on the Board, have a change to hear every
one of those comments first hand. ~
I think everybody has respect to other people's feelings even if
they can' t agree with them. One of the, we have researched all
along on this upland preservation and some good sense has been '
brought to light about it, he explained what a upland actually
was with canopy, understory and ground cover, which I understand '
now. Is it the intent of that upland preservation to look at the
County of what hasn't already been deviated from the natural
state and try to get 25 percent of the County into it, is it a
piece by piece process, site specific, on each particular parcel,
and it was mentioned to me in one of our investigations that the
native habitat, upland preservation was tied to something that
was a feasible project for wildlife and all, which if it is, we
realize that if you don' t have enough acreage, it' s of no value,
and Genevi eve earli er menti oned pi eces on US # 1 had no purpos e.
Also, if it' s going to stick, which I would like to see it
removed until we work on LDR's and go from that point and
determine what' s feasible and ~ not, could somebody explain to me
if the upland preservation will have anything to do with large
enough parcels to actually make them feasible for habitat and
wildlife or is it lust the trees and vegetation. we' re trying to
preserve, and is there a plan to go forward or is this to early
to determine if we' re going to do a set asides, are we going to
_ target specific parcels of the Cou~nty and try to acquire them for
the people and do trade offs, can somebody that' s tied with the
Regional Planning Council on the Commission give me some kind of
insight to this?
_ 32 _
Chairman Trefelner: I think the answer to your question, is no.
Let me j us t....
Mr. Walters: There' s so much confusion out here.
Chairman Trefelner: I understand that confusion and
uncertainty, certainly I don' t understand, there is alot in this
that is uncertain, but just to kind of go back to what was
previously mentioned, in the coastal management as well as in the
conservation elements of the proposed Comprehensive Plan, there
are policies and objectives which address upland preservation as
well as wetland preservation, etc. In the statement, as
recommended by staff now, is such that, and I' m not quoting it
s i nce I don' t have i t i n f ront of ine, i s that through the, by
Augus t 1 s t, 19 90, through i t' s Land Devel opment Regul ati ons , the
County s hal l devel op ordi nances , or i n i t' s LDR' s, provi de f or
methods to preserve upland and wetland, through those LDR's, but
it doesn't specify how a percentage where, whether it be
transferred, whatever, and those issues will be dealt with when
we go through the specific zonzngs. .
I n the future 1 and us e el ement, i n an ef f ort to comply with an
element of the Regional Planning Council, there is one paragraph
that says, it is orily one paragraph, I believe, that says, that
ties a percentage to it. Okay, in the coastal management and
the conservation there' s not a percentage in there, and yet it' s
very vague, but you and I could debate that issue when we get to
it this summer. On the other side of the coin, is with a
definite percentage of land use, what ever we adopt we' re bound
by at this point in time, and although that one paragraph can' t
answer any of our questions, it can answer a percentage question,
but it can' t answer the question of how, whether you can, as it
was referenced before, acquire some other property and donate it
in lieu of being able to develop this parcel or pay some money
into a pot so that you could, at what ever, so for the County to
buy other upland areas that might be good for a natural preserve
and you be able to keep this here for residential or for
commercial development or agricultural. All those questions are
not answered in that one paragraph and I don't expect that they
will be.
Mr. Walters: Then I would say, that I would be in opposition to
the pres ervati on and 1 et' s go f orth i n the LDR' s and addres s i t
and oppose it to the state. And, one other question, in that 25 ~
percent, did any, was the word functioning habitat anywhere ,
involved in that, or just those three issues of coverage? :
Mr. Virta: I'm not certain what benefit the term function would
have at that point. It talks about habitat and the
characteristics of habitat, whereas certainly wetlands you get
certain functions and values, it would be pretty difficult to
measure any kind of function or value of an upland.
Mr. Walters: Okay, I was just thinking from a standpoint, we
were talking about if you had a piece of property might be three
acres on US #1, you know what value with setting aside 15 foot
s tri p, i s that s omethi ng that i s a f uncti onal val ue or j us t, does
it matter, does it not that it ha's three criterion. Also, just
in sense of it all, when the tree ordinance was coming down the
road, bulldozers went to work, with this, it' s going to send the
bulldozers to work to take care of habitat, and rightfully so,
_ _ _ 3~ _ _ _ _ _
everybodies trying to get under the gun. So, no use forcing the
bulldozers, if you can deal with it ahead of time.
Chairman Trefelner: No, cause you still have the tree ordinance.
Mr. Walters: I understand that. Thank you anyway.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, thank you. I thought there were only
two, but Betty Lou, was that your hand? Was that your hand?
Okay, and then one other back there.
Mrs. Wells: My name is Betty Lou Wells, 1124 Jasmine Avenue,
and I am here now to represent the Conservation Alliance in an
area that I really didn' t come prepared to discuss today, but I .
think that what we have heard so far shows a genuine concern on
the part of alot of people for a alot of concerns that they
ri ghtl y have. I do thi nk what we have heard though al s o s hows
the need for more discussion, for discussion among the
agricultural development and conservation community because the
St. Lucie County Conservation Alliance, of course, is concerned
with conservation of our natural resources, and we have not
talked about that this morning, and that' s what the Treasure
Coast 25 percent figure was trying to address. It was
thoroughly discussed there two years ago from the agricultural
standpoint as well as the preservation of natural functions and
of wildlife. And, at the time it was adopted, the Council felt
strongly that that 25 percent should apply across the board
because they didn~t see any other way that our Florida systems
and our Florida environment and wildlife could be anything like
what it is today in the next 25 years if we didn't have some such
protection. Now they did include the possibility that if
somebody purchased 1,000 acres of totally inhabitated by native
species communities and they wanted to develop that, that they
did have an option to come in and purchase another piece of ~
property of 250 acres would have satisfied it, as I understand
' it, in another place for preservation, if that would suit the
land owners development plan better.
I understand the questions about reserving a 15 foot strip along
US #1 on some property, and I think that this certainly points
out the need to identify the areas where we do have special ~
things that should be preserved in the County so that such areas
could be looked at for purchase either by developers or by the ~
County in some way. You do though have corridors for wildlife to
traverse which don't have to be great big acres, but which get
them from one area to another, which satisfies much better some
of their living arrangements then simply to be bottled up on a ~
particular ten acre tract even. The wildlife doesn't understand
these restrictions, they do fly and crawl and run from one part
of our County to the other, and if we're going to continue to
have thi s as I thi nk, al l of us real ly cons ci ous 1 y or
unconsciously want, then we're going to have to try and figure
out some ways to do it along with our development.
Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. Okay.
_ ~
Mr. Williams: Good morning. I' 11 try and make this brief. For
the record, my name is Blaine Williams, I'm here representing the
34 . _ _ _
Treasure Coast Wildlife Federation.
I think it's important to comment briefly on exactly this
division between those who are pro and those who are against. It
think the gentleman who just asked alot of poignant questions had
a good idea of exactly what the wildlife federation and most
environmentalists are feeling, is the quality of what we're
asking for in 25 percent upland preservation is not addressed by
that requi rement. I thi nk that i t' s appropri ate to j us t bri e f 1 y
take a few lines from 9-J (5); we require to conserve,
appropriately use and protect fisheries, wildlife and wildlife
habitat, we're required to protect a protection of native
vegetation communities. Protection of conservation of the
natural functions of the existing soils, fisheries, wildlife
habitats, rivers, bays, lakes, etc. We have people who are
s ayi ng that that, no way, we' re not goi ng to do i t, we' re
absolutely opposed in any way shape or form to any preservation ~
whatsoever on these agricultural lands. Well, I think there' s a
tremendous difference between what an agricultural developer
does, whether it' s tomato crops or citrus crops, or whether it' s
cattle. Obviously, Mr. Adams.is able to preserve 25 percent if
you were to visit his ranch, you'd see that there's more than 25
percent of upland preserve. The nature of the cattle business
can allow for that, where it's brought up that groves cannot.
Well, what's to prevent everything in the agricultural area from
becoming groves? If that were to occur, we would be one solid
grove from one end of the County to the other except those areas
that were taken up by urban development. There is no habitat
left except what is owned by the state or what is owned by the
federal government or by the County. We have to address the fact
that we're going to end up like England, where the only wildlife
habitat is either on private property, public property or on
fence roads between parcels where the fences have actually become
the wildlife corridors so the wildlife can travel from one area
into another because everything is developed.
Citrus does not allow for the existence of natural functions and
wi 1 dl i f e habi tat, i t j us t does n' t al l ow f or i t. That was brought
up, how are you going to cram all those trees and still allow for
the existence of natural functions. It doesn' t happen. I don' t
, see in this proposal, and unfortunately, we do not have the
manpower in the environmental organizations to give you a viable
alternative today so that you'd have something else to add to '
your pol i cy. I' ve got a 1 ot of s eri ous ques ti ons . Why s houl d a
grove owner or developer of agricultural lands be responsible
personally for having to supply that 25 percent preservation for
wildlife which the value we all receive. Everybody in St. Lucie
County and the state of Florida is going to receive the value of
that preservation through having that habitat available for
f uture generati ons , but yet we' re not of f eri ng any way f or thos e -
people to receive any contribution from the other citizens of the
County to help pay for it. I don' t agree with that. I would be ~
quite willing to pay to help preserve large areas of land out
west of town, I would be quite willing to contribute to a system
that woul d remain vi abl e, that woul d have habi tat corri dors
between large tracts that would encompass both uplands and
wetlands and essentially would remain an area that would continue
to be viable for wildlife in perpetuaty. But, preserving five
percent here, 10 percent here, 25 percent here and have that 25
percent surrounded by qrove activity or highways, I've been in
the development business long enough to know that that doesn't
work. The animals end up either impacted severally by human
activity or farrell animals or traffic or some other thing that
will disrupt the wildlife activity and you will not have the
preservation values which you are originally trying to achieve.
I don' t know what to tell you, but I think that we need to stop
35 _ _ _ _ _
this tunnel vision and all of this resistance to a Plan that
makes sense. The whole idea of preservation, how can anybody
argue with the fundamental values that we're trying to achieve,
and yet there are people who are doing that. They' re saying no
way, and yet as everybody s ays no way, as I s ai d earl i er, what
are we going to end up with, we're going to end up with nothing.
I think it' s ridiculous to through it out the window. I don' t
have, unfortunately, an alternative here, but I would like for
you, if you can, develop, I know you have to make a decision
today, I wish that we had the ability to give you the language to
insert, but we don't. I think a trade off of preservation
requirements in kind, or monetary to assist in achieving the
goals would be great. Moneys would be used to acquire larger
tracts and corridors with greater habitat value. How that can be
achieved, I' m not a professional, I don' t know how to tell you
that.
As far as the changing of the density on agricultural lands, I '
see alot of conflicting comments being made. Mr. Adams gets up
here and tells us what happened in Texas. Well, I'm not a
graduate in economics, but 2 can tell you from what I've read, it
seems to me that the over inflation of property values led to the
collapse. There was too much money loaned out, it couldn' t be
s us tai ned and that' s why you had s avi ngs and 1 oans and banks
failing. Property was over-inflated, they borrowed to heavily on
the value of the land and the land couldn't sustain it. Now, how
in the world does changing the agricultural value of the
property, if the agricultural value of that property is ~
reflected, in how many tomatoes and how much citrus it's going to
produc.e and that's something we want to preserve, is the
agricultural value, then why are these people screaming about the
density? They should be concerned about the soil types the water
availability the access to markets, those kind of things. I
don' t get the point. If a person' s up here defending his right
to use his land for agriculture, that' s fine, but, if he' s
defending his right to be able to turn around and sell that land
and allow someone to move on it and develop it, that's a
different story entirely.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you, Blaine. I think that' s everyone
who had wanted to specifically address the 25 percent or the
density item. I was mistaken, there' s one more. Yes, you' re the ~
last one.
Mr. Van der Lugt: I wanna speak primarily concerning my own
piece of property. I have a piece of property
Chairman Trefelner: Could you first, we need to have your name
and your address.
Mr. Van der Lugt: Oh, i t' s Pete Van der Lugt, and my addres s i s
1001 South Header Canal Road. I have a piece of property out '
Angel Road Extension that presently it can be two units per acre
as I understand it. If this goes through, it would be one per 10
acres. This would have to tax my memory, but back when I went to
school and they taught us about logic and that sort of stuff such
_ as sudo-technical jargon and that ~SOrt of stuff, I feel that the
state, or the people at the state level, have far exceeded any
rights that we ever meant to grant them. They are using it in an
attempt to go back, when I learned logic, at the end of the class
36
they were saying this is how you get fooled, so don't get fooled.
But apparently, when they taught these people logic they taught
them go forth and deceive. Because, for example, they are asking
you to decree in my particular case, a piece of land that is
worth approximately a million dollars, they are saying to you to -
say to me, Mr. Van der Lugt, I decree your land will be worth
$200, 000, but it' s for your own good.
Most of these plans don't really accomplish what they are meant
to accomplish, and if things are developed badly, usually time
takes care of it. For example, when I was growing up, we had
this ugly city dump and today it' s Indian River Community
College. Another example of artificial habitat, I remember about
20 or so years ago when the project was to widen and deepen the
Belcher Canal, there was a group of people up in arms, it was
going to ruin fishing forever, and for a fact for about a year to
two years, it did ruin the fishing, but after now, 20 years later
they have a boat ramp out ~there and the situation is far
i mproved.
I am asking you, or pleading with you, as far as I' m concerned
you're the Board of Directors for the business of this County and :
what they would do to our property and our property rights is
outrageous. It's far beyond their rights and I would plead with
you all to not accept out of hand. One habitat I know that you
know, these people at the state level are going to be relentless.
They' re asking you now for 10 times what they hope to get. Two
or three years hence, they're going to ask you for 10 times
again, and you' re going to keep compromising when in fact, what
they are doing is unconstitutional.
Again, as you can I tell, I' m just a wee might nervous when I
speak. I would just say that what they are doing, or what they '
are asking you to do, you are representatives, what they are
asking you to do is unlawful, it' s unconstitutional, it does not
usually accomplish what they think it will accomplish, so called
saving of the environment. They are people that are not out in
the real world, they are people that do these things on paper,
their planning on paper. For one thing, so far as ornamental
plants or citrus plants they.carry on photosynthesis just like
wild plants and trees. Don't worry about the development of
property.
How did they come up with this idea of a sprawling development as
being something that is unattractive? What's the alternative?
It would be a confined area where they jammed all of the
population into which would be high-rises and confined small
homes. I would think you would be delighted that our development
is a sprawling development. Excellent!
I' ve heard, or at least I came up with this in the paper where
they were calling the development of this County as willy-nilly
development. Now, as I understand willy-nilly is suppose to be
compulsive without choice. This is what is willy-nilly, this is
what gives us no choice, this is what is compulsory. The
developers in this County they can't make us do anything, and
we' re not compelled to do anything. We' re not compelled to buy,
we're not compelled to sell, but it is our property and we should
be allowed to do so.
When I say these old terms of logic, one of the means of trickery
and deception is to quickly accuse your opponent of what you've
_ been up to. That is what I declare the people on the state levei
are doing. They are trying to defraud you to defraud us, and
please don' t do it.
37
~
Thank you very much.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. Is this on the 25 percent?
Okay, thank you sir, is there any one else after, because I
thought we were finished a little while ago? After this
gentlemen over here. Okay.
Mr. McIver: I thought we were going to have to go by the list,
I missed the early . . . .
Chairman Trefelner: Oh, okay. No, we were but
Mr. McIver: Well, I'l1 make this very brief and not be
repetitous. It was mention earlier
Com. Culpepper: Name.
Chairman Trefelner: Yes, could we have your name and address
please.
Mr. McI ver: Oh, I' m s orry, Larry McI ver, I come bef ore you as
a, I'm a citrus grower in St. Lucie County and very definitely as
a concerned american. We elected you, members of the County
Commission, to represent us in St. Lucie County as citizens or a
town as a developer or in agriculture, and not to represent
Collier County, Brevard County, and I hear this about Broward
County. We would just like to ask you to please~submit something ,
that does not put a stone around our neck and not submit
something that is not, will not protect us immediately. Please .
don' t leave it in the hands of the Regional Coast Planning
Council or the DCA, we as k that you j ust pl eas e, di g down deep
and think hard and fight it and represent us to the best of your
ability, and we know, we do respect that.
Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you, sir. Okay, if that' s all the
comments we have on the 25 percent issue and the agricultural
density designations, the Board will discuss these issues in an
attempt to resolve them. Any action we take right now would be ~
tentative, not filed until such time as we would adopt the entire
plan, but we previously had announced and expected to at least
resolve some of these on a tentative basis as we went along, so,
I'll open it now for discussion from the Board. Perhaps we could
deal with the density issue and then with the 25 percent issue.
Any Commissioners?
Com. Mi rii x: Mr. Chai rman. .
Chairman Trefelner: Commissioner Minix.
Com. Minix: One of t3~e things we that we' ve touched on, but I
don't think that we've really gone into depth on, is the
_ concurrency issue. The concurrenCy issue, as I understand it, .
will take care that nothing is built until infrastructure needs
are i n pl ace. I t does n' t s eem to me that, that we' re real l y
protecting our County from over building without the infrastructe
_ _ 38
actually being in place by placing 20 acres to the unit or 10
acres or five. The concurrency issue in the Comprehensive Plan
is the one that is going to insure that nothing is built, not
even on the one acre unless the infrastructure needs are there.
So, development really, or protecting from development isn't
really the issue here. Now, let's say what is the issue? Is the
issue to preserve wildlife and natural habitat throughout the
County? I f that' s the i s s ue, then the way that we' re doi ng thi s
is going about it the wrong way. We' re penalizing those people
that have done something in the past to actually protect natural
habitat. We' re telling them now, they' re the ones that have to
pres erve 2 5 percent of thei r 1 and, where thos e peopl e that have
planted in citrus, or have cleared for building, or have cleared
for cattle, whatever, they no longer have to protect because they
don't have any natural habitat. I agree 100 percent with the
peopl e that have come up bef ore us and s aid that i f we' re goi ng
to protect the natural habitat, that's for the whole county to
pay their share, that' s not just for those people out there that
have done their share in the past with their land to preserve
whatever natural habitat is left in this County. So, we're
saying then, if we are saying that we're not doing this on
density because to curb development, and if it' s not fair to do
it for the preservation of wildlife and property, then I don't
see where DCA has the right to dictate to us what density should :
be. I firmly believe that we ought to, if it' s necessary to go
to Administrative Hearings, but before we go to Administrative
Hearings, I' d like to see us go to the Cabinet, I' d like to see
this County Commission go to the Cabinet and try to get some
clarification on just what is it that we're trying to accomplish
here i n St. Luci e County. And, I' m certainly not of the opi ni on
that we ought to go in with any 25 percent rule or that we should
look at 20 or even 10 acres to the unit being something that is
really beneficial to this County.
Com. Fenn: Mr. Chair.
Chairman Trefelne~: Thank you. Commissioner Fenn.
Com. Fenn: I concur in part with what Com. Minix has said, but
I woul d 1 i ke to go a s tep f urther. I don' t thi nk that we s houl d
go to the point of exempting just the agricultural community from
that upland preservation rule. I think that if we're going to do
i t, we s houl d do i t f or the enti re County and 1 et i t c ome down
that the entire County will have this, if we are to do it.
Otherwise, I say let's delete that from our, delete that from our
Growth Plan and proceed to, if DCA and the Treasure Coast
Regional Planning Council would lika to take us to task for not
havi ng i t i n our Pl an, whi ch we di d not have at the be gi nni ng,
then let them do that and let them show that we need to have that
in. So, I would be for just deleting that 25 percent upland
preservation rule all together and let's just move on.
Deal i ng wi th the dens i ty, that' s another i s s ue, but i t' s a s i de
issue to this, but at the present time, I feel that we could deal
with, if it comes to be, this .25 percent of upland or upland
preservation, not 25 percent, but upland preservation, I think we
can deal with that when we come down to our LDR's, Land '
Development Regulations, I think we can deal with that at that
time and that would be some time about July or August when we get
_ into that. I think we can move ~orward on this issue and get
ready to go to the .next issue, Mr. Chairman, if we want to take
the temporary count on how we, the other Board Members feel on
that sir.
