August 21,
2007
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070821/NEWS0123/70821003/1075
Well-organized
Alva residents rallied to convince Lee County commissioners Monday to block a
45-lot gated community in the small, rural community northeast of Fort Myers.
Commissioners, acting as the zoning board, denied a rezoning for the gated
neighborhood on 250 acres along Persimmon Ridge Road near Amazing Grace Lane by
a 4-0 vote. Tammy Hall was absent.
It was a win for passionate residents who crowded commission chambers wearing
Alva-emblazoned T-shirts and telling stories about their quality, rural
lifestyle.
“Instead of being rural, it will be rural with urban flavor sprawled across a
track of it,” Alva resident Ruby Daniels told the commission before the vote.
“A
planned gated community is not country.”
Founded in 1887 along the Caloosahatchee River, Alva is the oldest settlement
in Lee County. The community had about 2,200 residents, according to 2000 U.S.
Census Bureau estimates.
Adar Investments LLC of Coconut Creek wanted to rezone the agricultural land
for residential use. The plan would have built one home every 5 acres. Current
zoning calls for one lot per 10 acres.
The developers are allowed by law to increase the density provided they protect
environmentally sensitive land, which Adar agreed to do.
Russell Schropp, a local attorney for Adar, said the project is best for the
area. There will be less environmental protection if lands are developed
sporadically at current density.
It’s unusual for the commission to outright overturn the hearing examiner’s
recommendation. Commissioners have recently sent developers back to the hearing
examiner, but nixing a project and leaving a developer the option to appeal or
start over is “extremely rare,” said Commissioner Brian Bigelow.
Alva residents argued the development would harm the rural life unique to the
area for generations.
“We are here out of the genuine concern for our neighborhood that we love and
respect,” said Frank Green, a third-generation family member to live along
Persimmon.
Commissioner Ray Judah complimented developers for working within the rules but
said the development would set the wrong precedent in the rural community.
“There is no question it is inconsistent with the development in the
surrounding community,” Judah said.
Commissioner Frank Mann lives just minutes from the proposed community. He
called nearby residents his neighbors.
“They are fighting to preserve what they know of as home,” Mann said. “This is
the very soul of America, what is left of it. They are just trying to protect
it, and we are all they have to protect it.”
In another vote:
• Commissioners unanimously approved a rezoning for the Villages of San Carlos,
a residential and commercial project planned for the 495-acre property east of
San Carlos Boulevard and west of Interstate 75. The land is on either side of
Three Oaks Parkway, between Alico and Corkscrew roads.
Alan Freeman of Southwest Florida Capital Corp. decreased the number of houses
from 3,300 to 2,500 on 375 acres and increased commercial development from 15
acres to 25 acres and from 125,000 square feet to 158,799 square feet.
Commissioners approved 2010 as the start year and 2016 as the end year.
Commissioners denied a proposed nightclub within the development.