Planning policies rile some in Cape

Streamlining try irks residents, officials

Jacob Ogles
jogles@news-press.com

Public hearings at City Council meetings are ways residents can have their say over issues that could impact their lives, such as a commercial development moving in next door.

But Cape Coral resident George Upperman worries he won’t have a chance to say anything before a commercial strip center breaks ground by his house.

He is fighting a land-use change on Chiquita Boulevard that will be coming before the Cape Coral City Council in March, but worries specific plans may be approved behind closed doors.

“We won’t know what goes in before it happens,” he said.

City planners say that fear is largely unwarranted. Residents usually get to comment on major development proposals before they move forward. But some elected officials worry new land-use and zoning designations allow more to happen without the public, or even the City Council, in the loop.

District 5 Councilman Eric Grill is concerned city planners were granted too much authority in the creation of a marketplace residential zoning in 2007.

“It is circumventing the process,” Grill said. “I have a major problem with that.”

The zoning can occur on properties with a designated commercial activity center land-use, the type Newcom Real Properties is seeking near Upperman’s house.

In fact, the City Council in March is expected to hear at least three requests for a Commercial Activity Center land-use and request for marketplace residential zoning.

The land-use allows a mix of residential and commercial, with anything from 70 percent residential use to none at all.

Joe Mazurkiewicz, a prominent development consultant representing Newcom, said the new category allows developers more options.

“It’s more flexible, and allows for changing market conditions,” Mazurkiewicz said.

It is also the one land-use where the marketplace residential zoning is allowed.
Planning and Zoning Commissioner Walter Fluegel said there is not enough oversight of development of sites with that zoning.

Most major commercial developments must go through the planned unit development process, which calls for public hearings and a chance for neighbors to challenge developers before the planning and zoning commission and the City Council. But under marketplace zoning, the planned unit development process can be skipped as long as enhanced or alternative buffering is planned around the development.

“The problem is nobody really knows what alternative buffering is,” Fluegel said.

James Lettiere, Cape Coral’s planning and growth division manager, said guidelines do exist for such buffering and have for years. Requirements of alleyway separations and landscaping to divide commercial development from single-family homes are covered in the city standards.

Scott Hertz, president of Powell Construction, said the zoning helps streamline requests. The planned unit development process should not be required for every new development, he said.

“The code should already cover what a developer can and cannot do,” he said. “If you are following the existing rules, why should you need a public hearing to go forward?”

Planning team director Rick Sosnowski said similar provisions exist for other zoning categories, including commercial pedestrian. “It is less of an onerous process to developers for establishing uses for their land than the planned unit development process, which is something which many in the community feel hinders and slows development down,” he said.

Mazurkiewicz, who is representing Newcom in its land-use request, said his great desire has been to see the planned unit development process expedited. “It doesn’t have to be as burdensome a process,” he said.

But he was surprised to hear the marketplace residential would allow those with a Commercial Activity Center land-use to bypass the planned unit development process. Newcom would still submit to public hearings before developing the Chiquita Boulevard properties, he said, because of a feeling the planned unit development process would let them reach consensus with neighbors about what should be built.

Many would like to see all developments with this land-use go through the process.

Grill, who sat on the planning and zoning commission when the commercial activity center land use was developed, said it was never conceived of or sold to officials as a way to get around public hearings.

And current board members want to retain their right to review plans before building begins.

“We need to see these things before they happen,” said Eugene Wolfe, planning and zoning commission chairman.

Still, while Mayor Eric Feichthaler favors some checks on the system, he worries that too many could damage city relations with developers.

“We should streamline the process businesses have to go through,” he said, “and they should be able to do some things without council approval.”