_ _ _ _
39
Chairman Trefelner: well, I thought that we were going to start
on the dens i ty, but obvi ous l y we' re s tarti ng on the pres ervati on
issue first.
Com. Fenn: I think the preservation is much greater at this
point than the density, as Jim said, is going ~to take care of
itself or something else.
Chairman Trefelner: Any other comments on the upland
preservation? I have some comments, and after having listen for
at least two and one-half hours on what some people might say
were opposite sides of the fence. I know, Mr. Williams, Blaine
Williams, had some very appropoe c~mments that I don't think were
necessarily and diametrically opposed to what some of the other
land owners and representative's of land owners said. The reason
I don't think that their opposed or opposite is because, I can
stand here and tell you absolutely and unconditionally
positively, that I think that we should attempt to preserve at
least 25 percent of our native community. I don' t think that .
there is any question in my mind that that's not an admirable
goal. I think the problem arises is in how do we accomplish
that? I think Mr. Williams indicated some concern over that, and
I think those of you who are land owners and representative's of
land owners indicated some concern over it, particularly how it
affects your particular property.
Mrs. Jackson indica~.ed something that was very appropriate, that
if you take a 10 acre piece of commercial land on US #1 and you
carve out 25 percent of it in a 10 foot strip, that has
absolutely very little benefit to the wildlife as far as that' s
concerned. So, I personally feel, that an objective or policy;
however it's written in here, which calls for a 25 percent
preservation of a particular piece of property isn't the best way
to approach it, and that the best way to approach it would be
through our LDR' s on a County wi de bas i s. Now, I don' t know, I
don't have the specific policy that the Treasure Coast Regional
~ P1 anni ng Counci 1 has i n f ront of ine, but as we have done, f or
instance on the oceanfront, we have preserved, I don' t know if
it' s 25 percent, but we' re damn well close to having 25 percent
of the oceanfront property either under direct County ownership
or some type of public use and we done it through a number of
mechanisms. One of them is that we went out a voted a bond issue
and bought it ourselves, others is that we've gotten very nice
donations from developers in, through the site plan procedure, :
and then, in some instances there have been other mechanisms,
we' ve done it.
I can~ t say, and I don' t think we should apply the specifics in ~
this Plan of how we're going to do it. If we did that for every
issue, this Plan would not be four inches thick as it is, it
would be about 24 or 44 inches thick. But, I think that we do
need to amend this objective to some degree to indicate that, and
I don' t know, is there anyone here that thinks it' s a bad idea to
preserve at least 25 percent of what we have left in this County
in native vegetation and native habitat, then raise your hand,
but I don' t think that anyone thinks that' s a bad idea. I think
what they think is a bad idea is that it's not defined on how
we' re going to do it. -
_ On page 23, Mr. Virta, on the future land use element, is that
were that starts, or is that a different page? That paragraph on
obj ective 1. 1. 8 and then there' s one, yeah, is it 1. 1. 8 that
we' re dealing with principally?
_
40
Mr. Vi rt a: Yes s i r.
Chairman Trefelner: They way 1. 1. 8 reads right now is, for
those of you who do not have this, and this is an effort to
comply with the Regional Policy Plan: " St. Lucie County shall
include within it' s land development regulations, criteria and
standards that the protection, creation of 15 to 25 percent of
the native habitat on each new development site."
Wi thout havi ng the Regi onal Pl anni ng Counci 1' s ri ght i n f ront o f
me, if we were to amend that to read: "St. Lucie County shall
include within it's land development regulations, criteria and
standards for the protection, creation of 15 to 25 percent of the
remaining native countywide habitat, " and perhaps it` s not even
appropriately dealt with exclusively in the land development
regulations, but to~ other regulations, in other words, we have a
Comprehensive Plan for preservation of 25 percent of the native
vegetation which very well may include some amendments, or
changes to the land development regulations, but also amendments
and changes to other county codes and developments as well.
Mr. Virta, are you following what I' m attempting to arrive at,
because this is mentioning each development site.individually and
not taking into consideration the County as a whole, and we' re
not gonna really know what we're going to do with any of it until
we get into the LDR' s this summer.
Com. Minix: Mr. Chairman, I have a question in reference to
what you just said. Are you saying that taking all the natural _
habi tat as i t' s de fi ned i n the, by the s tate, or by the Regi onal
P1 anni ng Counci 1? You know, 1 et' s s ay that that comes to " X~~
thousands of acres and then taking 15 to 25 percent of that and
making sure that that's preserved in some manner that we would
come up through . . . .
' Che?~mar. Trefelner: In some manner that we would come up
through our LDR's this summer, and we can't do that today.
Com. Minix: No, that' s correct, but I think that would be a far
more better way to do it.
Chairman Trefelner: But I~m not even sure that that would meet
the criteria or the policy that's being objected to. Would it?
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman, I have some comments while you' re
waiting on Mr. Virta. I was going to be quite and have done a
relatively good job of it this morning until just a moment ago.
I have written on my piece of paper here, compliment Betty Lou ~
Wells and Blaine Williams and the lady who stood up and
represented her husband, I have her name j otted down here to, I
think it' s Mrs. Holly Tetzloff. . What I wanted to compliment you
al l on, i s that I s ee happeni rig what Betty Lou, you and I tal ked
about years ago, that is the environmental community coming to
and speaking with people that own property and that are in a
position to really ~recognize how~much they have to lose if the
_ two thoughts aren't put together.
I think the issue here this morning, as Mr. Trefelner has pointed
out, is not whether or not we all wish to save the environment, I
41 _ _
don' t thi nk that i s an i s s ue, T' ve never thought that was an
issue. The issue here is whether we, as a collective group,
chose to, as Mr. Gray put it, and I had written in my notes
earlier too, whether we steal it from people, or whether we buy
it from people which is the foundation and the basis upon which
this country exists. I am opposed, as I gather Com. Fenn is to
any reference any percentages remaining in our Plan particularly ,
because there will be a debate next summer and there are no
provisions with whether or not this property will be purchased or
whether it will be demanded of land owners, for whatever reason
have never utilized their property until at this time or some
future time.
I said it before and it happened, and that was when we did the
tree ordinance that bulldozers would come out, and they did. I
guarantee you that if we pass this with the percentages in it,
then sit down next summer to figure out how we're going to steal
it, then I guarantee you that there will be every imaginable
method employed to rid each piece of property with native habitat
of one of the three criteria Mr. Virta claimed is necessary
before we have a native problem, or native habitat created which
is understory, undercover or the trees themselves. There's a
variety of creative ways to do.that from using natural animals to .
do it so that no one would know. I heard a new one I hadn't
thought of this morning when someone said well if exotics are
there then it's not natural and I heard someone of a staff nature
say well that' s right that' s not natural. I' m merely thinking to
myself, I can see Johnny Australian Appleseed coming through,
planting australian pines in the middle of his native habitat,
sure enough, in about five years we have something we can
obliterate with a bulldozer. Now, human beings are going to
protect themselves and their families and part of that is their
investment in their property if they happen to be land owners.
You can' t bl ame them f or that.
I think our job in government is if we are interested in the
environment, is to take the kinds of steps towards preserving it
that will become a reality, and that is to give remuneration
where remuneration is due if in fact we feel it necessary to take
large areas of land, which in this case may well be necessary. I
too have had a problem, and i found it interesting that it was
said by Mr. Healy this morning, and I appreciate his comments,
and he was being very truthful with us, he said that the law here :
is not being applied uniformly, I have a problem with that. I
raise that issue not to point out what Mr. Healy had to say, but
to make a point of the fact that as we all know, or as most of us
now know, the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, which is
comprised of the counties in our immediate vicinity, is the only
Planning Council in the state of Florida. The only Planning
Council in the state of Florida have percentage requirements of
the type we are sitting here today discussinq.
I have absolutely no problem given the fact that, no the law is
not going to be applied uniformly and the fact that we are
currentl y tryi ng to conf orm wi th a non-uni f ormed Pl an, i n
omitting as Com. Fenn, the 25 percent in all areas, and I would
like to go one step further, if we' re really interested in this,
perhaps when we address the way that we pay for our capital
improvements, that we include this as capital improvements and
let' s see if the residents of St. Lucie County, like we did in
1982, is willing to pass a bond issue to purchase the balance of
, 25 percent of the land remaining for native habitat. I suggest
to you that i f we get the word out to them with s ome reas onabl e
expectations of what we can expect to acquire and for what price,
just as they did in 1982 60-40, they will probably approve the
42 ~
purchase of native upland habitat in western regions of the
County.
Mr. Virta: Mr. Chairman.
Chai rman Tref el ner: Mr. Vi rta.
Mr. Virta: Mr. Murphy has some language that he would like to
offer in furtherance of your comments, I don' t know if the Board
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thank you, Mr. Murphy.
Mr. Murphy: Yes, Mr. Chairman. It still has a percentage in it
which is going to be the Board's call in this matter, but
essentially that policy would now be re-worded to read: "St.
Lucie County shall include within it's land development
regulations criteria and standards for the protection, creation
of 15 to 25 percent of the remaining native.plant community
within the County, " and we strike out "on each new development
site." And then also, I had a clarifying statement in here as
well, "for the purpose of this Plan, native plant communities
s hal l be as provi ded f or i n the Regi onal Pol i cy Pl an 1 1. 2. 2.
That's the one that speaks to you have to have all three
components in order to be classified as native, so there's a
clear track to what we're defining as native plant community.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay.
Com. ~`enn: Sounds good.
Com. Mi ni x: Mr. Chai rman.
Chairman Trefelner: Mr. Minix.
Com. Minix: Is it possible that the amount of native habitat
without a great deal of expense can be calculated so that we
would come with a figure of what 15 and 25 percent of that would
actually be?
Chairman Trefelner: As far as what?
Com. Minix: I mean going in the western portion of the
County, do we have estimates of what, how much actually is native
habitat versus what is already in agricultural use that wouldn't
be? ~
Chai rman Tre f el ner: ~ I' m s ure we don' t have that on hand.
_ Com. Mi ni x: No, I real i z e that we don' t, but I s ay, does s taf f
have any idea what it would take to get that?
43
Chsi rman Tre f el ner: No. I' m 1 ooki ng around and Mr.
Murphy. . . .
Com. Minix: Wouldn' t it be necessary to have that if we' re
going to do something as Com. Culpepper has suggested?
Mr. Virta: Mr. Chairman, I believe and I' m j ust trying to
remember everything that's in this Plan, but we have a provision
in our work effort to identify the major environmental areas by
August 1 and that' s one of a number of things which is part of a
pretty ambitious program for ourselves.
Chairman Trefelner: Any comments on the suggested.
Mr. Van der Lugt: Why not propose an aerial photograph?
Chairman Trefelner: I don~t, think we can, aerial photograph
would be insufficient detail to be able to identify native
habitat and vegetation. What's the pleasure of this Board? We
have some language by Mr. Murphy that would delete the parcel by ~
parcel basis in favor of establishing through our land
development regulations this summer, a method for protection of,
of course, he has still contained in that language a percentage
fi gure.
Com. Fenn: Mr. Chairman, I would say at this point I think the
Board should approve, not adopt, but approve the tentative
rendition of what Mr. Murphy has said relative to the upland
preservation.
Chairman Trefelner: Is that a motion?
Com. Fenn: Well, did you want a motion on that or did you just
want a consensus to the point that it would be because we' re
going to do the whole thing at the end, adopting the Plan, but if ~
you want to adopt section by section, or item by item, I have no
probl em. ~
Chairman Trefelner:~ It doesn't make any difference if there is
a consensus, if there' s not a clear consensus I' d like to have a
vote if there is a clear consensus, then we can go on.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman, since you' ve called on me, I can
indicate that if it has percentages in it, I will not be voting
f or i t today. I t has no reas on to be i n the Pl an i n my opi ni on,
and it can be addressed if it' s the will of this County to have
15, 25 or 50 percent of the lands maintained, for whatever
purpos e, thi s Board wi 11 be voti ng on that at s ome f uture date,
and I see no reason to put it in a Plan such as this. ,
Chai rman Tref el ner: Thank you. Mr. Mi nix.
Com. Mi ni s: Mr. Chai rman, I agree ri ght now that thi s i s n' t
the time and place to address the percentage, we're saying 15 to
.
44
25, it could be anything. I think the idea you presented and the
way that Mr. Murphy, if you' d just say that we will do this under
the time schedule that we have. I think that would be sufficient
without addressing the percentages.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay. Mr. Krieger. Mr. Krieger, Mr.
Minix, Mrs. Culpepper feel that we should drop the percentage.
Mr. Fenn?
Com. Fenn: Drop it.
Chairman Trefelner: Mr. Murphy, you language was fine and
perfect except for one minor detail, no percentage.
On the subject and the issue of agricultural land use
classification and density. We have proposed from the staff, in
order to meet the objections from the various state and regional
agencies, that there be a descending scale from 1 unit to five '
acres to one unit per 20 acres. We have had various suggestions ~
rangi ng f rom one uni t to one, whi ch i s what we have ri ght now, to
one unit per 2.5 or one unit per five. No one has stood up in
champion anything beyond one unit to 10, however.
What's the pleasure of this Board? ~
If we don' t change it, I presume it' s going to remain as
recommended by staff. ~
Com. Mi ni x: Mr. Chai rman. I thi nk that, agai ns t I don' t thi nk
that the density because of the concurrence rule, has really a
bearing on the native habitat, and I' ve said that before, I want
to repeat that.
Consequently, all we're doing by changing the density to such as
one to 20, what we are actually doing is devaluing the land unti~
such time as the infrastructure is in place and then we're saying
that we can lower the density, I'm sorry, we can raise the
density and we can allow those land owners to come in and get a
change of land use and then go back to a higher density. Al1
thi s does i n the mean ti me, i s what they' ve c ome be f ore us and
said. They can' t borrow on their land in time of need, and it' s -
not serving any decent purpose because they can't build anymore
than that without the infrastructure being in place. So, I think
that at the very least, and I'l1 suggest this to my Commissioners
to say if nothing else, we oughta go to 2 or 5, 2 1/2, 10 - 5 and
20 - 10. Or, I would even be, like some counties, to go not
above five. I don't know what this is goinq to do at the DCA
level, but I really don' t care. I think we' re going to have to ~
go to a hearing anyway and I think we' re going to have to go to
the Cabi net.
Chairman Trefelner: Com. Culpepper.
Com. Culpepper: If we know we're going to go to a hearing, why
not just send back what we have already done, and then just
debate it later. Why compromise now?
~
Chairman Trefelner: Any other Commissioner? Com. Minix having
the only one that commented except for not doing anything, you've
_ _ _
45
suggested two possibilities. One was transferring what we
currently have as five to two and one-half, and what we currently
have as 10 to five and what we currently have as 20 to 10, or
alternatively just have a flat five.
Com. Mi ni x: Fi ve bei ng the hi ghes t.
Chairman Trefelner: Com. Fenn.
Com. Fenn: As Dennis pointed out, he pointed out the level in
which DCA wanted us to acknowledge the density problem in the
Plan. I think if we do have that slide rule affect from one to
one and one to two and one-half, one to five and one to 10, I
would not want to go beyond 10. I think going one to 20, I think
we' re just asking to much of the land owner. So, I would say at
least up to one to 10, but not beyond 10. I think there are
ci rcums tances out wes t that woul d probabl y call f or maybe a one
to 10.
Com. Mi ni x: I' m s orry, I di dn' t unders tand what about the 1 ow,
what about the other end?
Chairman Trefelner: Two and one-half, five, 10.
Com. Fenn: Yes, that' s right.
Chairman Trefelner: Two and one-half, five, 10?
Com. Minix: I prefer the two and one-half and five, but if the
maj ority go for the 20, I' 11 agree to it, but I' d urge that we go
to two and one-half and five.
Com. Culpepper: Why don't you compromise that when we're at the
Cabinet? ~
Chairman Trefelner: This is one where obviously, we do not have
a consensus and we' 11 deal with it in a motion.
Com. Minix: Mr. Chairman, since I was the first to start, let' s
see if my motion will stand. I'll make the motion that we change
our density in the Comprehensive Plan where ever it says five, to
two and one-half and where ever it say 10 and 20 to five.
Chairman Trefelner: Is there a second?
Com. Kri eger: I~ 11 s econd it.
Chairman Trefelner: Motion and second, further discussion from
_ the Board? This will not be bindi'ng until the final adoption of
this hearing, but it will be a general indication so that the
staff has something to give us at the end of this Hearing. All
in favor of that motion say Aye.
4 6 _ _
Com. Krieger: Aye
Com. Mi ni x: Aye
Com. Culpepper: Aye
Chairman Trefelner: Aye
Com. Fenn: Oppos ed
Chairman Trefelner: Okay. The direction is to amend the
provisions in the Comprehensive Plan to, from AG-5 to create a
designation called AG-2.5 and AG-5 and that was it, and those
would be applied on your existing map, at least now, until we get
into the specific areas, presumably after lunch. As in the
existing 2.5 areas would become 2.5 and the existing 10 - 20
areas would become five.
Mr. Murphy: Mr. Chairman. To assist the Board to understand
exactly what all they' ve been doing, cause they' re going to have
an awful lot to look at, I' 11 have revised sheets of the actions
you just took on those two matters for you after lunch, which
will have the exact language as originally in the document with
an underl i ne s tri ke through s howi ng you what' s new, what' s out ti
and what you all just did. :
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, thank you. We're going to break for
lunch now.
Com. Krieger: Mr. Chairman.
, Chairman Trefelner: Mr. Krieger. •
Com. Krieger: If I might just say one thing, we all have
certainly spoken loud and clear as far as our desire to preserve
native habitat in this area, native vegetation. Com. Culpepper
certainly threw out an intriguing idea about possibly
incorporating moneys, a bond issue, whatever, towards the
purchase of property as opposed to stealing. I think possibly
one step we could take at this point with regard to that matter.
The legislative delegation will be holding its annual meeting
here in the next couple of weeks, we might as a Board want to
consider asking the state legislature, our legislative delegation
impaticular, to consider legislation that would be similar to
what existed on the state level for the coasts. I'm speaking of
course, of the Save Our Coasts Program, why not ask the state
legislature to consider a Save ~ur Uplands Program. Let's throw
the ball back in their court, so to speak, let' s see. If they
are that serious about wanting to preserve 25 percent, let's see
the state take the first initiative with that regard, and I as
one Board member would like to see this Board make an official
request when we appear before the s~ate legislative delegation
towards the support of a Save Our Uplands Program. I would ask
for support of the Board and see if we could not get staff
_ direction to that affect right now.'
Chairman Trefelner: Well, thank you Commissioner, I agree with
47 _ _ .
you. There i s a program; however, the C. A. R. L. , Cons ervati on and
Recreation Lands is not limited to oceanfront, wetland or
whatever, but it can be utilized for the acquisition and
preservation of any properties including upland areas.
Com. Culpepper: Are you s eri ous ?
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Maybe we coul d get s ome more f undi ng f rom
them.
Com. Krieger: Talk about the expansion of.
Would the Board at this point
Com. Culpepper: If their goir~g to do it, let' s be serious about
i t i f that' s the poi nt.
Com. Krieger: Cari we put something together to present to the
legislative delegation at the appropriate meeting. ~
Chai rman Tre f el ner: I nc reas e fundi ng f or C. A. R. L. . Okay.
I have no objection.
<<
. Com. Minix: I have no obj ection
Com. Fenn: No obj ection.
Com. Kriege_: No obj ection.
Chairman Trefelner: I apologize we went so long today. I
thought perhaps we might get through all of the future land use. ~
We still have remaining those~specific properties that would be
effected by the drop back from our original Plan and we will
reconvene at 1:30, or as close thereafter as we can get a quorum.
Chairman Trefelner: We'll reconvene in special session for the
purpose of continuing our Public Hearing on the St. Lucie County
Comprehensive Plan. We left off, is where we started, which was
land use, and I presume we are ready to get into the specifics of
the map. I f we mi ght, j us t ki nd of re f res h our memory where we
stand on that map. Not the whole thing we went through this
morning, but some basic background again on that map.
