MEMORANDUM

TO: Fort Myers Beach Town Council

FROM: Bill Spikowski

DATE: May 8, 1998

SUBJECT: Final LPA Changes to the Comprehensive Plan For Town Council's Public Hearing on May 18, 1998, at 6:30 P.M.

 

 

At their public hearing on April 21, the Local Planning Agency voted unanimously to transmit the March 31 draft of their comprehensive plan, as modified by the following changes and additions:

 

TITLE PAGE -- Insert the missing title page (copy attached).

 

FUTURE LAND USE ELEMENT -- Changes on four subjects, as follows:

  1. CLARIFICATION ON THE "RECREATION" LAND USE CATEGORY: To avoid any confusion over the application of the "Recreation" land use category to the sandy beaches, add the following sentence to the category description on Page 4 - 37: "The application of this category does not affect any party's ownership rights to the beachfront."
  2. MODIFY HEIGHT REGULATIONS: Modify Policy 4-C-4 as follows: "BUILDING HEIGHTS: The Land Development Code shall limit the height of new buildings under most conditions to two stories above flood elevation. In those few cases where parcels of land are so surrounded by tall buildings on adjoining lots that are contiguous (or directly across a street) that this height limit would be unreasonable grossly unfair, landowners may seek relief through the planned development rezoning process, which requires a public hearing and notification of adjacent property owners. The town will approve, modify, or deny such requests after evaluating the level of unfairness that would result from the specific circumstances and the degree the specific proposal conforms with all aspects of this comprehensive plan, including its land-use and design policies, pedestrian orientation, and natural resource criteria. Particular attention would be paid to any permanent view corridors to Gulf or Bay waters that could be provided in exchange for allowing a building to be taller than two stories. In each case, the town shall balance the public benefits of the height limit against other public benefits that would result from the specific proposal.
  3. DEFINE "DENSITY": Insert the following as new Policy 4-C-5:

    "DENSITY: This plan establishes density levels as the maximum number of residential dwelling units allowed per acre of land (DU/acre). This acreage includes all residential land plus land within the development to be used for street and utility rights-of-way, recreation and open space, water management, and existing lakes that are entirely contained within the residential development.  Commercial and other non-residential uses shall not be included. When computing densities on existing subdivisions where lots are smaller than 15,000 square feet, one-half the width of adjoining streets and canals may be included in the acreage."

  4. RED COCONUT/GULF VIEW: Policy 3-A-5 anticipates a "pre-approved redevelopment option" for the Red Coconut/Gulf View area that would allow a design concept developed by Victor Dover's team. As now worded, this policy does not specify a density limit, nor does it explicitly say that the density may be higher than the "new development" cap of six dwelling units per acre, yet the design concept intended a higher density (although far less than the existing number of RVs and mobile homes, which peaks at about 25 per acre). The LPA discovered this anomaly at their final public hearing, and accepted my interim suggestion to include an inset on the Future Land Use Map that would indicate that a somewhat higher density that could be achieved using a low-rise traditional neighborhood design. Two alternatives for this inset are attached. One is an actual site plan for the Seaside community in Walton County, which has a overall density of 9 DU/acre and a maximum density of 15 DU/acre if civic and commercial areas are deleted from the acreage. The other is an enlargement of two blocks of Victor Dover's plan, showing a density of 12 DU/acre (the highest density in his plan, because this segment includes 10 apartments over stores along Estero Boulevard). Either of these plans could be suitably annotated for use as an inset on the Future Land Use Map.

 

TRANSPORTATION ELEMENT --

  1. Modify the level-of-service standard and base it newly acquired data from the count station at Donora Boulevard.
  2. Modify and clarify Policy 7.I.2 as follows:

    "The peak capacity of Estero Boulevard's congested segments is 1,278 1,240 vehicles per hour. The minimum acceptable level-of-service standard for Estero Boulevard shall be that average monthly traffic flows from 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. during each month do not exceed that level for more than four five calendar months in any continuous twelve-month period. Measurements from the permanent count stations at Donora Boulevard shall be used for this standard."

  3. Replace page 7-25 with the attached page to reflect the new policy language.

 

CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS ELEMENT -- No specific changes to the element are needed, but the LPA would like to be closely involved this summer in completing Table 11-7, the "Five-Year Schedule of Capital Improvements." The current version of this table shows some additional funds that can be assigned to capital improvements in each of the next five years. (This table should be completed during this year's budget process, with the revised schedule inserted into the comprehensive plan before your final public hearing to adopt this plan.)

 

cc: Local Planning Agency