Who did that, Mr. Murphy or, whoever?
Those of you who were not here this morning who wish to address a _
parcel that is proposed to be amended from our original
transmission and have not already signed up on the sign up sheet,
there's sign up sheets on either end of the diaz here, please put
your name and indicate what you wish to speak on.
_ I'm not sure how to handle this specifically, I suggest to my
fellow Board members that prior to taking any action on any
individual parcel that we listen to the testimony, or what
everyone has to say, and then go back because the line has to be
48
drawn somewhere.
Is that all right? Okay.
Okay Dennis, just show us again briefly where we stand on the. .
Mr. Murphy: Yes , Mr. Chai rman. Es s enti al l y what we' ve got here
in the western two-thirds of the County is a draw back or a roll
back from what was previously transmitted to the state of
F1 orida, s o that we' re now s howi ng agri cultural 1 and us e
classifications beginning roughly in the area just to the west
side of Lakewood Park and then swinging that down to the south
and to the west. Based upon your previous action just before
lunch, what was shown as an AG-5 is now shown as an AG-2. 5 which
would be one unit for every two and one-half acres. That would
be this area in through here. This area running roughly like so,
down in through here, passing the Brocksmith Road, McCarty Road,
Gatl i n Boul evard, Duda Hol di ng area, that was previ ous 1 y s hown as
an AG-10, bas ed upon you acti on j us t bef ore 1 unch agai n, that
would now be recorded as an AG-5, one unit for every five acres.
And, of course, everything west of Shinn Road is coming in at a
density of one unit per five acres as well, previously it was
indicated as one to 20. -
The AG-2. 5 would also effect the western regions of the airport
mixed use category. That would be under a specific use
classification tying it to that particular density until such
time as the Plan amendment and services were available in that
particular area. The eastern parts of the County have for the
most part remained the same as they were under the previously
transmitted Plan. There has been some terminology changes and
there have been some density reductions where once we showed an
RM, we' re now s howi ng s ome RU as oppos ed to that, but f or the
most part again, those areas have not changed as significantly. ,
The most notable feature of the western part of the County
outside of the agricultural density is, of course, the Capron
Trail, a community development district which is carrying a
s pe ci al us e des i gnati on and i t i s ti ed to, and el aborated on i n
the text part of the Plan, as to what it is, it is an improved
community development district tied only to one unit to the acre
and is kind of a unique animal unto itself. Not so much for the
character and the land, but because of the legislative action
that has already taken place in regards to the properties within
i ts bounds . v,'i th that.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, thank you. We have sign up sheets
then, I bel i eve, f or thos e of you who have s i gned up and wi s h to
address. Mr. Virta are you going to be calling these people up.
Mr. Vi rta: Yes , Mr. Chai rman.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. ~
Mr. Vi rta: The f i rs t name I have i s Charl es Dul d. .
Mr. Duld: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board. I
_ have a prepared statement, I' m Charles F. Duld, Chairman of the
Governmental Relations Committee of the Homeowners Association of
Fort Pierce, Golden Ponds Adult Community.
49
Our Vice-President, Mr. George Mason, is passing out copies of my
statement, that which I'll read into the record today. I also
request that the Chair recognize the small contingent we have -
left over now of residents that are concerned about the
particular issue I will speak about, and they are sitting back
here now. Would you raise your hands please.
I have heard much testimony today regarding cattle, birds,
wildlife, tomatoes, trees, citrus, natural vegetation, and I
would like to discuss one important, extremely important category
today, which I believe that the St. Lucie Comprehensive Plan
completely and entirely has lost track of, and that's people.
To start my statement I believe I'm no stranger to this
Commission, and once again I thank you for allowing me to address
you today. My comments today, as in the past, continue to
reflect the opinions, excuse me, of the residents of the Golden
Ponds Adult Community. We have exhausted every avenue possible
other than litigation, upto this point, to bring to the
Commission's attention the many proven reasons why this
Commission should have denied Inter-state Citrus Partners, Ltd.'s
petition for any land use change. This change is for that 141
acre parcel of land on the west side of Johnson Road right-of-way
between canal ##20 and canal C-25 extending to I-95.
For today's record, I must recap some past reasons why the
Commission should not have granted this land use change. An
article which appeared in the Tribune states that american
industry is pouring a startling amount,~more than 22 billion
pounds in a year, of toxic chemicals in the air, land and water.
This disclosure was made by the Federal Environmental Protection
Agency yet, this Commission is allowing an industrial park to be
constructed between two canals which serve the water supply of
several communities and the entire City of Fort Pierce. Why
doesn' t this Commission consider the help and safety of it' s
residence. What guarantees can this Commission give that there
will be no pollution coming from these proposed industries.
A later study by the same Agency in conjunction with the United
States Congress' General Accounting Office also reveals some
startling figures. I will quote only a few excerpts from the
article which appeared in a metropolitan newspaper in
Philadelphia on November 27, 1989, which states more than 40
percent of the industrial customers of municipal sewage plants
across the nation, fail to properly treat their waste water for
toxic chemicals. These violations have been significant enough,
in many cases, to cause observable adverse impacts to water
quality, worker's safety and waste water treatment systems. The
Justice Department announced actions against 61 municipalities in
21 states for allowing untreated toxic waste to pass through
sewage treatment plants.
Tell us please Commissioners, will you guarantee that this will
not happen here. If not, then why allow this industrial park to
be constructed? Let's quote .a paragraph from Daniel B.
Harrell's letter to Mr. Dennis J. Murphy. He states that his
client, Inter-state Citrus Partners, recognizes that although it
has committed to developing its property in accordance with one
of the conditional zoning districts, PNRD, PUD or similar future
regulations. The Board and~neighboring community are more
comforted by the protection set forth in the mixed use policies.
Thi s i s a f al s e concl us i on on the part of Mr. Harrel l. I as s ure
you this does not comfort the neighboring community. Does the
counselor speak for the Commissioners? It is also a matter of .
50
record that the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Commission and
the State of Florida, Department of Community Affairs, oppose the
land use change at this location as being speculative and not
compatible with adjacent land use.
An article which appeared in the Tribune, May 16, 1989, has all
of us quite concerned. This article questions the actions of the
Commission. Allow me to read just a few lines. Protection for
nice homes in single family neighborhoods should be written write
into the new County Comprehensive Plan. Minix and Culpepper
contend that the County needs more expensive housing to increase
the tax base and that the land use plan should provide some place
to put i t. Mi ni x s ai d that al though he us e to f avor a 1 ot of
options and flexibility in planning, he is beginning to think
there is too much flexibility in land use and zoning. It scares
me to death to see a small area of fine homes surrounded by cheap
housing, he said, or a business next to houses added Culpepper.
Our question to you Mrs. Culpepper and to you Mr. Minix is do our
manufactured homes meet your criteria of a house or a home? If
s o, then why are you permi tti ng a bus i nes s, i ndus tri al at that,
to be next to our homes?
In conclusion, this Commission has seen fit to ignore the
recommendations of professionals not to change the land use
designation. This Commission has ignored requests for impact
studies. This Commission has ignored the opposition of a land
use change by the area residents, fearful for their health and
safety. And, this Commission has been unable to satisfactorily
explain why this land use change was granted in.favor of a land~
speculator. A special interest individual that has already cost
the taxpayer' s of this County untold moneys on past land deals.
As a result, we the residents, the taxpayer' s, the voters of this
County ask that another motion be made to return this area to its
original land use designation, a semi-urban, prior to the
acceptance of the overall Comprehensive Plan.
Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. This particular parcel, I •
believe we are all familiar with, was not proposed to be changed ~
from the original received by the DCA, is that correct?
Mr. Virta: That' s correct.
Chairman Trefelner: It's currently designated as mixed use?
Mr. Murphy: Yes, Mr. Chairman. The recommended land use "
classification is mixed use with the underlying intensity
restrictions of a medium intensity designation. There' s also
some special use restricting the perimeters of the property to a ~
residential use as opposed to a non-residenti al use.
Chairman Trefelner: But then the interior could be used for a
lite industrial purpose.
Mr. Murphy: Yes. Subj ect to re-zonings and applicable
_ compliance with the County' s PNRD `or soon to be developed mixed
use zoning district requirements.
_ 51
Chairman Trefelner: Okay. Any Commissioner have any other
questions or comments on this particular route?
I have one, an additional one, having received, or come across on
my desk within the last couple of days, the Department of
Transportation's review of our interchange justification report
for that intersection area, which as I read indicated that the
interchange justification report that we submitted to them was
insufficient to justify the interchange. A good deal of the
discussion that we had previously on this particular parcel
centered around the justification of that parcel for industrial
or mixed or commercial use being based on the fact that who
would really want to build a subdivision in the middle of an
interchange. In light of the •recent action of the Department of
Transportation, apparently rejecting our interchange
justification report, it' s my feeling, as it was during our
original ones, I recognize I was a minority, but it' s my feeling
that this land use change perhaps should be, is a premature
undertaki ng.
Does the staff have any changes from its, in light of this, or
perhaps if I'm in error on this interchange justification report,
please correct me.
Mr. Murphy: Mr. Chai rman the onl y thi ng I coul d s ay about that
report and that review letter that you received from the
Department of Transportation is that we're getting mixed signals.
Thi s appears to be a cl as s i c, the ri ght hand i s not tal ki ng to
the left hand routine on the part of the state. Because one arm
is saying that the IJR is sufficient another is saying it is
still deficient. It is our attention to come before you at a
regular meeting later on this month and have that whole thing
straightened out, worked out, having representatives of the
consulting team that did that report available, and if we could
work it, have somebody from. DOT or some kind of clarifying
statement from DOT to clear u~ those issues.
k` It' s my understanding that the interchange report is in general
terms, acceptable. ~There are a few areas of deficiency that need
to be addressed still, and those are the details that we are
still in the process of working out. Should the interchange
ultimately not be found justified for that location, then as we
indicated in earlier discussions on this matter, the entire
proposed land uses for that whole region would have to be re-
evaluated and in all likelihood would not include non-residential
activities. Obviously, access was the main issue there, but
again, like I said, this whole issue on that interchange has .
still got some mixed signals coming in and I've been playing tag
with one of the DOT officials for like the last week. We can' t
seem to hook-up with each other and try to find out what's going
on.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you.
Mr. Vi rta: Dan Harrell
Mr. Harrell: Mr. Chairman, members of the Board. I' m Dan
Harrell on behalf of Interstate Citrus Partners which owns the
_ property that' s being in questiori here. What we' re looking at
i s a mi xed us e devel opment propos al not onl y f or I nters tate
Citrus Partner' s property, but also for a large variety of
adj acent area including Golden Pond. As we' ve indicated several
_ 5 2 _ _
times before, if the interchange is ultimately found to be
feasible, which we believe it will be, we think that the
designation as you transmitted it in your original report with '
the limitations that Mr. Murphy outlined, is appropriate. It may
De that additional limitations are appropriate if the interchange
ultimately is found not to be feasible. None the less, the mixed
use development district or regulations designation, to us,
affords the appropriate degree of control for you and flexibility
on the part of all parties in order to go forward with this
parcel of ground.
Again, just to reiterate some of the elements of control here.
In addition to the overlays that Mr. Murphy indicated before that
restrict the property, and again, we simply have to disagree with
the statements that relate to toxic waste and heavy industrial
development. They simply don't apply to this property, that's
not what was every anticipated. That simply is not even within
the realm of possibility with the regulations as it was
transmitted to the state. In addition to those restrictions, you
al s o, as Mr. Murphy poi nted out, mus t f ol l ow the pl anned uni t
devel opment pl an non-res i dent devel opment, mi xed us e devel opment
or some other conditional use zoning, conditional zoning. In
order to do anything to receive your first development order, it
requires compatibility with al,l of the adj acent land uses which ~
is enforceable by the site plan zoning hearings that are
required by the regulations. So, all of the concerns about
buffering, about access, about screening, and most importantly
about the specific uses that would go on this property, all of
those things must be addressed and approved at the site plan
zoning hearings that will be held subsequently before anything is
undertaken on this property other than a low intensity
agricultural uses that have been there for several decades.
Given this time of great residual control that is with the Board
of County Commissioners, we believe that this is the appropriate
des i gnati on. I t i s an appropri ate des i gnati on f or Gol den Pond,
we don't believe it's inappropriate for this particular parcel in
the s ame general vi ci ni ty.
I'll respond to any guestion, we have tendered to Mr. McIntyre an
agreement that sets forth our further commitment to follow all of
these limitations and controls that have been set forth in the
draft Plan. Together, we have also several months back, tendered
a deed for the right-of-way that would be needed for the
interchange. My understanding is that at least one other
adjacent property owner at this proposed interchange has done the
same, or is in the process of ~doing the same, so, a good deal of
what has been pointed out by the Department of Transportation as .
potential deficiencies in your IJR are being clarified and indeed
removed at this time. ~
This begins to me, which do you do first? Do you plan for the
long range and try to work with the landowner, or do you require
everything up front? Certainly DOT is quite, quite correct to
make sure that everything is in place. We believe that this
designation, the agreement we and other have entered at this
interchange, together with the tender of the rights-of-way, will
al l al l ow you to move f orward i n an expedi ti ous f as hi on to
achieve all of the transportation elements that are set forth in
other parts of your Plan.
_ Chai rman Tref el ner: Thank you, M~'. Harrell.
Mr. Harrell: Thank you.
53 .
Mr. Virta: Jack Carmody
Chairman Trefelner: While Mr. Carmody is coming up here, I have
received 99 letters from, in opposition to that particular
parcel. They came to me as Chairman and I just wanted to enter
them here into the record.
Mr. Carmody: Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, my name
is Jack Carmody, I' m an attorney with the firm of Dunster Yoakly
in Stuart, and we represent Mr. A1 Brown before you this
afternoon.
Mr. Brown owns or controls approximately 3, 000 acres adj acent to
and between I- 9 5 and the Fl ori da Turnpi ke. The exi s ti ng z oni ng
category on the property is AG, one unit per acre. We were :
before you prior to the time that you filed your Plan with the
state and the diagram that I've just given to you shows you what
did in fact go to the state which shows the property, the
maj ority of it, as a residential suburban, and some of it as your
mixed classification.
Under the proposal that' s back before you today, and we started
off this morning with a one unit per ten acres, what I believe
now, by j ust sitting there and being quite, we got the one unit
per five acres and hopefully by speaking, we can get to where we
would like to be which now is to get back what we started with,
which is one unit per acre. We seem to be going backwards, we
went forward and now we're backwards and we're going forward
again.
In giving land use classifaction to a particular piece of
property there are a number of factors that both your staff and
you must take into consideration in granting a change that's
being requested. In this particular case, we' re talking
approximate land that we believe is stratigically located within
St. Lucie County for the type of density that we' re asking for.
Once again, we aren't here today to try to defend and obtain what
we had originally sent up to the state, we' re back asking that
Mr. Brown' s property be allowed to go forward at it' s one unit
per acre as present classification.
I note in talking with staff that there has been a designation
created, I believe it's called residential estate that does have
that one unit per acre category. We are; therefore, requesting
that you take out of the Ag classification this particular parcel
of land and put it into the residential estate, one unit per
acre.
The specific reasons for this request revolve around the soils
that are involved in the property, the roads that are proposed in
your Plan, and if you'll look at the diagram that I gave you, you
will see that going through the property and adjacent to the
property are proposed roads that I believe you and your staff
have indicated are going to be needed in the future of St. Lucie
County. We further point out that we feel that this is an
excellent area for a transition from your agriculture one to five
and one to 10 to yaur higher intensified uses. We further point
out the point of our case that we are contiguous at the present
time to a urban service district. At some point, when the
_ property is coming back to be dev~loped, if it is developed, it `
woul d be neces s ary to expand that boundary and to make s ervi ces
avail abl e.
54
'X
I' ve been able to spend the morning with you and listen to the
comments that you have made and the members of the public have
made and there are a couple that I think that are very pertinent
here. I believe the comment relative to concurrency that was
made by Com. Minix should be kept in consideration by you on all
these presentations that are made today relative to land use
changes. Concurrency supposedly was to be the solution, and
concurrency is the thing that I believe is frightening most of
the general public, at least the development community relative
to the mandates coming out of Tallahassee. We are supposedly at
the point now where we have accepted the "C" word to the point ~
where we recognize that prior to development, all infrastructure
and other services required to service that particular piece of
property have to be in place. Living with that mandate, I think
it gives you more flexibility in guiding the future of your
community, because you know, know matter what the land use
category is, and I don' t care if DCA says 125 percent or 200 or
500 percent of the number of residential acres that are needed
for your proj ection are out there, until such time as the
services are provided, there isn' t going to be any development.
They aren't going to allow and your not going to allow it. What
you' re doing by taking away. and subjecting yourself to the
mandates of Tallahassee, is the flexibility you need as a
community to follow-up what you see the future of St. Lucie
County to be. I can assure you in dealing with this County and
also with Martin County in review of the plans and comments that
have come back from other counties, that basically what you're
doi ng as Far as maj or 1 and us e decis i ons are f or St. Luci e
County, is your creating a situation where Tallahassee is going "
to be making~your decisions and not you. When you go through and
file for your Comp Plan amendments, every agency in the state is
going to review that and forward their comments on to the
Department of Community Affairs, and they will tell you what you
can do and what you can't do. Those things that you believe may
be good for St. Lucie County will not be allowed if there's some
policy or performance standard set out in your Comprehensive Plan
that the Department of Community Affairs finds obj ectionable.
They' ve also, as you are well aware, expanded standing so that
just about everybody in the community has a possibility of
bringing an action or having an Actministrative Hearing to
challenge any of your decisions. What I' m basically saying is
that I believe you should keep the land use making decisions
within St. Lucie County, and in order to do that, you should try
to build as much flexibility.into your land use's now as you
possibly can. I tell you in the future to get a land use change,
is going to be next to impossible. We're talking at the year '
2015, I believe, before you' re going to find the Department of ~
Community Affairs being flexible enough to recognize changes ,
within your community. Those projects that are large enough to
be DRI' s may get different consideration, but just the average
citizen in St. Lucie County who wants to go into development
property, is going to be confronted not only with your
performance standards but those out of DCA.
I~ve pointed out to you why I think that this particular
piece of property should have the designation of one unit per
acre. I further point in conversations with your staff that have
advised me that at the present time, St. Lucie County is the
attempting to extend St. Lucie Boulevard, and a portion of that
extension goes through Mr. Brown's property. If you will look at
the map that I gave you, at the bottom portion of his property,
the dotted line at the very southerly portion, is the extension
- of St. Lucie Boulevard. Staff has~made available to me a copy of
a proposed agreement with St. Lucie Groves Investments, Ltd. for
the extension of that right-of-way.
55
I have discussed this particular situation with my client, and he
has indicated that we are in a position at this time to discuss
with staff, entering into a similar agreement for our property in :
order to make the right-of-way available for the extension. We
believe that this would be a further indication of the need for
the a change of this property. We are prepared to meet with
staff at their convenience to follow-up on this particular
possibility.
I f you will look at the map, •you will see the property that we
are tal ki ng about i s ri ght here, and bas i cal l y we' re the hol e i n
the middle of a dump. If you' 11 take a look at the property
surrounding us, we' re talkinq higher intensified uses. We
believe that in order to complete the planning in this area to
set an adequate boundary in distinguishing between urban and
agricultural, as pointed out by Mr. Murphy, that this would be
the piece of property at which the RE estate density
classification would be more than appropriate.
We point out this access both to I-95, would be located between
I-95 and the turnpike and it' s access to Indrio Road. We would
point out that we recognize and, when it' s all done Mr. Murphy' s
going to lay a number on you based on decisions you made today as ;
to what your percentage is going to be relative to the nebulous
125 percent rule. I think that the number is going to be
substantially over the 125 percent and I believe that it should
be substantially over that 125 percent. I believe your staff, in
future land use designation, a map, they addressed the reasons
why they believed St. Lucie County is different, and why St.
Lucie County can justify the amount•of residential units that are
allowed in this present residential classifications. '
Mr. Brown is here with me today if you have any questions
relative to the soils or the use of the properties, he'd be more
than happy to discuss those with you. I believe from a land
planning standpoint that our request is justified. Once again, I
woul d poi nt out to you, al l' s we' re as ki ng f or i s what we
presently have. We did have a much intensified use that the
state was opposed to. Your staff has recommended against, but we
believe we are justified in asking a one to one that we presently '
have. I would ask you to act appropriately on that.
I f you have any ques ti ons , I' d be gl ad to answer them, or Mr.
Brown is here.
Chai rman Tref el ner: Any ques ti ons ? No. Thank you. ~
Mr. Virta: Jim A. Minix
Mr. Mi ni x: Mr. Chai rman, members of the Commi s s i on. My name i s
Jim A. Minix, and my interest is 8000 South Federal Highway,
Suite 200, Port St. Lucie. I' m here representing landowners, Mr.
Paul Reynolds, and G. Y. P. , Ltd. 87, a partnership. I have
submitted a written submission to Mr. Murphy, and I have copies
that I'd like to distribute to you at this time..
My written submission, I think, covers the basic points that I
want to make, but I did want to address with you two general
subj ect on behalf of my clients. The first subj ect is the
- general land use philosophy, and I`'m not gonna say too much about
that because it's covered very eloquently and very well by a
number of speakers this morning, principally Mr. Alderman and Mr.
Carmody, and I don' t see any reason for me to belabor it except
56
to alert the Commission that on behalf of Mr. Reynolds and GYP
87, we share a joint in those sentiments and we believe the
County Commission should seriously consider exactly what
philosophy it wants to adopt and adhere to when it submits this
Plan back to DCA.
On a second point, and that is particularly as it relates to this
parti cul ar property, and i f I mi ght, I' d 1 i ke to poi nt out
exactly where it is. Mr. Reynold' s property and the G. Y. P.
property are both located just outside the MX designation, mixed
us e des i gnati on on I ndri o property, I' m s orry, on I ndri o Road
near the I-95 intersection. That property was under your, the
P1 an that you s ubmi tted, i t was RM, I' m s orry, RS f or two uni ts
per acre. Now it has been changed to AG-5 which I think you just
changed back this morning, to AG-2.5 which is now one dwelling
unit for 2. 5 acres.
What we' re as ki ng f or i s one o f two thi ngs that ori gi nal l y I had
discussed with staff about including our property within the MXD
des i gnati on. We were j us t outs i de the MXD, that des i gnati on was
drafted as a result of the guidelines indicated the development,
the mixed use development around the interchange. At the time,
we didn' t make a major issue with staff with regard to the MXD
because I understood the line had to be drawn somewhere, and as
it ended up, the line was drawn just before our property so we
f el l j us t outs i de the MXD.
We do think; however, that the same arguments that I made at that
ti me appl y now. We' re ri ght of f the MXD, we' re ri ght of f I ndri o,
and we are the property that's just actually adjacent and on ~
Indrio. Com. Trefelner's points with regard to the proper use of
that property and being between two development areas I think are
well taken and hold true, and I would also point out that really
one of the big philosophical points that the Comp Plan was to
address was to develop along the interstate and turnpike
corridor. This property, while the turnpike as you know goes
west, this property is really just due north of that. It' s in an
area of transition and we feel that the property ought to be
either MXD and extend the line to cover our property, or at the
very least that we should get the same designation that my client
was willing to live with at the time, and that was the
designation of two units per acre, now my client and this
particular property has been drastically down-zoned. The 1.5
whi ch I hope, bas ed on thi s morni ngs revi ew, has been at 1 eas t
changed to one unit point 2. 5 acres. I guess, sorta semi-
seriously, you could almost take this MXD designation, I heard
some people were opposing it to the west of the turnpike and move
it over a little bit, and that would certainly satisfy our
concerns on it.
As you know, there's growth up in this area through to the
Spanish Lakes and also the Golden Ponds, and, of course, there's
all the commercial and residential in Lakewood Park, and we
really don't see any logic, whatsoever, in putting an
agricultural designation in that land over there and making it to
the point that it really does attract on the marketability that
property for these landowners who happen to be there,
parti cul arl y the ones that are ri ght here on I ndri o Road, as my
clients are.
So, with tnat, and with my written submission which you have and
I' ve submitted to staff last week, we would request the
_ designation be changed, at least b`ack to what it was before which
was the RS, or that the MXD designation be moved over to include
us in that, and we are the next property contiguous of that MXD
designation. We do object to the current AG-5 or AG-2.5
_ _ _ . 5 7
designation on that parcel.
Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you, Mr. Minix.
Mr. Virta: Edward Becht. Mr. Becht.
Mr. Becht: Good afternoon, I' m Edward Becht, I' m here on behal f
of Charles Campbell. Mr. Campbell is sick with the flu today so
he will not be able to be with us.
Mr. Campbell owns several tracts of citrus grove in the county,
either individually or through corporations, OLC being one of
them. We have, and I will state specific objections, but we have
a letter that I would like to read into the record which will
preserve certain legal rights that we have. It is signed by Mr.
Campbell.
County Commission, gentlemen. This letter is written in regard
to the County's Growth Management Plan in general, and as it
applies to properties owned by or in which the above individuals
and intensities have an interest, specifically. Those being
Charles M. Campbell. ~
First of all, the procedure being provided for by the applicable
statues and rules of the state do not adequately protect the
property rights of of the affected property owners and is in
essence violative of the due process rights. The Plan is
violative of and inconsistent with the state's plan. The Plan is
not financially feasible, there is no reasonable way that the
County or any individual property owner can afford it. The Plan
is internally inconsistent. The Plan does not adequately respect
• private property rights. The Plan is not based upon accurate
date nor the upon proper analysis of said date. Property such as
the subject property should not be relegated to perpetual
agricultural use where limitations exist (i. e. soil types) that
would otherwise preclude a reasonable rate of return.
Restricting such planned use amounts to an, restricting such
planned use amounts to an unconstitutional taking without just
compensation. We urge the adoption of the Plan as originally
submitted to the Department of Community Affairs.
I believe that Com. Culpepper viciously stated that earJ.ier today
that the original plan submitted to DCA should be re-submitted.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Becht, I' m going to correct you, I wasn' t
bei ng vi ci ous .
Mr. Becht: Thank you, Commissioner.
One of the parcels we own, Mr. Campbell owns, is a 1200 acre
tract up on what we call county-line. It borders on the north
side of Indrio and runs all the way upto the county line. To the
- west of us is the Spanish Lakes development, further west of that
i~ ~he Strazula property and to the south of us is the Brown
Ranch property. In regard to that parcel of land, I would like
to specifically adopt Mr. Carmody's comments which are very on-
_ _
58
point for our property, and, I believe that Mr. Murphy will
confirm that our property is basically indistinquishable from the
Brown Ranch. In addition, I' d like to point out that the mixed
use development applicable to our property has been restricted
from the old lines where the transportation designation, excuse
me, the interchange designation existed.
The old interchange designation encompassed more of our property
than the exi s ti ng mi xed us e des i gnati on now encompas s es . So on
that point, I believe that the mixed use designation should be
expanded. For the rest of the property, the balance of the
property, Mr. Carmody's points that what we had is sufficient and
if you will return us to what we had, which is one unit per acre,
that would be sufficient.
Thank you.
The other parcel that we have, which is more important to us
today, is a parcel located on Okeechobee Road just west of the
turnpike. We are located approximately seven tenths of mile from
the Holiday Inn. As you all probably know, the Holiday Inn
currently has city water and in speaking with Harry Shinderheady,
I was advised that the water line could be extended at a future
date. Okeechobee Road is a state highway and as such will be
expanded in the future, hopefully in the near future, and this
property should be zoned, excuse me, the land use designation for
this property should be as was originally proposed to the DCA
which was residential urban, five units to the acre.
There was an additional strip of land designated as conservation,
private which follows the lines nf Ten Mile Creek. The property
is roughly split north to south by Ten Mile Creek. This parcel
is approximately 1100 acres, as I mentioned before, it was
proposed to the DCA that the designation be residential, urban,
five units to the acre. What we have now is a loss based on your
current proposal, of close to 50 percent of the available
development for this property. We have been cut down from
approximately 5000 units to as near as I can tell by the lines
that have been drawn and the conservation areas, to roughly 2000
ur.its. .
Additionally, that parcel of land, the parcel that I' m talking
about on Okeechobee Road, has been split by staff to an east and
west have with the eastern most property being a~designation, let
me find my notes, residential, suburban, which is two units to
the acre, and the western half being an agricultural designation,
which I believe today has been modified to be one unit to the two
and one-half acres. I don' t see any rational basis and I don' t
believe staff can provide any rational basis for splitting the
property at this point in time.
Staff had originally proposed the entire tract for residential,
urban and now they have decided, based on DCA's comments, that
they need to be more conservative. I think they had the better
Plan in the beginning and hope that the County Commission will
see likewise.
One point that Mr. Carmody had.that I would like to elaborate on
is what we will be permitting the DCA to do to us if we follow
their guidelines. Mr. Murphy pointed out earlier that DCA wants
sharp lines of contrast between urban and agricultura. If we do
that in St. Lucie County, which I believe is a special County,
- every time we have a land use ameridment we're going to have state
interference input with what we` re doing in our County. I think
proper planning would provide for a broad band of transition
designations through the center of the County, dividing it more
59 _ . _ _
intelligently between agriculture and urban. That's consistent
with what Mr. Carmody was asking you to do.
Mr. Beales' here, I' m here, Mr. Beales the secretary of 0. L. C. ,
Inc. , should you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.
Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: I have a question, perhaps not of you, but
Mr. Murphy or someone. I' m not really, I' m trying to get a
better clarification on this particular parcel.
Mr. Becht: Which parcel?
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thi s 1 as t one that you were j us t tal ki ng
about, and what the current, not the originally proposed land
use, but what the current land use is on that parcel and how it's
split. You didn' t have a map here, but my eyes aren' t good
enough to see that far.
Mr. Becht: Perhaps we can find the assessment maps, that' 11
help.
Mr. Murphy: Mr. Chairman, the property is located approximately
one-half mile to the west, southwest of the intersection of
Okeechobee Road and the turnpike. (unintelligible) real quick
here, this would be the ramps at the turnpike interchange where
my fingers are here on the east side of the map and Mr. Becht's
client, where it begins roughly here, which is a half mile west
and then swings down to the west, southwest. What's on the books
today. . .
Chairman Trefelner: From Gordy Road?
Nr. MurpY:y: Gordy Road is somewhere back over in here, no it' s
over here.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay.
Mr. Murphy: What' s on the books today, it' s on the Growth
Management Poli cy P1 an, is .I beli eve a s emi -urban 1 and us e
designation, one unit to the acre. What we are proposing to show
on here at present, is in section 26 of the north half of it,
would carry an RS designation for a portion here of some
undetermined amount~ of acres, I haven't ~and also the RS
would carry down in through the south half of section 26.
Running along side of the river at a variable width of 400 to 300
feet depending upon what the vegetated cover was, would be what
we' re calling now the conservation, residential conservation
designation, which would carry with it, as presently indicated
in the draft, the one unit per five acres. When we cross over to
section 27, we move into, again, we move into the RC for a ~
portion of the property and what was previously AG-5 and I think
_ is now AG-2.5, so, this has chang~d, or tentatively has changed
by previous action and that would carry down into the south _
half of the section. As well, again, the conservation
identification along the creek varies in width depending upon the
60
vegetated cover was at that area.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: So, the eas tern mos t porti on i s s uppos e to
be RS, residential, suburban, two units,
Mr. Murphy: Yes, two units.
Chai rman Tref el ner: That' s, what i s i t currentl y? AG now, one
unit.
Mr. Murphy: Yeah, it' s currently semi-urban, currently it' s one
unit so, in section 26, for a portion of their property they are
seeing an increase of roughly one unit to the acre.
Chairman Trefelner: what did we transmit? RS? RU?
Mr. Murphy: We trans mi tted RU, I thi nk, f or the bul k o f the
property. The extreme western edges and some of the southern ;
edges were i n an RS des i gnati on, but i t 1 ooks 1 i ke the bul k of
the property went off originally at five units, plus there was
the cons ervati on des i gnati on al ong s i de the river. That' s been
there since the inception.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay. :
Com. Culpepper: How many units, you never said.
Mr. Mur~hy: Pardon me.
Com. Culpepper: You started to say and then you interrupted ~
yourself with part of the end of your sentence, how many units
did the easterly portion go with?
Mr. Murphy: The easterly portion went with five units to the
acre and the conservation lying in there as well too.
Chairman Trefelner: But now it's down to two.
Mr. Murphy: Right, it' s down to an accommodation of two, two
units to the acre and one unit for every two and one-half acres.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay.
Mr. Murphy: Again, that is assuming that everything carries
f orward f rom thi s morni ng. .
_ Mr. Becht: Again, I think i't' s important that the Board
understand that it was transmitted to the DCA with the bulk of it
being zoned, excuse me, designated, five units to the ~acre, I
believe that's correct. The bulk of it as opposed to the eastern
61
third or the eastern half.
Mr. Murphy: Yea, the bulk, that' s essentially correct. '
Mr. Becht: One comment Mr. Murphy raised is going through the
maps, we have a 700 foot wide strip around the creek. Land on
both the north side and the south side of the creek is now
improved land, it's citrus. Some of it is in production and some
of it just recently been bedded and I' m not sure whether it' s
been planted or not. There is no native vegetation along that
area except within perhaps a 50 foot strip of the center of the
creek. These maps, I believe were drawn on aerial photographs
taken in April of 1986, March of 1986, and consequently I believe
that at least on the north side of the creek there' s a 400 foot
strip which is not appropriate at the present time. I think
conservation needs are more than adequately addressed with the
ordinance directed at building within 300 feet of the center of _
the creek.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, any other questions of Mr. Becht
or the staff? Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Virta: Mr. Bill Thiess. Mr. Thiess still here? David
Risinger.
Com. Fenn: Whenever you' re ready, you may go ahead. Give your
name please.
Mr. Ri s i nger: Mr. Chai rman, County Commi s s i oners , my name i s
Davi d Ri s i nger, I' m a devel oper pl anni ng cons ultant wi th Urban
Resource Group in Vero Beach. We're here today to talk site
specific about an 1800 feet, acre, tract of land located in the
south central part of the county. I've got an aerial here in
front of ine which I will elude to very quickly and then get on to
the overlays here so that the rest of the crowd can see that.
The property is referred to as the L. T. C. Ranch. We would like
to submit respectfully today that this property is unique for
several reasons. ~ne, is the neighborhood or portion of the
county that it's located in in terms of the proximity to existing ~
commercial areas, the reserve commerce park, the reserve, DRI
and St. Lucie West, the L. T. C. Ranch is situated in this
1 ocati on. G1 ades -Cut-Of f Road runs to the s outh of the
property, Midway Road runs east and west actually fronts all the ~
way up on Midway Road what road, which Tony is showing you on the
acetate overlay, and I-95 runs along the west edge.
The property was originally designated on the acetate overlay for
industrial development along the eastern edge with the western
portion being designated for residential, urban. Our interaction
with this property began last summer, and part as the result of
the county's land use designations on this property. Our effort
was to look at some of the existing and surrounding
transportation issues related to this property, specifically
G1 ades -Cut-Of f, I- 95, Midway Road and the propos ed Palmer
Expressway, which Griener Engineering had studied upto a point
endi ng at G1 ades -Cut-Of f Road.
i
Our client, Jim Kearn, who is here today, retained our firm
together with Kimly-Horne to take a look at how the Palmer
Expressway would relate to this property as it would ultimately
62
continue west and perhaps in the near term continue in a
northerly direction intersecting with Midway Road and potentially
north of Midway Road. It was at this time that our client
authorized us to meet with Griener Engineering, with County
staff, to begin to see how we could put this road together and
start to make things happen in this portion of the County.
As you can s ee, the i ni ti al 1 and us e des i gnati ons as i t went to
DCA somewhat reflects the thoroughfare plan from the standpoint
of arterial as we were calling it, heading north up the
property allowing for the development along the eastern edge.
As we got into the study and looked at the interchange and the
interaction of the Palmer Expressway with the L. T. C. Ranch, we
actually began to look at how we could create a northern
running parallel to I-95. We coigned the term Road Club and
began to have some fun with the concept of beginning to identify
other landowners moving north and ultimately contacted four
landowners, did a verily detailed study of the right-of-way
requirements and the alignment of arterial A, upto Okeechobee
Road at this location. That incidentally includes Charlie
Campbell's property which was just being addressed here before
you a few minutes ago. Beyond that, we have hopes that this
arterial running parallel to the turnpike and I-95 may extend
north of Okeechobee Road allowing the County to do what in the
western area it has been relatively unsuccessful in accomplishing
along the eastern edge and that's establishing a strong north-
south arterial with continuity running all the up connecting the
the Johnson Road corridor into Indian River County. I think the
significance of this is two fold. The next overlay pl~ease Tony.
From the standpoint of looking at what the revision to the Land
Use Plan did to us is quite obvious. We' ve taken a bit of a
reduction after going through the process of working with the
various members of the staff, taking a look at the Palmer
Expressway, looking at the wetland areas on the property and
beginning to weave this arterial up through the site, we were
shocked, to say the least, to see that the Plan had been revised
to the entire. property all the way over to the Harris
Corporati on I ndus Lri al Tract at a AG- 5. That was a 1 os s of al l
of the industrial designation which we felt was a reasonable
assignment on this property as well as the, about 5, 000 units of
residential development.
The package you have before you carries with it, in the text,
some comments that we'd like to call to your attention.
The first comment relates to page 62 of staff' s response to the
ORC Report, and staff is quoted as saying, "that the County' s -
basic strategy is to direct development into the I-95, Florida
Turnpike corridor away from the coast; however, caution should be
used in encouraging roads that will be served by I-95 and the
Turnpi ke as thes e are not 1 ocal roads I thi nk i t' s ~
important to understand that if the Palmer Expressway does
materialize and we are quite supportive of that concept, that a
more south parallel arterial to I-95 will be critical for two
reasons. One, it will allow development alonq the I-95 corridor
without turning I-95 into a local street, again as staff has very
wisely indicated it' s not there for local traffic, it' s there for
through traffic. The establishment of arterial A we feel is
significant and critical to maintaining I-95 as a through
arterial.
,
The other thing we would like to emphasize in terms of allowing
some mixed use development to occur out within the Turnpike, I-95
corridor is to take away some of the eminent future development
. _ 6 3
pressures from US #1, which .will have and currently has some
verily severe level of service problems.
On page 27 of the ORC Report, the DCA is recommended policies
which discourage urban sprawl patterns such as leap frog
development. We would like to respectively submit this property
is not leap frogged development, nor urban sprawl. The
nei ghborhood s urroundi ng thi s 1 and i ncl udes , agai n, The Res erve,
Commerce Park, St. Lucie West and The Reserve. The area
immediately to the east of our site is the Harris Tract which
retained an industrial designation and Florida Power and Light
retained some 150 acres of power transmission line easements
across the property. Now, I understand they are currently
looking for a second transmission line which will run somewhere
from east to west across the property the right-of-way with
currently as determined. It seems to us a serious sign of land
us e des i gnati ons that we' re cons i deri ng as s i gni ng one uni t per
five acres or one unit per two and one-half acres on either side
of the arterial connecting to the Expressway adjacent to existing
and proposed industrial development.
We feel that the mixed use designations are a logical location on
this property and feel that it doesn't constitute urban sprawl or
leap frog development. Tony can we see the last acetate.
The last acetate reflects what we feel to be the appropriate
designation on the ~property for several reasons.. The mixed use
development we've identified basically adheres to the line you
seen created by the future arterial A which again would connect
with the Palmer Expressway running north and south on the
property. I t' s ali gnment has been di ctated to a 1 arge degree by
several factors. One is the existence of wetlands on the :
property which we have preliminarily identified off of aerials
avoiding as many of those as possible. We have a fixed point to
the south where Griener Engineering has proposed that the Palmer
terminate at Glades-Cut-Off. That initially will be accomplished
as a at grade crossing across the Glades-Cut-Off and the FEC
Railroad. Glades-Cut-Off, as you are aware, is a 200 foot right-
of-way with the FEC being, I believe, a 100 foot right-of-way so
" we have a significant transportation, future transportation
corridor along the south of the property.
In the future, based on work Rimly-Horn has done, the Palmer will
interchange, of course, with I-95 and continue west to points
unknown, perhaps to Tampa, that`s a matter of future debate.
When this occurs, it will fly ~ver we feel Glades-Cut-Off and the
FEC Railroad interchanging within the L. T. C. Ranch, as a diamond
interchange located at that location and then a second of
Feeder Road would .be connected off of arterial A back onto
Gl ades -Cut-Of f, provi di ng conveni ent on and of f acces s to both I-
95, arterial A and Glades-Cut-Off.
I think the significance of all of this is in our client' s
immediate interests last summer in pursuing the right-of-way and
actually privately funding some of the engineering and design of
this very critical roadway segment for St. Lucie County in
attempting to go off site and pull together a Road Club that
would help establish arterial A as a significant north-south
parallel arterial to I-95.
We would respectively request that the Commission consider a re-
_ assessing the land use' s on this property from a AG-5 or AG-2. 5
which is currently being considered to a mixed use along the
eastern edge contiguous to I-95, Harris which has retained an
industrial. designation and the Florida Power and Light
64
Transmission. We have suggested a residential estate, a very
narrow band along the western edge in order to allow for us to
transition off the other side of arterial A. AG-5 along such a
piece of infrastructure tying into Palmer Expressway and Glades-
Cut-Off we feel is not the best utilization of that property, and
we've also identified an additional mixed use component up in the
property' s north-west quadroon adj acent to arterial A and Midway
Road. We are suggesting from the section line west that an AG-5
or AG-2. 5 be imposed. Our client' s western property limit is
McCarty Road, which in the past has represented yet another
transition in land use and we feel that would be an appropriate
point to change that location.
That concludes my portion of this. I' d like to introduce Tony
Tramel who has been my point man over here. He is with Kimly-
Horn, a traffic engineer, was involved in the analysis of the
Palmer Expressway, the extension in arterial A, if you have any
questions relating to that work.
I'd also like to mention to the Commission that Jim Kearn who
represents the partnership for L. T. C. Ranch, to answer any
guestions regarding his work and interests in St. Lucie County
in his piece of property and the Palmer Expressway specifically,
and I' d like to briefly introduce a gentleman who' s here with us
today, that I don' t believe has been here before, Mr. Alan Gold,
counsel for the partnership. Alan is with a law firm in Miami,
he is co-counsel for the High Speed Rail Authority and is either
been co-counsel or counsel for Dade, Broward and Orange Counties,
I believe, so he's going to share some thoughts with us today
about this tract and about the process we're in, in general.
Mr. Gol d: Thank you.
Chairman Trefelner: Let me ask. I indicated earlier today that
, I would like to, the Board would like everyone to try to limit
their comments to 10 minutes, certainly you have been a little
over 10 minutes, what do you expect, can you give me an estimate _
of how much time you need to continue.
Mr. Gold: Sir, I' 11 take three minutes, and try to be very
brief. My comments are two fold, and it' s my pleasure to appear
before you Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission.
First, I'd like to call your attention to a letter which is
attached to the back of your package on behalf of the ownership, •
and that letter expresses what we believe is our good faith to
make avai 1 abl e to the County the ri ght-of -way f or arteri al A,
subject to resolving the issues in these land use proceedings.
We' re willing to enter into an Agreement, much like you' ve heard
earlier during the day, in order to move forward the expedition
of the traffic circulation elements of the County.
Second, i f you' d pezmit me, and not to go where others have gone
earlier, but I think it' s very important to talk ~about where this
urban sprawl issue arises. You're not going to find a 125
percent rule in Chapter 163, Part 2, you're not going to find
_ that rule in Rule 9 J(5) of the D~epartment of Community Affairs,
and you' re certainly not going to find it in any amendments to
the legislation cause the legislature did not adopt the
Governor's proposal on the urban sprawl, urban boundary concept
65
in growth management. Where are you going to the find the rule
is in the technical memo, oh, it was by the Department of
Community Affairs, which is not adopted by rule and has no legal
status whatsoever in terms of its effectiveness other than :
stating what the Department of Community Affairs calls its
incipient policy in this area of growth management.
This morning you talked about some of the issues involving DCA' s
incipient policy, the question of density in the agricultural
area, question of preservation under the 25 percent criteria.
This issue of urban sprawl, whatever it is, is one of those other
issues where it has to be resolved through further negotiation.
This Commission has sent forth to DCA a Plan consistent with it's
earlier proposal is not an automatic requirement that penalties
will evolve. To the contrary, where this type of issue has not
been brought forth in any of the legislation it is very ripe for
the termination through this process, either through negotiation
or through hearing and further negotiation with the Governor and
Cabinet as to what in fact is the freedom of choice of local
governments in setting up their own direction for land use
control. Now, this is the heart of the matter. You've been
asked to now respond within a 60 day period, and we have too, on
a very difficult issue, and you have posed, and we heard it in
your Workshop and this morning, unanswered questions concerning
whether or not these policies of DCA are legal,. whether or not :
they are being fairly applied to this County and other counties
and whether or not there is a debatable issue as to how much land
ought to be available. You' re proposing very stringent
requirements in your transportation element for levels of
service. How are you going to meet all of your capital
expenditures that you need to have under the Plan requirements in
that area and yet undercut your tax base by removing alot of the
densities that you proj ected in your initial Plan were necessary '
for your own future growth. These and many other issues warrant
your further consideration with DCA in an ongoing process. We as
property owners would welcome the opportunity to intervene with
you to be able to work this out with DCA.
As you' ve heard this morning, it would be a great burden to put
on us to take these appeals separately with the Department and
fight them on a standard that is basically unfair and the policy
that isn't adopted is a matter of law. So we ask your continued
effort in this regard on behalf of property owners in this County
for continuation of the discussions on the urban sprawl concept.
We hope that you will consider this in the same light as you have
considered other issues this morning.
Thank you, I hope I didn't go over the three minutes too much.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. Well, one of the items that I
can say already is that the AG-5 which you are requesting here
now we changed this morning, so you've already got half of it.
Mr. Gold: Yes sir, I understand that. Through discussions that
already has occurred with staff, I believe David could comment on
this briefly, there wasn't much debate about the MXD as being
logical in terms of the arterial A. What we' re really here
talking about is the MXD on the northern part of the tract and
the RE i n the s outhern part. Really we' re as ki ng f or one unit
per acre within the RE, under your current proposal, it would be
- 2. 5, so we think we' re pretty in much in line, and for that we' ve
offered our good faith and we hope it warrants your
consideration.
_ _
66
Chairman Trefelner: Okay. Any questions on this parcel?
Question of whatever staff inember, the original designation as
transmitted was RU except for the industrial section, at least
that' s what he passed out here. I consider that' s accurate.
Mr. Murphy: Yes, that' s correct.
Chairman Trefelner: And then, as a result of the comments,
you've dropped back to, well the entire parcel being some sort of
AG, either AG-5 or AG-10, now it' s AG-2. 5.
Any comments from the staff, were you aware of this proposal
prior to your changing these recommendations.
Mr. Murphy: I' m s orry Commi s s i oner, 2 di dn' t here you. What
comments in regards to what?
Chairman Trefelner: Do you have any, were you aware of this
proposal?
Mr. Murphy: I' ve known and been working with the Road Club, as
it's put, since we first approached this idea. The arterial A is
identified on our thoroughfare maps as a long term roadway
project extending from Indian River County down into the Palmer
£xpressway would provide, it connects about four or five roads.
We considered it as a possible line of demarcation for land use,
but at this point in time, we chose instead to go with property
lines as opposed to mid-block ranges so to speak in this area.
In a long term prospective, as I' ve express.ed this to the
developers, this probably will make a whole lot of sense, but in
the short term and intermediate term and the absence of a
specific development of regional impact application showing the
full impacts, at the present time, I would have a hard time
recommending thst we go with every~hing as shown without getting
a 1 ot more i nf ormati on.
Chairman Trefelner: Well, we were going to do an RU for the
entire parcel.
Mr. Murphy: We were going to do an RU which would be designed to
recognize future growth for the area and ultimately it's not
going to develop in an RU, I think everybody can agree to that,
it's going to develop into something higher, but the guestion is
when, what process and again, we' re probably looking at the
process and the DIR process being the most appropriate one to go
with. ~
Chairman Trefelner: Okay. Any other questions?
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman, I have some questions and maybe
s ome comments .
_ '
Chairman Trefelner: Mrs. Culpepper.
67
Com. Culpepper: I' m sorry sir, did you recognize me?
Chairman Trefelner: Yes, go ahead.
Com. Culpepper: We had these discussions, Dennis, back during
the original transmission hearings, and I know it was me that was
the most vocal about this, and I imagine it might as well be me
that' s vocal again.
Originally, if I understand you correctly, this parcel was RU
which is what, two units per acre?
Mr. Murphy: Five units.
Com. Culpepper: Five units per acre, excuse me, thank you. _
And, now we're where we were from this morning I presume, two and
one-half and five on a part of.this or something like that? This
is what they want, what's on the overhead behind you.
Mr. Murphy: Yeah, as s umi ng f or a moment that the P1 an went as
it's presently drawn. This is what they would have and they
would have two and one-half, two and one-half here, two and one-
half here and there' s a small, small part of industrial that I
believe is there' s right up here, next to and it kind of squares
out the corner from the Harris tract. The Harris tract, or I' m
assuming it' s still the Harris tract, is right here, these are
the Florida Power and Light 500 KB transmission lines.
Com. Culpepper: Well the comments I was going to make, coupled
with perhaps some questions, with each and every scenario we've
entertained, including the Plan 2s we sent it last summer to
Tallahassee, was the determination every made as to the amount of
commercial and/or, I' m going to call it, business use excluding
agricultural because of the exemptions allowed for those
properties, because from a tax revenue generation, it's a known
fact thGt the areas that can pay best for their growth are the
areas that have the highest percentage of industrial and business
use within the scope of their population percentage wise.
Where are we standing, are we still even coupling the revenue ,
side with the capital improvement side? Did we ever, I know I
talked about it a great deal, and I didn' t get a lot of
enthusiasm at the time from folks dealing with the capital side,
but. . .
Mr. Murphy: I think I can answer the first part of that one,
I'm not sure if I can answer the second part. Where do we stand
is that the Plan right now shows on it exclusive of the mixed use
areas, and I had that written down here somewhere, I can find
that, we show approximately 3500 acres of property under a
commercial designation, we show approximately 4300 acres of
property under an i ndus tri al des i gnati on and when you f actor i n
the mixed use areas as presently depicted upon the Plan, that
takes our commercial upto about 8000 acres and industrial upto
about 6~00 acres. We did some ball park percentages to what we
thi nk the di s tributi on of us es woul d be. Now, that' s where we
stand with available acreage.
~
Com. Culpepper: But, you made it very clear to me last summer
when I had some problems with your mixed use designation from
that perspective, that mixed use would frequently have
68
residential units within it.
Mr. Murphy: That' s correct, and there' s a percentage of that
that has also been allocated to the residential land use
category.
Com. Culpepper: Okay, so you haven' t included that with the
numbers you just gave me.
Mr. Murphy: Right, I chopped it up into I think a 40-40, no, I
forget the exact mix I had in there, I've got it written down
here somewhere here, but we did mix it up stressing that in all
likelihood the heaviest uses would be non-residential but there
would be some residential of higher intensities.
Com. Culpepper: Okay, but the ques ti on i s, when al l thi ngs are
said and done where will we stand, if you want to use
percentages, where will we stand with our property mixes? In
other words, don't tell me we're going to have 8000 or 16000
acres without telling me how many thousands of acres of the
balance we're going to have and couple that with some of our
densities and/or I realize it would take a bit more work, we need
to look at location too because that's going to dictate in
greatest part the value of those properties and; therefore, their
taxable assessed valuations rather.
Mr. Murphy: Yeah, I can' t tell you, when you- get to the value
questions. . . .
Com. Culpepper: Yeah, but their critical. Their what' s gonna
pay for all this. You know, we talk about growth paying for
itself and I think everyone on this Board can say with true
conviction that the way we've grown in the past does not pay for
itself. The only kind of growth that does even have a chance of
paying for itself, are those mixtures of growth which include
enough commercial to disperse the tax revenue requirements away
f rom the homeowners i nto the bus i nes s communi ty, and al l that i s
simply is reduction of the number of people tnat live here and at
the same time a commensurate increase in the amount of business ~
that' s done here, because business' don' t go to school they just
go home at night and their kids go to school and they have to
live somewhere anyway, so. . .
Mr. Murphy: Commissioner l don' t have an answer for you,
truthfully.
Com. Culpepper: Thank you.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay, next.
Mr. Vi rta: John P. Li ns troth.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Whi 1 e you' re s etti ng up, we' re goi ng to
. take a five minute break. '
Okay, anytime you're ready you may start.
_ _ 69
Mr. Linstroth: Sure. For the record, my name is John Linstroth
and I'm representing the property generally known as the Duda
Tract, and I' 11 just show you, I think everyone knows where it` s
at, but let me just outline it.
Attorney Michael Minton, has presented to you, on behalf of the
Dean, Mead, Egerton Law Firm, who represents the property owners
in objection to the staff changes. I' d also like to just make a
few comments regarding those changes as well.
One, Mr. Chairman, when you opened the meeting, you suggested
that anyone who was not affected by these changes should go back
and use the normal process or the regular process of land use
change. The Duda interests in fact, did use this process and it
was less than a year ago the letter of conveyance to the Duda' s
was dated February 17, 1989,~and received by them on February
24th, that' s about 10 1/2 months ago, so in fact, the property :
owners did go through the land use change and there was a
unanimous approval of what was presented at that time.
I'd like to respectfully suggest that the I-95 completion is
perhaps the most strategical event that' s occurred in St. Lucie -
County, certainly in recent years. That is impacted clearly the
maj ority of the properties that you' re talking about today and
certainly the properties at the south end of the County. As a
result of I-95 you are going to see some significant
opportunities that will be available to the County.
At the present time, the County has approximately 14 percent of .
its zoned land use and that is improved land use, in commercial
and industrial use. Now that means that the balance of the
property other than agriculture which pays a low tax base, which
represents about 10 percent of all other property owners, about
75 percent of the property taxes in Palm Beach, or, in St. Lucie
County, are being paid for by the residents. Your initial Plan
which provided on this particular piece of property, a large land
use for mixed use development .and significant supportive acreage
~ for residential development which you can't expect to develop
any type o~ commercial, industri~l use, light industrial use
unless there is the availability of supportive residential. It's
our feeling that the changes that were made on the property were
done strictly, had nothing to do with good planning, it was ;
s~rictly a mathematical change to conform with some DCA comments.
What was good planning, with your initial Plan it was approved on
our particular piece of property less than a year ago and
confirmed and sent to DCA some few months ago, has now been
superseded by just a mathematical very subjective change, and it
really does not have anything to do with good planning.
We would respectfully request that you restore our uses to, at a
mi ni mum, what was approved by the County Commi s s i on s ome 10 1/ 2
months ago.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. With regard to this particular
parcel, Mr. Murphy, what was previously transmitted included an
intensitive use for more property than what we had previously
changed through onr plan amendmEnt process.
~
Mr. Murphy: Yes sir, there, we squared off some of the corners
down there a little~bit over what was originally.approved about a
year ago, as Mr. Linstroth pointed out.
_ 70_
Chairman Trefelner: About how much in terms of percentage?
Mr. Murphy: A section, section and one-half, the total area
again, alot of that was some squaring, just re-apportionment of
s ome o f the us es .
Chairman Trefelner: What we approved before then was, of
course, we didn't have mixed use at the time, so we had what?
Mr. Murphy: I nterchange.
s Chairman Trefelner: Interchange?
Mr. Murphy: Ri ght.
Chairman Trefelner: And any residential beyond that?
Mr. Murphy: I don' t have Mr. Li ns troth' s 1 etter i n f ront of ine
right now, but I think there was some RL down in there and I
think that's about what it was. Is RL and interchange land use.
Mr. Linstroth: I think Mr. Murphy is totally understating the
issue here. What was approved by you 10 1/2 months ago is the
entire purple piece that was shown here was approved by this
Commission by a 5-0 vote 10 1/2 months ago. In other words, this
entire piece was approved 10 1/2 months ago by this Commission,
this property as well, that' s shown in orange, I can' t tell the
color, was also approved for RL, there was no approval for this
particular area that's show in yellow, but this entire amount was
approvea by the Commission unanimously 10 1/2 months ago. So,
r what we're asking for is a restoration of that fact what you have
approved less than a year ago. This all was shown as mixed use .
at that time, it was approved at that time. So, Mr. Murphy's
suggesting you changed it a little bit, it' s somewhat of a mis-
statement, you' ve reduced the original mixed use by more than
half to about a third of what was originally approved and you' ve
eliminated all of this residential which is certainly more than
one°half of what was originally approved.
Mr. Murphy: Yeah, Mr. Linstroth is correct, that' s what' s on
the Plan right now, but what was transmitted, in response to your
question was essentially the same as was approved last year. The
dark purple area represents, I believe, what was shown as
interchange, I don'~t believe there was any RM down there, there
was RL, which was residential low as a parameter around that.
All of that is now on the tissue paper that's on top of there,
that' s was what was contracted in. The point being though is
that the map that ultimately was transmitted to the Department of
Community Affairs for their review did include additional acreage
above what this Board approved as a free standing plan amendment
in 19, whatever it was, 89. _
_ Chairman Trefelner: Plus the yellow area which is R...
Mr. Murphy: RS.
_
71 _
Chairman Trefelner: RS?
Mr. Murphy: Yes s i r.
Com. Fenn: May I ask a question?
Chai rman Tref el ner: Whi ch was not a s ubj ect of the 1 and us e
amendment.
Mr. Murphy: That' s correct. ~
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay. Al l ri ght, I' m through.
Commissioner.
Com. Fenn: May I ask a question? Where can we find the
comments from DCA on this, on this particular one? Because,
okay, if it were consistent with our Growth Management Plan when
we submitted it, what has caused the change now. ~
Mr. Murphy: Mr. Chairman, if I can, the comments on all of our
land plan amendments that we have filed with the Department since
1985, have included an escape clause on the part of DCA that the
amendment proposed, the amendment being reviewed, has been :
determined to be consistent with the rules in effect at the time
our old Plan was approved. What has changed? Is the rules of
the game have changed, and the items that are considered by the
Department in their reviewing of land plan amendments have
changed, their criteria has changed. Now, we haven~t filed under
the amendment process, as under the new rules, because this is
what we are doing right now. We' re effectively trying to adopt
the Pl an i nto the new rul es , and of cours e, we' re havi ng s ome
concerr. with some of their issues. Now, under our old Plan, it
would have been fine, under the new guidelines.
Chairman Trefelner: What Commissioner, I think he's asking what
specifically under this on their ORC Report on this particular
property but they did not address a parcel specifically.
Mr. Murphy: They di dn' t s i ngl e thi s one out f or any parti cul ar
reas on.
Com. Fenn: Then, you and your staff went back and you all
looked at all of these properties and then you made a
determination on what should be now since the new rules were in.
Mr. Murphy: We had to make a recommendation to you that we felt
addressed the issues being raised by the state. The tissue on
that overlay over there indicates what our recommendations are
given what we have had filed or submitted to us in terms of
actual development plans for the;property. We are aware that
- there are long terin development schemes for this property, we
recognize that.
_ _
72
Com. Fenn: Well you know, as with other pieces of property
within the County too, this Board sat here and in good faith made
a commitment to these developers and not that the rule cannot be :
changed, but I think we should be very, very cautious in having
to renege on a commitment that we made as a Board here in good
faith. Now, if we have a substantial thing from DCA that we
cannot do anything with a little later on, then I guess we will
have to bite the bullet, but I just feel as though that as near
as possible, we should try to live up to our commitment, and
especially with documentations that we sent to this particular
firm as I guess we have done with other too.
Mr. Murphy: Ri ght, that' s our s tandard noti ce 1 etter.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you. Any other questions?
Thank you.
Mr. Linstroth: Thank you very much.
Chairman Trefelner: Next.
Mr. Virta: Betty Lou Wells.
' Mrs . Wel l s: I' m s orry, I f orgot I had a s mal l c omment under
future land use and I wasn't really ready to run up here.
I do have a few comments on a range of things, I understand I
should save them for the appropriate section, but I will repeat
that I am representing the Conservation Alliances of St. Lucie
County, and I would like to say at this time, that the
Conservation Alliance congratulates the Department of Community
Affairs on the Comprehensiveness of its analysis and
recommendations. We also congratulate the St. Lucie Planning
stGff on the quality and quantity of its responses. Personnel in
both organizations have quite obviously put in long and effective
hours of work at the j obs that it' s their j ob to do.
And I then said, we wished we could end our comments here with
this phrase, but we do have some recommendations and comments.
They are incomplete because our Study Committee has not been able
to digest and analyze the voluminous material in the time that it
has been available to us.
Our comment on the future land use policy on page 31 of these
responses being item 1111. This is the table I~believe and our
comment here was that this appeared not to meet state density
standards as sited by DCA for agricultural areas nor to include
the explanations that they asked for for reasons behind specific
dens iti es . I woul d j us t li ke to s ay further, that I' ve not heard
any discussion today that seems to bear in on the question of
what changing the densities does to all the rest of your Plan.
Your need for schools, jails, roads, all the things that are
going to cost the County and the state or somebody money for
every new person that comes to the County, and it seems to me
that we are really looking at this thing with blinders on at this
point if we talk exclusively about how many people you would like
- to be able to put on your property without talking about how
their needs are going to be done in good time and paid for, and
by who.
73 .
I would just like also to make the comment, with all due respect,
to the Duda representative, that at the time that was changed
last year, the Conservation Alliance protested the change here
and at their Regional Planning Council for the reason that we
f el t i t was to f ar i n the f uture to make thi s change. We s ai d
there is no clear need for this rezoning at this time, and as
future events happen it could be that another part of the County
would seem to be a more logical place to do whatever expansion of
that kind was done in that western area. So, there was a protest
at that ti me, that i t was s pe cul ati ve and to f ar i n the f uture
and that seems to be what DCA is commenting on now.
Chairman Trefelner: Thank you.
Mr. Virta: Holly Tetzloff.
Mrs. Tetzloff: Are we still under future land use, cause I
didn't remember checking that one?
Chairman Trefelner: Yes, we' re still under it. You want to
wait?
Mrs. Tetzloff: I' d rather wait.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay. Whi ch part di d you mean, i ntend to
check, maybe they can correct it?
Mrs. Tetzloff: I thought I checked coastal management and
conservation, I could speak under one of those.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, we` re not on that subj~ect yet.
Mrs. Tetzloff: Right.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay.
Mrs. Tetzloff: Thank you.
Chai rman Tref el ner: Next.
Mr. Virta: John Alper.
Mr. Alper: Good afternoon: I am a general partner in a
partnership that owns a 40 acre tract on the south side of Indrio
Road west of Emerson and east of Johnson. Over the past year,
our partnership spent alot of time and funds applying for a
change in land use and zoning which was ultimately given to us by
this Board, I believe, early August of this year, and we' re now
- zoned for RS-2, two units an acre. `
I' d just like to point out one point that I was concerned about
on this property, it's not just my equity in the property but the
74
equity of two lenders who have loaned me money over the past year
on the property. Had a conversation with the gentleman from
Southeast Bank in the last week and also Mr. Jim Alderman who
represented me before this Board and Mr. Alderman also represents
Southeast Bank and since he is not here, although I'm not
authorized to represent the bank, I would like to make some
conceptual comments which effect my bank and also any other bank
in the area and that is this. The bank and another gentleman, an
i ndi vi dual , both made 1 oans to our partners hip f or the purpos e of
giving us funds to get the property rezoned and also to re-
f i nance the, s ome, a s mall er amount of exi s ti ng debt, and I made
the representation to vote these people before we got zoning, but
my intention was to make every effort to better the zoning of the
property and to develop the property, and it was on this basis,
this representation, that the bank and the private individual
made me the loans and took mortgages of the property. There ~
concern, and any other lender's concern is this, is that now they
would be facing the prospect of having their collateral wiped-
out.
Chairman Trefelner: The action this morning changed it
Com. Culpepper: What did we give him in August?
Chairman Trefelner: Two, RS-2.
Com. Culpeppar: Two units per acre. And now, he' s at one unit
per every two and one-half acres.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Ri ght. Next.
Mr. Virta: Pat Murphy. Pat Murphy.
Chairman Trefelner: He's the last one. Is he the last one?
Mr. Vi rta: Yes , Mr. Chai rman.
Chairman Trefelner: You better tell him to hurry. After Mr. ;
Murphy speaks, Boar.d, I think we should make some determination
on what we' re about to do. I' ve made a 1 i s t of thos e peopl e who
have spoken in front of us. We could start from the south and
work north or work circles to the north and work south, unless
there is some other idea that the Board has.
Mr. Murphy.
Mr. P. Murphy: For the record, my name is Pat Murphy, with Hoyt
C. Murphy' s office. Mr. George Baldwin asked me to speak today,
he could not make the meeting. He owns a 155 acre tract on Angel
Road Extension which is immediately west of a subdivision by the
name of Country Living Estates. ~This is in the area, you past
- Golden Pond, you pass the Woods of Fort Pierce, it is
i mmedi atel y, under the ol d propos ed Comp P1 an i n a two uni t an
acre category. Section five right here and he's in the quarter
section just to the west of the center line of the section five
_ _ 75
there.
I guess, like everybody else, he was devastated to see the one
unit per ten acres, is my understanding, I've been out most of
the morning, but that's possibly going to be in the one per five
acre category. That parcel, along with many other parcels in the
County is not really in a purely Ag area. As of right now
there's some cattle running on the property to keep the green
belt in place, but it just destroys the whole economics of the
property trying to develop one per five acres. Pete Van der
Lugt, the adj oining property owner and is on the way, that` s why
I was hoping you wouldn't call me so soon, for years has had that
property laid out into acre, two acre homesites. It's not
formally platted, but there are conceptual plans that have been
submitted to the County over the years. I think Pete spoke
earlier. Again, they are request, they would like to stay at one
per one as I'm sure everybody would like to. Specifically, that
~ yel l ow porti on that was , I' m s ure there was s ome good 1 ogi cal
thinking at one time, the yellow portion to two units per acre to
go from two to one per five, in fact, the dividing point there is
the Turnpike. On one side you got two units per acre on the
highway, on the other side you've got now one per five, and
there' s really not a whole lot of difference in one side of the
Turnpike and the other.
Again, it' s not truly an Ag area, there is actually some intense
development out there. At least they' d like to see the one per
two and one-half in that yellow area which is, we realize, is
rather extensive but that might be a more logical zoning.
Thank you. •
Chairman Trefelner: I think that is one to two and one-half
now, is it not?
Com. Mi r.i x: Yes .
~ Chai rman Tre f el ner: Bas ed on the ac ~i on we took thi s morni ng.
Com. Mi ni x: Yes , I thi nk s o.
Chairman Trefelner: Well, it didn't start out that way this ~
morni ng, but I thi nk i t i s.
Mr. Murphy: It was in a one per 10.
Chairman Trefelner: Oh, was it?
Mr. Murphy: Has the one per 10 gone to one per two and one-half?
Com. Minix: No, it went to one to five.
Mr. Murphy: No, Mr. Chai rman, what you al l di d thi s morni ng i s
_ whatever was AG-5, now reads as AG~-2.5, whatever was AG-10 or AG-
20, now reads AG-5.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay.
76
Com. Minix: Maybe we could do it one and a quarter, two and a
half. . . . .
Com. Fenn: May I ask? Dennis, where the, I guess that is
yell ow, where the yel l ow wi th thos e s ecti ons there, why was the
quarter section used there.
Mr. Murphy: Why was the line drawn there?
Com. Fenn: Yes.
? Mr. Murphy: In actuality the line on the original
recommendations, to the LPA and this Board was, for RS further
east than what was ultimately. transmitted. it was through the
public hearing process and the general consensus of this Board
that it got pulled west to where it is right now, about another
mile or so. It roughly, roughly lines up with an north-south
extension of Shinn ~ Road, and Shinn Road has, ~Shinn Road, and ~
Shinn Road and Range Line Road have in earlier thoughts been
foreseen as the western limit of urban development, if you will.
That' s why the line was drawn there. And, it splits the County
in half.
Chairman Trefelner: Anyone else sign up to speak?
Mr. Vi rta: Not on the 1 and us e i s s ue.
Chairman Tre~elner: Okay, any general comments from the
Commission?
~ No generGl commen~s? Okay, let' s start from, you want to leave
, it the way it is?
Com. Minix: Well, I' m getting a little electricity here, for
one thi ng. I' m havi ng s econd thoughts . I' m thi nki ng of one and
a quarter, two and a half and five. .
Chairman Trefelner: No, we already did that this morning.
All right, we' ve heard a number of individuals that were effected
by the proposed changes, from what was originally submitted.
And, one group of people who, although there was not a change
from an original submission, which protested it the first time
and are here again protesting it the second time, that's the
property on Angel Road and Johnson Road that is proposed to be
changed to mixed use, it remains as mixed use, in this version of
the draft.
Let me just ask a question. Does any member of the Board wish to
change it, other than that member that wis3~ed to change it the
last time?
_ ~
Com. Culpepper:
_
77
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Thi s i s the I ndri o, I me an, thi s i s Angel
and Johnson Road.
It' s currently in as mixed use. It' s the property that was, that
predominantly the Golden Ponds~residents are opposed to.
Does any member of this Board wish to change, make a motion to
change it back to the residentially, strictly residential use?
Com. Minix: Not until we find out what' s gonna happen to the
interchange.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay, i f there' s no moti on then I pres ume
that the Board is satisfied with, at least the majority of the
Board is satisfied, with the way it was submitted.
Starting then with the northern part. At the Workshop Session,
and again today, I asked the Board to consider, or I ask to °
consider, now I' m asking the Board to consider filling in what
someone described as the whole in the donut which was that
property between the developed Lakewood Park and the developed
Spanish Lakes and the Capron Trail Community District, currently
designated as agricultural in nature to a residential class, the
lowest residential classification which we have, which is
residential estate. .
Any member of the Board have any thoughts or, on that matter?
Com. Mi r.i x: I woul d, I woul d agree on thos e
Com. Fenn: What did he say? What did you say Jim, I didn't get
the last part?
Com. Mir.ix: I said, I would agree that that go to residential
estates.
But, I' m bei ng s eri ous on the Ag. I thi nk as 1 ong as we go over
one unit to the acre, we can have a three categories of Ag that
will answer most of the problems that we' ve had in the area of
five per acre, if you take that one to one and a quarter you will
be giving those people back pretty close to what they had.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman.
Com. Minix: And, this leaves your residential.as one acre as
being the . . . .
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman. Then based on that, I really
was, I was serious when I said to Mr. Becht I wasn' t- being
vicious this morning. If we are going to find ourselves in a
_ negotiating posture, we held lengthy public hearings last summer,
we took volumes of public comment, we passed a Plan, while it
certainly wasn' t perfect because of plan of the scope and
magnitude of these, are never perfect, their never going to be
- _
78
they never have been. Their an exercise in trying to put
s omethi ng on a pi ece of paper f or s ome s ort of gui dance, but i f
we acknowledge that we're going to negotiate, and we know that
the capital improvement section, for all practical purposes, has
not been changed, which means in fact, the concern, the
legitimate concern that Mrs. Wells brought forward because we
have capital improvements to meet the old Plan and the old
intensities of use that were in the old Plan. So those things
haven' t changed.
Several property owners have approached me during the break,
perhaps they've approached you as well and reiterated their
comments that they're going to intervene, if we find ourselves in
a negotiating posture with DCA. It might be more appropriate
to simply negotiate out these acreages that you suggest here that
may not be un-palatable to folks that we aren't hearing from
today. At some future time
Com. Minix: Mr. Chairman, in answer to that. You know, there' s,
we were told by staff that one acre wasn't consider being in the
agriculture, that was considered residential. So, anything above
that, I would consider to be a proper Ag, so one and a quarter
acres, and that divides.
Com. Culpepper: t?)
Com. Minix: Well, but it divides one and a quarter divides into
10 acre tracts and 40 acre tracts and so on. -
Com. Culpepper: It' s certainly up to you all, but I, you know,
that' s an argument I might make with them at
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Commi s s i oner you' re s ugges ti ng we andres s
the issue of ag~iculture densities and,
Com. Mi ni x: Ri ght, ri ght.
Chairman Trefelne~: My vote, is that I think we' ve been very -
liberal what we did this morning, and
Com. Minix: Well, I know, I was the one that made that motion,
but after listening to all these people now, on specific issues
where we've actually, we have actually already had public
hearings and given them much different densities than this, then
I' m not sure that we were in fact, doing the proper thing this
morning when we went to the two and one-half, five and five.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, in the silence then, let' s pick up
where we left off on the specific pieces of property.
Com. Minix: You get down there
_ ~
Chairman Trefelner: I feel like a talk show host moving down
here. No, I can' t~ see the map from up there, I.can point it out
_
79
better down here.
Let's start off in the north section, which is the first one
that that we addressed today. This is Lakewood Park, this is
Spanish Lakes, this is Capron Trail, this area, originally sent
to DCA had an R.
Mr. Murphy: " S" .
Chairman Trefelner: My . . . .
Mr. Murphy: I t had an RS.
Chairman Trefelner: RS, two unit per acre.
Mr. Murphy: Yes s i r.
Chairman Trefelner: We've had some discussion on, currently it's
down to AG-2. 5 or an Ag, 2. 5. We' ve had a di s cus s i on on ~
considering building this area into an RA, which is the lowest
residential classification. I would suggest that we roughly
follow the term by, as being the dividing line of the two to the
point that it intersects with the Capron Trails being a logical
point similar to this area.
Any discussion, questions, comments from the Board?
No, you want to leave it AG-2.5?
Com. Fenn: Mr. Chairman, forget about what DCA might do, or
address this. When we get down to our land development
regulations, Denr.is, can we not re-visit this and make a
determination at that time what we see fit to do with the land at
that time? Because, the Plan will be coming up for amendments
anyway, okay. So, if we' re not sure what we want to do today,
why n~t leave it as is and then at a subsequent date, re-visit
it. .
Mr. Murphy: I' 11 refer Mr. Virta to responding to that one.
Mr. Virta: Mr. Chairman, Co~umi.ssioner Fenn, what we have to do
is, whether we develop our land development regulations which
include all regulations, including zoning, those regulations will
have to be developed consistent with this Plan, and this Plan
will s erve as the gui de as to how thos e regul ati~ons are appli ed. :
So, it' s important that the Plan and whatever those LDR' s, they
be in line with each other.
Com. Fenn: I recognize that, but I'm not so sure that this
Commission is ready to make a determination. Com. Culpepper has
some concern, Com. Trefelner is trying to find out exactly where
we stand on that in addition to coming on down to the Turnpike
_ and we have not given him any inc~ication, Jim started out and
then Jim pulled back, so, where are we? And, I' m not so sure
what I want. ~
80 .
Chairman Trefelner: Then give me your proxy.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman. ~
Chairman Trefelner: Commissioner Culpepper.
Com. Culpepper: Thank you, s i r. I' m not s ure I knew whi ch of
the Plans, when you answered Com. Fenn you were referring to, :
because this gets confusing. I, personally, I' m most interested
. i n what we ori qi nal l y trans mi tted. What was the i ntent, i n my
copious quantities of notes that I took on these parcel
specifics, somehow on that one I missed what we originally
submitted that this line has now altered.
Chairman Trefelner: Are you talking about this northern part?
Com. Culpepper: Yes, about the third parcel, I believe it's the
Charles Campbell property. Is that correct? The one Mr. Becht
spoke to.
Chairman Trefelner: Well, there are three more people that
spoke to that general area.
Com. Culpepper: Well I know, but~ some of them are different
weren' t they? :
Chairman Trefelner: What was originally transmitted was two
units per acre.
Com. Culpepper: Okay, because Mr. Becht made the comment,
"return to what we had, or give us A',XD, " that was what he said
on one piece up there. And then there was,
Chairman Trefelner: Well what they had prior to the
transmission was agricultural, one unit per acre.
Com. Culpepper: Is that a yes?
Mr. Murphy: Mr. Chai rman, the areas that are i n ques ti on ri ght
now, that area 1 yi ng north of I ndri o Road, s outh of I ndri o Road
and the Airport mixed use area, and what we refer to as the Brown
Ranch mixed use area, presently carry a density of one unit to
the acre. That's with the current Growth Management Policy Plan. .
Under either the agriculture or semi-urban designation. What was
transmitted to Tallahassee was a, through a variety of
terminologies, but essentially a land use application of two
units to the acre with some higher intensities at or around the
immediate vicinity of the Indrio Road interchange.
I believe Mr. Becht' s comments were that, you know, if he can' t
keep his two he' d be happy with one, but he' d like to have his
_ two, and I think that was the general drift, if I can paraphrase
from the other people, of what they had. They don't want to have
something worse than they are today. Not to put words into the
gentlemen' s mouths but. . . .
81 '
Com. Culpepper: Al l ri ght, when you s ay, " wors e than what we
have today, " you' re talking about that which we had before we
transmitted the original Plan, is that correct?
Mr. Murphy: Right, that which is on the books as of this very
moment which is one unit to the acre.
Com. Culpepper: Which is one unit to the acre, we transmitted
two units to the acre.
Mr. Murphy: Yes, mame.
Com. Culpepper: Gotcha.
Chairman Trefelner: That's why I suggested that we consider the
one unit per acre designation rather than the residential estate.
Fill in these areas that and drop back to AG-2.5.
Com. Minix: Outline where you want that, or where you consider
that.
Chairman Trefelner: All these areas, it' s hard to see from up
there.
Com. Mi nix: I can s ee all ri ght.
Chairman Trefelner: This remains then to the ) mixed use,
Airpor~.
Mr. Murphy: That' s correct.
Com. Culpepper: Where is Indrio Road, at the top of that
purple?
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Ri ght through here, ri ght through the
middle. This is the Indrio Road intersection.
Com. Culpepper: So, the mixed use would then still be below
Indrio Road?
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Ri ght.
Com. Culpepper: Is that a correct. and that would encompass
a piece of property that somebody else talked about, right?
_ I ask these auestions, because if ~ we are going to maintain our
densities, I think it is appropriate that we make sure there are
some options for some commercial properties or some potential to
develop some out there so that they' re not all driving to Fort
_ _ _ _ _ _
82
Pierce or to Vero Beach to shop.
Mr. Murphy: Mr. Chairman, Com. Culpepper, what we' re looking at
is this area right here. It's currently shown as an agricultural
density of one unit for every two and one-half acres. This same
area here, this outlined area right through here is a part of the
MXD, what we referred to as Airport, Airport is a sub-name
This is carrying with it a restricted density right now, of
one unit per two and one-half acres, and then also, I believe it
was Mr. Carmody' s cli ent, over here, Mr. Brown, who is 1 ooki ng at
originally a concept of two un~ts to the acre over this area, and
he too is looking to have that reinstated back to what they have
today which is essentially one unit to the acre.
This area, roughly in through here, totals out ~ to about 13, 000
acres, and in essence, if I' m getting into some words that )
I'm being accused at looking at consideration of simply taking
thi~ whole pocket and under whatever terminology we would use,
simply have it run into the of one unit to the acre. Now the
more intense commercial options still exist in this particular
region right here. One comment that was made, and I believe it
was by Mr. Minix when he was speaking of the property that
had a recommendation of, original recommendation of one to two
and, where are you? I, what does that read
Mr. P. Murphy: It was originally tagged one to one.
Mr. Murphy: Ri ght.
Mr. P. Murphy: That was RS.
Mr. Murphy: Ri ght. ~
Mr. P. Murphy: Now, we were 1 ooki ng f or MX whi ch you and I
talked abou~ that, or what we originally had.
Mr. Murphy: Which was . Right, so, and but then
Commissioner were looking at that earlier area as a possibly one ,
unit, which would be, that' s what' s on the books today.
Com. Culpepper: Tell me, we oughta just submit our Plan over
agai n.
Your little lines out to where we didn't have our original Plan,
and. . . . .
Mr. Murphy: Do what?
Com. Culpepper: I said, move the little green lines out to
where our Plan stopped with any kind of intensity and just ship
it back that way.
- Mr. Murphy: ( ? ) ~
Com. Culpepper: Yeah. Then go with Com. Minix' s suggestion
_
83
to keep us out of hot water.
Com. Minix: You' d keep it agriculture that way.
Com. Cul pepper: That' s ri ght. I don' t know, i t' s f rus trati ng.
Chairman Trefelner: What? What's the pleasure of the Board on
that parcel, on that area, that four or five people have
generally addressed?
Com. Fenn: If we go back to one to one, will that be basically
what we have already in place now?
Chairman Trefelner: Basically would be what' s currently in
place under the current situation, not what we submitted
i ni ti al l y.
Mr. Murphy: Right, one to one would be the property status as ~
of this very moment in time under the laws of the County. -
Com. Minix: Let me ask, let me ask this question of Dennis.
Dennis was there any other in that area that~we did that we
already changed to two, two units per acre, is that the only
piece?
Com. Culpepper: No, there were others.
Mr. Murphy: There was s ome s mall er parts i n cl os er, eas t of
Emerson Avenue that we didn't tinker with on the second go around
here. They were RS the first time around, they're still RS now.
Com. N:i:~i~: No, but I mean, that we actually changed in ~his
section we're now talking about. Is there any other sections?
Chai rman Tre f el ner: He' s tal ki ng about we changed through the
regular Plan amendment process.
Mr. Murphy: Through Plan amendments? No.
Chairman Trefelner: Was there one, did we change this other one
up here do a regular amendment, independent amendment? No.
Mr. Murphy: Mr. property went through the regular amendment
process, and it's land use classification presently reads RL, but
there' s only one when you put all the simultaneous rezoning
to RS-2, so that . . .
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman. Dennis are you sure, I, maybe
I' m confusing some of the land~ use hearings where we went
- through, it' s not as though we didn' t consider this area, we
debated this area, talked about this area and came up with that
which is reflected in the original Plan. We probably spent more
on this particular area, time on this particular area of the
84 _ _ .
County, than virtually any other area.
Com. Minix: I agree.
Com. Culpepper: And, i t was done, i n what we thought was i n a
proper way to be co-ordinated.
Com. Minix: Why don' t we j ust, why don' t we j ust extend the
mi xed us e, that was the two-uni ts and go wi th Dal e' s s ugges ti on
on the rest of it.
Com. Culpepper: Well what about some other areas that we had, I
di s ti nctl y remember rez oni ng s ome thi ngs , perhaps that i s n' t
going to make any difference with whatever designations. There
was more than Mr. Alper' s piece.
Mr. Murphy: Ri ght, we' ve had a coupl e of rez oni ngs up i n that
area, but none in an area I spoke of, in that area, but none
effecting density. We' ve had a few use things, like some
commercial neighborhood and some institutional uses.
Com. Culpepper: Okay.
Mr. Murphy: But their not effected by
Com. Culpepper: They won' t be effected by what we' re talking
about?
Mr. Murphy: That' s correct.
Chairman Trefelner: Commissioner Minix, were you about to make
a moti on?
Com. Minix: Yeah, let me try a motion, let' s extend the mixed
use for that property that was under the, our own change, and ,
then the rest of it one unit per acre RE, I think is the
desiqnation.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, Dennis, you understand the section
we' re tal ki ng about? I t was the one that was j us t a s 1 i ght s hi f t
of the mixed use to the east, incorporate that property.
Mr. Murphy: Oh, wait a minute.
Chairman Trefelner: Is it to the east? Yeah.
Mr. Murphy: No, we' re talking about, you' re talking about Mr.
Alper's property which we reviewed some time ago, I forget where
it was.
~
- Com. Culpepper:
Com. Minix: I' m talking about, I` m talking about the property
8 5
that my son said was right off that.
Mr. Murphy: Okay, it' s roughl y a s ecti on that runs ri ght here.
Com. Mi ni x: Ri ght.
Mr. Murphy: And, you're recommending now that that be MXD?
Chairman Trefelner: interchange. -
Com. Minix: And then one unit per acre for all the rest of it
i n that, Da1 e outli ned.
Chairman Trefelner: Now, I was suggesting that we cut off at
the. . . . . .
Mr. Murphy: ( ? )
Chairman Trefelner: At the Turnpike.
Mr. Murphy: Okay
Com. Fenn: Cut off at the Turnpike.
Com. Culpepper: How far east did you go.
Chairman Trefelner: Pardon me.
M=. Mur?hy: How far east?
Com. Culpepper: Yes sir. ~ .
Mr. Murphy: I took i n al l of the area that we had cl as s i f i ed
f or a res i denti al des i gnati on, previ ous 1 y at one per two and a
hal f down to the Ai rport MXD whi ch i s about a quarter of a mil e
east, excuse me, a quarter of a mile west of Ring' s Highway.
Com. Mi ni x: Ki ng' s Hi ghway.
Mr. Murphy: There' s a ditch here, it' s some kind of a divide, I
think runs through here, that these properties that have access,
direct access to King' s Highway would have the option for a non-
residential classification. Those that still have to come in off
of Seminole or Johnson Road would still be in a residential
classification, so I' d have the density, if it goes, at one unit ~
to the acre.
~
Chairman Trefelner: No, that still a split in half of what we
originally transmitted, right?~
86
Mr. Murphy: That' s correct. This is all originally one unit
Chairman Trefelner: But it's double what we were looking at
earlier.
Com. Culpepper: It sounded like you're getting ready to
increase some of the things, aren't we?
Chai rman Tre f el ne r: Uh, uh.
Com. Culpepper: What did you say we were there?
Chairman Trefelner: Increase it from this, not from the
original transmittal.
Mr. Murphy: s o f ar, I don' t thi nk you' re i nc reas i ng
anything over the original transmittal. :
Ch~irman Trefelner: No. ~
Com. Culpepper: What was th~e purple before?
Mr. Murphy: Specific use, restricted to residential,
agricultural activities at density not to exceed two units to the
acre
Com. Culpeppe~: Two units, okay, all right, I' m sorry.
Mr. Murphy: Whatever you want to do up there.
Com. Fenn: A question, Although we have spent quite a bit of
time on that and we spent time on it once before, but do we have
any other sections that's gonna fall in that same type of a
category?
Mr. Murphy: You mean . . . .
Com. Fenn: Li ke that. ~
Mr. Murphy: In more parts of the County, down here?
Com. Fenn: Yes, down there.
Mr. Murphy: I think there are a couple that you're gonna be
- considering. ~
Chairman Trefelner: Well, I' ve got a list here, we can go down
87
lt?
Com. Fenn: Okay, the reason why, I don' t want us to do
something up there and then we get down further south and we're
going to find ourselves backed in a corner to do something.
Com. Minix: We oughta do, and when we get down there, if we
have to do the same thing we can do it when we specifically get
to that.
Com. Fenn: Okay, because Dennis has said, or Dennis or Terry
one, have said that we need to remain consistent with what we do,
so, I just want to be sure that we recognize that.
Chairman Trefelner: Well, what I' m recognizing at this
particular, uniqueness of this, is that it' s sandwiched, it was
mentioned in between, in between, the non-agricultural uses and
then find.ing the lowest residential classification.
Com. Fenn: But you get down here to Okeechobee Road and nearing
Mi dway Road, we mi ght run i nto the s ame type thi ng down there.
Sandwiched in in-between, okay.
Chairman Trefe~ner: Yeah, well I got that on the list, we' 11 get
down to it.
~~m., Fenn: Okay. So, where are we now?
Chairman Trefelner: Commissioner Minix made a motion that we
extend the mixed use at the Indrio, the Indrio intersection mixed
use, to the west to include that one parcel, and to incorporate
what Dennis is outlining now as a residential estate, one unit
per one acre which is a reduction from two units per one acre
that we originally sent in with the first transmittal, but is at
least to what is existing in the current Plan.
Com. Fenn: And what would. Dennis, what will that portion
south of the Turnpike.
Mr. Murphy: Right here?
Com. Fenn: Yes, what will that be?
Mr. Murphy: That will still be sticking around in AG-5.
Com. Fenn: AG-5?
Mr. Murphy: Ri ght. I t previ ous 1 y was i ndi c ated as AG-10, and
that would be going down to, that would cover this whole area
through here.
. ~
Chairman Trefelner: Did I hear you second that?
- 88
Com. Fenn: Yes sir, I second that so we can get a vote on it.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay. All in favor say aye.
Com. Krieger: Aye.
Com. Minix: Aye.
Com. Fenn: Aye
Chairman Trefelner: Aye. Any opposed?
Com, Culpepper: No.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: No?
Com. Culpepper: No.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay. All right, this next area then, that
we had, moving southward was Okeechobee Road, I believe, I think
that's the only one we had until we got down to Okeechobee.
Com. Fenn: Okeechobee.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, there was a parcel that was, if I
could find them here, Dennis could you point that out to us
~ . again?
Mr. Murphy: I t was the s eri es of properti es , wel l one property
got split by a couple of section lines, and I believe it began
here at the edge of the mixed use area and went out to the edge
of section 27. The draft Plan shows a combination of RS and AG-
2,5 as well as RC at side along the creek. The original
transmitted land use classification showed an RU over the bulk of
the property. The conservation area has stayed essentially the
s ame thi ng, and, but I gather wi th the, I' 11 1 et the
Commissioner fill in from there as to what exactly they were -
looking for again, because I can' t remember.
Mr. P. Murphy: I f I c oul d hol d thi s up I mi ght. be abl e to make
the lines a little bit clearer to the Commissioners. Mr.
Campbell, via the OLC, Inc., Corporation, owns on the south side
of Okeechobee Road, trying to picture here, here is the arterial
A which was detailed before to you, property lines, this is the
south line here, all the way across, and here is the creek area,
and Dennis if you'l1 come up here, we can at least get through
this one time correctly. This is the section line where Mr.
Murphy has decided that RS designation will stop, which is two
_ units per acre and where the agricultural designations start,
which right now staff is proposing that this be AG-2. 5 and this
be RS. What was propos ed to DCA, what we s ent up to DCA was on
the bulk of it, I don' t know where the line was over here, was
_ _
89
all of it was going to be RU, which is five units to the acre.
What we would like to see is a consistent designation on the
entire tract, and that we would propose to be at least RU which
was officially proposed by staff.
Chai rman Tre f el ne r: The ori gi nal , the current 1 and us e
classification is AG, one unit per acre.
Mr. Murphy: Semi-urban, one unit per acre.
Chairman Trefelner: Semi-urban, one unit per acre, and this was
not the subject of the petition, or the change?
Mr. Murphy: No, i t was not.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: The RS des i gnati on i s a two uni t per a cre,
the property, is, and then dropping down to five which is now
two, whi ch i s now 2. 5. -
Mr. P. Murphy: What I' d like to do is upgrade the agricultural
designation off the property. There appears to, through DCA, be
a taint on agricultural designations now. I' d like to lift it
off the property so that we don't have to deal with it in the
future.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay.
Com. Fenn: Will that be RS or RU?
Mr. Murphy: That' s what he' s as ki ng f or.
Mr. P. Murphy: What we' re as ki ng f or i s the RU ~that was s hipped
up to Tallahassee.
Com. Fenn: Shipped out. . . . . .
Mr. P. Murphy: Staff, County staff at one point in time thought
that was appropriate, they have made adjustments based on the
ORC, and we feel that their original Plan was correct and that
would be five units to the acre on for all of this property.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, part of it right now is an RS, if you
want to make the rest of it RS to be consistent from Ag.
Mr. Murphy: ( ? )
Chairman Trefelner: Except for that which is conservation, of
_ course. Okay, Mr. Minix moves tha't we remove the Ag designation
from the parcel and make the, all the property, ~ at least that' s
into that same ownership conform with what is to the east of it,
as amended, which was RS-2.
-
90
Com. Culpepper: Which is down from the RU-5 to an acre?
Chairman Trefelner: But higher than what is currently on the
1 and ri ght now.
Com. Culpepper: You mean what we replied
Chairman Trefelner: What is currently under our existing Plan.
Com. Culpepper: Oh, okay.
Mr. Murphy: ( ? ) .
Com. Mi ni x: That' s what? Up to f our uni ts ?
Mr. Murphy: RS.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Two.
Com. Mi ni x: Two? Okay.
Chairman Trefelne~: Commissioner Fenn, did you second that
again?
Com. Fenn: No I did not.
Chairman Trefelner: Mr. Krieger seconded it then, didn' t he? -
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman, I' 11 go ahead and second it for
you, but I woul d li ke to make a comment now s o that, as you' ve
done with your Airport land acguisition votes.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, certainly.
Com. Culpepper: I' m going to consistently vote no on anything
that is a change from that which we sent to DCA, and
impaticular, any parcel specific that we have had people stand
before us wanting continuity out of this Board, and I' m going to
do so on the basis that I' m not going to allow the DCA to cause
me to become responsible for that which they want. If DCA wants
to do this to the people of St. Lucie County and the Cabinet
wants to do and the Legislature wants to do, that' s fine, but I' m
not going to participate; therefore, I will be able to later
blame where it truly lies.
- Chairman Trefelner: Okay. There was a motion and a second then
on that to uniformly apply the RS across that particular parcel.
Com. Fenn: With the exception of the, section that' s south of
91
the river?
Chairman Trefelner: The conservation.
Com. Fenn: Convers ati on, okay.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, all in favor of that say aye.
Com. Krieger: Aye. ~
Com. Minix: Aye.
Com. Fenn: Aye
Chairman Trefelner: Aye. Any opposed.
Com. Culpepper: No.
Chairman Trefelner: Let the record note that Commissioner
Culpepper voted in the negative.
The next parcel moving further south, again, the LTC Ranch and
Glades-Cut-Off, Dennis refresh us on LTC.
Nr. Murphy: That' s this pa~t right over here.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Ori gi nal l y, what was s ubmi tted to DCA was
an RU, principally an RU, across the western portion, industrial
across the eastern, about the eastern one quarter approximately.
What the staff has come back with after the ORC Report was :
roughly AG-2. 5 on everything except for a small part, and the
property owner is indicating that Ag on the western most parcel,
roughly following the section line. If that would be appropriate
that those parcels that were in section 10 and 3 should retain a _
non-agricultural designation. Notably mixed on the eastern part
and residential estate on the western part.
Can mixed, mixed use can handle both residential and non-
residential?
Mr. Murphy: Yes it can.
Chairman Trefelner: Rather than following some imaginary, as
yet, imaginary line that we really don' t have a legal description
on, it would probably be best if the Board was inclined to
designate that entire paresl to mixed use, would you not think?
- Mr. Murphy: No.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: No.
92
Mr. Murphy: I f the Board is inclined to go along with the
appl i cant' s reques t, we s ketched up s omethi ng that mi ght work, I
haven' t the chance to
What we're suggesting is that if the Board is inclined to go
al ong with that us e, the arteri al A ali gnment as a li ne of
demarcation, I think we have enough information, or we can get it
from them so you've got a pretty good
Chairman Trefelner: We have a legal description on it, or?
Mr. Murphy: You have a survey on it.
Chairman Trefelner: You have a survey?
Yes, we can get it
Chairman Trefelner: I mean, this has gotta be sent up on the
10th. Ri ght?
Mr. Murphy: If you just agree that that center line is
acceptable to you all, they could get us the information tomorrow
and I could have it on the maps tomorrow afternoon.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay.
Mr. Murphy: But, the mai n thi ng, the mai n thi ng i s that i f you
do choose to put that in a mixed use designation, there then has
to be identification of under lying intensity zones.
Identifying wh2t' s going to be a high intensity, what' s going to
be a medium intensity, what' s going to be a low intensity.
What we' ve suggested to do is take that property that` s closest
to Midway Road, call that a high, because that matches up with
the industrial property right to the west of it, and then
transition it down to a medium and then to the low designation,
recognizinq that in the long, long term there indeed that
interchange with the Palmer and the 95, and when that comes on
line then we can interchange some kind of re-evaluation, but for
the most part, their close, their access, everything is going to
come from the north, so focus their development activity towards
the north, and then, on the to the wes t of arteri al A, that
would be recommended to be at RE on the section line and then
come in with the AG-2.5 for the two balancing sections out,
whatever those numbers were, I don't have them in front of ine.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay.
Com. Minix: Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Trefelner: Mr. Minix.
C~m. Mi nix: I j us t want to make s ure of one thi ng, Denni s.
93
There putti ng an arteri al that i s a very important arteri al i n,
and it goes for a good length through their property, what are
you giving them just to the west of that arterial?
Mr. Murphy: One unit to the acre which is what showed up on
their concept plan.
Com. Mi ni x: That' s what they' ve as ked f or at that
Mr. Murphy: Well, that's what they appeared to be able to live
wi th.
Com. Minix: Yeah, okay. Well, they need something over there
that, if you' re going to put that kind of money into that
expensive a road, you need to at least build some houses and sell
them.
Mr. Murphy: And, you' ve al s o, and, you' ve al s o got them i n the
mixed use area with the variable intensities that you There
is that option.
Agai n, ( ? ) .
Dennis is correct, what you' re talking .about is reflected
on our overl ay Commi s s i oner Mi ni x, al though i t' s not to s ay that
we couldn't in our own heart, justify mixed use on both sides of
~~h~~t arterial. As a matter of fact, with discussing our
presentation here today, that was something that we felt was
appropriate given the future status of arterial A with Palmer,
and in light of everything else that was happening we simply took
the position and felt that the RE was the most appropriate based
on everything, but mixed use on both sides would~be
Com. M:r_~x: Look, Mr. Chairman, in view of the fact Dennis,
that if the transportation bill ever gets out of the Legislature -
and they build that toll road across, it would seem to me, that
using the mixed use with the high, medium and low density would
really be the proper zoning for this, for this entire piece,
because we, we don't know, you know we know the arterial is
probably going to be there positively, we don't know that the
other is, but, but there's a good likelihood that it will, and I
would suggest to the Commissioners, that with the three ~
densities, high, medium and low that we make it all mixed use.
Chairman Trefelner: That takes away for the residential use
too.
Com. Fenn: But, but, here
Com. Mir.ix: Not ne~essarily.
Com. Culpepper: Their there in mixed use.
Com. Minix: They can use it from.
Chai rman Tref elner: Oh, mixed us e, okay. All ri ght, okay.
94
Com. Minix: You see what I' m talking about? Where the turn
comes in?
Chairman Trefelner: Yeah, yeah, okay.
Com. Fenn: Okay, so on the mixed use they can go from what, two
to how many units per acre? But, on the
Com. Minix: There' s high, medium and low.
Com. Fenn: That' s high, medium and low on that? Okay, what
about, okay, s o i f they go to, i f i t remai ns RE, 1 et' s s ee, I' m
trying to see what they would gain by having it strictly just RE
on that, or changing it to mixed use.
Com. Culpepper: They might get some commercial usage with the
mixed use.
Com. Fenn: Well that is a point. That' s a point.
Com. Culpepper: And, I think that piece is right across from the ~
Com. Fenn: Okay. Yea, because the could use the frontage on
G1 ades -Cut-Of f Road.
Com. Fenn: Jim?
Com. Mir.ix: Definitely.
Com. Culpepper: Definitely would be better than what we
Com. Fenn: That might be better because if it goes to mixed use
then they can use this frontage over here on Glades-Cut-Off Road
and still have some residential back in there.
Com. Mi ni x: He j us t, Denni s, Mr. Chai rman, i f I c an, wi th thi s
that Dennis just put up, I'll make the motion that, and then pass
it down . . . . .
Com. Culpepper: Can we all see that?
Com. Fenn: Can we see, cause I, maybe
- Mr. Murphy: Mr. Chai rman, Commi s s i oners , es s enti al l y what thi s
would show is that it takes that section line, whatever this
section line is right here, which would be the on the western
side of the property the arterial passed on a north-south way,
95 _
incepting here with the Palmer at an at grade alignment.
Assuming there`s a(?) separation (?)and intercept at another
poi nt, but what we' re s ayi ng i s take this whol e" L" s haped pi ece
of property and classify as mixed use and set this as your
intensity classifications, your lower intensity uses for the time
bei ng at the s outh end of the property and gradual l y i ncre as i ng
as you move closer to Midway Road and then on this balance of the
property an Ag classification at 2.5, or one per two and a half.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chai rman, i n the MXD 1 ow i ntens i ty what
does that include as . .
Mr. Murphy: Residential developments set up to five units to
the acre and all commercial type of development.
Com. Culpepper: Commercial could be in there. Cause you've
go them up against the power lines over there.
Mr. Murphy: That' s correct.
Com. Culpepper: Okay.
Mr. Murphy: And as you move into the medium you move into the
opti ons o f 1 i ght i ndus tri al as hi gh res i denti al and the hi gh
would allow you the high industrial, or heavy industrial, excuse
me
Com. Minix: Mr. Chai~man.
Chairman Trefelner: Commissioner Minix.
Com. Minix: I' 11 make the recommendation on the mixed use
outlined as Dennis has just outlined through that map.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, second, is there a second? ~
Com. Fenn: I second it.
Com. Culpepper: I'm gonna second it, unless Commissioner Fenn
beat me to the punch. ~
Com. Fenn: I second it.
Chairman Trefelner: Commissioner Fenn beat you to the punch.
Com. Culpepper: Okay, I do have ~a guestion. This is a change
~ brought to us and to our attention by the land owner as of this
morning, is that accurate?
96
Mr. Murphy: ( ? )
Com. Culpepper: Okay, but that's an owner request change from
that which we sent to Tallahassee?
Mr. Murphy: Brought about as a result of
Com. Culpepper: Okay.
Mr. Murphy: I t' s di f f erent
Chairman Trefelner: This isn~ t, this isn' t contrary to what we
said we wouldn' t do which is to open up the whole entire County
for parcels that were not effected by this transmittal process,
if that' s what you' re getting at.
Mr. Murphy: Ri ght, the previ ous 1 and cl as s i f i cati ons on the
property essentially got you the same kind of intensity of
development but in a different pattern.
Com. Culpepper: What we sent before, you mean?
Mr. Murphy: Ri ght.
Com. Culpepper: Okay. Is that an accurate reflection, aren' t
you David?
( ? ) : Yes mame.
Cnairman Trefelner: Further discussion? All in favor say Aye.
Aye.
Com. Minix: Aye.
Com. Krieger: Aye.
Com. Fenn: Aye.
Com. Culpepper: Aye
Chairman Trefelner: Any opposed? Okay, next one was down, and
I believe the last one we' re dealing with, is in the area of
again, the I-95 interchange west of I-95. We' ve referred to it
as the Duda Tract.
We adopted a land use amendment some months ago, incorporated
- that into our transmittal alorig with some additional properties,
and in our most recent considerations here, given the ORC Report,
the staff is recommending to drop back, cut back from what we
originally adopted in the previous public hearing, independent of
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this process. What's the pleasure of the Board?
Res tore what we ori gi nal l y granted at the, at a previ ous publ i c
hearing on the matter, or.
Com. Mi ni x: What i s the s taf f, agai n, remi nd me, what are they
recommending now?
Chairman Trefelner: A drop back in intensity, roughly cutting in
half the commercial mode or the mixed use mode and eliminate
entirely the residential.
Mr. Murphy: No, not enti rel y, but there was s ubs tanti al on
the and then conversion of the balance of the property to an Ag
classification at one unit per five acres.
Com. Mi ni x: God. Mi ght be, j us t the f i rs t thought i s t o 1 eave
the mi xed us e al one that we had and then I hadn' t thought.
how much, that' s a good portion of their, the mixed use, Dennis.
Mr. Murphy: I t' s a s i z abl e chunk, i t 1 ooks 1 i ke i t' s about
probably two section, top and bottom, maybe a little less given
the fact that it' s not a perfect rectangle.
Chairman. Trefelner: We had a land use amendment effected last
summer, we didn' t have mixed use at the time, we~ had interchange
which was approved and designated for one parcel, and then
simultaneous to that there was a change in land use
ciassification from AG to RS, I mean RL, residential low density,
correct?
N~. Murphy: Yes.
Chairman Trefelner: But with no, which is up to five units, but
i t di dn' t have, the underl yi ng z oni ng was not changed, it was ~
Mr. Murphy: there' s none in the area, so it' s still today
zoned at agriculture.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay. .
Com. Minix: Mr. Chairman, then I......
Chairman Trefelner: RL would equate with, what now?
Mr. Murphy: RU. RL converts over to the new RU in terms of
density.
~
~ Chairman Trefelner: Okay. ~
Com. Minix: Then I would make a motion that we keep the mixed
us e the s ame, keep what was " R" , res i denti al keep that, and the
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agricultural now, we cut that from 10 to five, so leave the AG
alone, but it will now be five.
Chairman Trefelner: ~kay. I f I understand Commissioner Minix,
ri ght . . . . . ,
Mr. Murphy: Leave it alone.
Chairman Trefelner: From what it, well not alone from the first
transmittal, but alone from what was previously submitted in an
independent hearing process, of course, it used to be, or is
currently interchange, that would translate into mixed use and
the RL would translate into the RU.
Com. Minix: And the AG stays the AG.
Chairman Trefelner: And the AG stays the AG.
Is there a second?
Com. Culpepper: I'll second that, so that I can get
clarification, does this represent that what we sent up?
Mr. Murphy: Yes.
Chairman Trefelner: Well, no.
Mr. Murphy: Well, it. . . . .
Com. Culpepper: Please answer me correctly, it effects my vote
radic~lly.
Chai rman Tref el ner: We added s ome, the yell ow, what' s the yel l ow
down there?
Mr. Murphy: The yellow, the yellow, is two units to the acre,
this was something that showed up between the adoption of,
whatever Ordinance it was, to grant them the interchange and the
RU and this was added in August.
Com. Fenn: Well, the only thing that we' re really changing here,
I believe, would be the change to mixed use. Isn' t that the only
thing we are changing?
Com. Minix: Right.
Com. Fenn: We had an interchange there, and now we're making it
mixed use.
_ ~
Mr. Murphy: Somethi ng 1 i ke, taki ng Commi s s i oner, excus e me,
taking Commissioner Minix's recommendation and I hope you can
s ee, I know i t' s ki nd o f 1 ow down here, what you' d be doi ng i s,
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essentially leaving this area as mixed use, that corresponded
with the interchange classification, and you'd leave something, I
have to verify all the descriptions, of course, but it would be
something like this under the RL, excuse me, the RU category
which was what was converted to the RL classification last year,
the balance of the property, the balance of these holdings in
this area would stay an AG-5 and you would ~go from there,
following Commissioner Minix's recommendation.
What was transmitted to the state was what you see in yellow,
that, we added the yellow areas which had a density of two units
to the acre to provide that gradual transition as opposed to an
abrupt transition.
Com. Culpepper: And we have the orange.
Mr. Murphy: Ri ght, and I thi nk we s quared of f a corner ri ght
here to fill in the whole section, but the orange was at minimum
what was previously approved by this Board.
Com. Culpepper: Now, is that Range Line Road where the orange
ends ?
Mr. Murphy: No, Range Line Road is over here, there was a...
Com. Culpepper: What' s the white?
Mr. Murphy: That' s agriculture.
Com. Minix: But that' s always been agriculture.
Com. Culpeppe~: But that was agriculture from the beginning?
M~. Murphy: Yes.
Com. M~nix: But that' s my motion Mr. Chairman. ~
Chairman Trefelner: Okay.
Com. Culpepper: And the motion was to go back to what we did in
February of 89.
Chairman Trefelner: Yes, if that' s when it was. Was it
February, somewhere around. . . .
Com. ~u.l~epper, February 4, 1989.
~
~ Mr. Murphy: Something like that.
Chairman Trefelner: Yeah. All in favor.
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Mr. Murphy: Actually December of 88.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay, all in favor of that motion say Aye.
Aye.
Com. Minix: Aye.
Com. Krieger: Aye.
Com. Fenn: Aye. ~
Com. Culpepper: No.
Chairman Trefelner: Any opposed? Okay, four to one, it carries.
I gues s then, we' re down to the s outhern end, we' ve addres s ed
from north and south, although, not necessarily in everybody's °
satisfaction. Any other land use matters, Mr. Murphy?
Mr. Murphy: Just Mr. Chairman that I handed out in front of you
on pink sheets, the changes that you all spoke of before
lunch relative to the land use classifications that we are going
to be using and the terminology that we used in the issue of
upland preservation, that being the very last sheet. That, I
believe is the directions you all gave us. That is .
K~haisanan Trefelner: 1. 1. 8, is that the one we are looking at?
Mr. Murphy: Yes, 1. 1. 8.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Trefelner: Commissioner Culpepper.
Com. Culpepper: Dennis, is there a typo here? Did we mean ~
10. 2. 11 for the definition of endangered and threatened plant and
ani mal popul ati ons ? -
Mr. Murphy: That is suppose to be the correct regional policy
citation, but I'll double check and make sure that is the correct
one. The idea to get us to the regional policy plan element
where it describes what kind I'l1 double check that.
Mr. Vi rta: I t' s 10. 1. 2. 2.
Com. Culpepper: 10. 1. 2. 2. ~ That' s the one that deals with
endangered plants?
Mr. Virta: That's the one that deals with upland preservation.
Com. Culpepper: That's what I thought, I thought we were taking
our percentages out, but if we say we're going to be consistent
with that we might as well leave them in because it just directs
101
us back to that doesn't it?
Chai rman Tre f el ner: No.
Chairman Culpepper: No.
Mr. Virta: The intent is to direct us back on the basis of how
we determine what is a native habitat.
Mr. Murphy: There is no, there is no
Chairman Trefelner: There is no percentage in that.
Mr. Murphy: There is no percentage number in that policy. That
policy it defines what constitutes or what can be defined as
upl and habi tat, s o we' re not.
Com. Culpepper: Then I must be looking at some incorrect
materi al here then, I need cl ari fi cati on on what 10. 1. 2. 2 i s.
That actually comes from their Plan.
Mr. Virta: Yes mame, and that is also the policy where the 25
percent i s provi ded f or s o, s o the intent needs to be I gues s,
clarified to point out that we' re talking about what should be
included in the, actually what we' re talking about is this
sentence here. Such habitat shall be preserved and
canopy, understory and ground cover. That's what we were wanting
to tag when you reference that policy, is that specific
statement.
Mr. McI ntyre: Mr. Chai rman a s ugges ti on.
Chairman Trafelner: Shall be defined rather than provided for.
Mr. McIntyre: Right, it should be as defined. Because I think
what Terry wants to do is reference the definition of native
plant community without incorporating the percentage, percentages
in that particular policy. The other alternative, of course,
would be to specifically define it in the objective and that
would certainly clarify, but I think definitely the word
"provided for" needs to be taken out because that's to broad.
Chairman Trefelner: Yeah, if we change then that last sentence
the word "provided" to defined, it would be, it would indicate
that we' re defining the native plant community we' re not adopting
the entire section as far as percentages is concerned.
Mr. Virta: Mr. Chairman, I would like to suggest we add at that
point the specific language so that it includes a direct quote.
Chairman Trefelner: In addition add the language.
Com. Fenn: Yes.
Chairman Trefelner: Reference the section and add the language
102 -
and change word "provided" to defined.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman would you mind having him read
that so we know exactly what we' re voting on. If we' re getting
ready to vote on it.
Chairman Trefelner: I thought we already voted on it earlier,
this is just a clarification of what.
Com. Culpepper: I thought they were bringing it back to us, we
didn't vote on this and this is what they brought back to us.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Okay.
Mr. Virta: Mr. Chairman the reference that we' re referring to
reads specifically, such set aside habitat shall be preserved in
a viable condition and with intact canopy, understory and ground
cover.
Chairman Trefelner: She' s talking read the whole 1. 1. 8.
Com. Culpepper: Well, Mr. Chairman, in all due respect, I' m
talking about that which we intend to follow if you're going to
use this reference to 10. 1. 2. 2 of the reqional Plan, I didn` t
hear a definition, is native plant community simply understory,
ground cover and, and whatever word you use for trees.
Mr. Virta: It' s canopy, understory and ground cover. ~
Com. Culpepper: Canopy, thank you. So that' s the extent of the
definition.
Mr. Virta: Yes mame.
Mr. Wi 11 i ams : ( I n audi ence, can' t hear what he i s s ayi ng
Com. Culpepper: Excus e me.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: The a, okay, s e cti on 1. 1. 8.
Com. Fenn: Now he' s going to, you' re going to actually include
those three, those three words in there of the canopy, ground
storage and the other cover, you're going to include those and
not say "as defined", or if you say "as defined" and then i. e.
what they are saying.
Mr. Virta: We will include the direct quote.
Com. Fenn: Okay, because this is what Commissioner Culpepper is
concerned about, because if not, that 25 percent is going to slip
i n there s omewhere, okay.
103
Chairman Trefelner: Well read it for us.
Com. Fenn: Huh?
Chairman Trefelner: Someone read the precise language of 1. 1. 8.
So we know what we're doing.
Com. Fenn: So we can know what we' re doing, okay?
Com. Culpepper: That' s wonderful.
Com. Fenn: Because of that 25 percent. Omit be misunderstood.
Mr. Vi rta: Mr. Chai rman, 1 et me attempt to read thi s. St.
Lucie County shall include within its land development
regulations criterion standards for the protection, creation of
the remaining native plant community within the County, and I
think that should be communities, for the purpose of this Plan,
native plant community shall, and I think at that point it would
be appropriate to actually incorporate the quote, shall include
in a viable condition, shall be no, wait a minute. I' m trying to ,
react here verbally~with, anyways, for the purpose of this Plan,
native plant community shall, for those areas to be preserved and
be in a viable condition with canopy, understory and ground
cover.
Com. Fenn: Excuse me. What is wrong with saying shall be as
defined in the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Councils regional
policy Plan and then list those three things either before that
or either after that. They need to be listed I think to be sure
that 25 percent does not get in there in anybody's thinking.
Because if you' re quoting 10. 1. 2. 2, that' s going to be included
i n tha
Mr. V:rta: Okay, Mr. Chairman, we j ust added at the very end of
the policy then that in the quotes it shall be preserved in a
viable condition with intact canopy, understory and ground cover,
end quote at that point. .
So the policy would read: St. Lucie County shall include within
its land development regulations criterion standards for the
protection, creation of the remaining native plant communities
within the County, for the purpose of this Plan, native plant
communities shall be, defined in the Treasure Coast Regional
Planning Councils regional policy Plan. Regional Policy Plan
10. 1. 2. 2"preserved in viable condition with intact canopy,
understory and ground cover."
Chai rman Tref el ner: Okay. :
Com. Fenn: Good.
Chai rman Tre f el ner: Al l ri ght, we have then the 1 and us e
element that we' ve tentatively modified this morning, again
tentatively modified this afternoon, we' ve seen the language in
the text that has been suggested ~to be changed along with some
~ changes in the agricultural densities, we've covered it all.
The Chair will entertain a motion to tentatively adopt this
section and move to the next one.
104
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Chairman, I have another question if I
mi ght, pl eas e.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay.
Com. Culpepper: Mr. Vi rta, Mr. McI ntyre, whoever woul d
appropriately respond to this question. This morning it was
discussed that perhaps in some fashion we might cause the
participation of the voters of St. Lucie County in a viable
purchase program for the preservation of these upland areas that
are in question and being defined by this particular section. In
this wording it reads that we shall include within our land
devel opment regul ati ons on, on and that whi ch was verball y read,
if my memory serves me, and you said and used the word we will
cause this preservation to take place. By the very wording that
we have received, does that mean that if the electorate, should
we take this to the electorate, refuse to finance the purchase of
uplands that we would in fact have to write a regulation that
would cause people to donate to the balance of St. Lucie County,
part of their property or pay for a piece of property of
comparable size in another location for donation to the rest of
us.
Mr. McIntyre: No mame, I don' t think that says that, I think
that' s up to the Board to determine how that' s accomplished. By
taking out the percentage, you simply indicated that you're going
to promulgate regulations and those could be in a variety of
ways. Just as an aside, I think Martin County passed a lands for
you bond referendum this past election that in essence funds
through local dollars purchases of lands that the County
determined should be protected, so that's simply one way to
accomplish that.
Chai rman T~ e f el ner: Okay.
Com. Culpepper: But if that fails, are we in a position that we
then have the only alternative is to say that people will donate
their property to us.
Mr. McIntyre: No, I don' t think that' s certainly the only
alternative at all, to preserve uplands. I think we can provide
for incentives without requiring a mandatory dedication, or ~
donation of property that would have the same effect of
protecting uplands.
Chairman Trefelner: Let me also add though that this does not
preclude in the County requiring some set aside or designation.
Mr. McI ntyre: No.
Chairman Trefelner: All this will be addressed in the, it
doesn' t require it, doesn' t preclude it, it' 11 all be addressed
duri ng our LDR' s thi s s ummer. ~
Mr. Mclntyre: No, it leaves it open.
105
Com. Culpepper: That' s true, but it' s impossible, as was
pointed out earlier, to give people more productivity than
technology provides for with regard to agriculture at this po~nt.
I mean, you gave an example of how we could give incentives, I
presume those are economic incentives, but those are impossible
to give in the AG community unless we buy them.
Chairman Trefelner: Well, we can' t write the LDR' s today, I
don' t thi nk.
Com. Culpepper: No, I don' t want to do that Mr. Chairman, I
think what I want to know is what I'm setting myself up for next
summer, and that' s it in a nut shell, and I certainly don' t mind
facing the music, I've sat in the chair long enough to be able to
do that, but I just want to know what's coming.
Chairman Tre~elner: Okay, any other questions then?
Can we adopt this thing, tentatively adopt this section with the
changes that we' ve made.
Com. Minix: I' m ready.
Chairman Trefelner: Okay.
C~~~a Niinix: You want a motion?
Chairman Trefelner: Yeah.
Com. M=nix: Make a motion that we adopt this section on land
us e.
Chai rman Tref el ner: Okay.
Com. Krieger: Second.
Chairman Trefelner: Further discussion? All in favor say Aye.
Aye. Any opposed?
Com. Krieger: Aye.
Com. Minix: Aye.
Com. Fenn: Aye.
Com. Culpepper: No.
. ~
Chai rman Tref el ner: Okay. Moti on carri es . Ten 10 mi nutes to
five, how many more sections do we have to go, 10?
106
r
Mr. Virta: Mr. Chairman, we have one person signed up to speak
on transportation.
(7): (Someone in the audience speaking, cannot hear what was
said. )
Chairman Trefelner: I don' t know, we' re gonna, let' s just take
a five minute recess at the moment and we'll find out what we are
goi ng to do. Fi ve o' cl oc k I' m s tarti ng to 1 eave i f we don' t
have a quorum.
Five o' clock, we' re coming back to order. We' ve been looking at
the clock and looking at the number of items we have to go over,
in discussing with some of the public out here, and in view of ~
the hour, we will be recessing this public hearing until 1:30
tomorrow afternoon, at which time we will pick-up the remainder
of our agenda, which are the other 10 elements, to continue and
presumably adopt tomorrow afternoon.
Com. Mi ni x: We' re qui tti ng ri ght now?
Chairman Trefelner: The public hearing is being continued until
tomorrow afternoon at 1: 30. ~
,
1
" ' .
107