\n\t\t\t\t\t\tResidents living near Rotary Park are breathing a sigh of relief after the owners of Redfish Pointe withdrew a long-standing request to rezone hundreds of acres of land for development.For Jim Pavek, who lives just south of the park near the Caloosahatchee River, the decision means the 350 acres next to his home will not become a hotel, marina or mixed-use development \u2014 at least for now.\u201cIt\u2019s really good news,\u201d Pavek said. \u201cWe know that this is still not done. They could bring it forward again.\u201dThe property owners, the Zemel family, sent a letter to the City of Cape Coral on Tuesday formally withdrawing their four-year-old rezoning request. The letter did not provide a reason for the decision.When asked whether the move could be tied to it being an election year, Mayor John Gunter said there is no clear indication.\u201cI don\u2019t know if that was the reason, because if you read the letter, there was no real reason given,\u201d Gunter said.Gunter added that he does not expect the rezoning issue to return to the city council before November.From an observation deck south of Rotary Park, the land in question stretches across hundreds of acres of mangroves and wildlife habitat. Many residents say the area serves as a critical natural barrier against storms and flooding.Even the mayor acknowledged environmental concerns tied to potential development.\u201cAll the wildlife, all of the endangered species, all the protected species \u2014 the possibility of doing some type of development that would enhance the probability of flooding,\u201d Gunter said.While the rezoning request has been withdrawn, Gunter believes the property owners may still be looking to maximize the land\u2019s value in the future.That uncertainty has neighbors like Pavek pushing for a permanent solution: selling the property to Conservation 2020, a county program that preserves environmentally sensitive land.\u201cUntil this is purchased and they no longer own it, I think the risk remains,\u201d Pavek said.The property owners declined to comment when asked why they withdrew the rezoning request.DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tCAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Residents living near Rotary Park are breathing a sigh of relief after the owners of Redfish Pointe withdrew a long-standing request to rezone hundreds of acres of land for development.<\/p>\n
For Jim Pavek, who lives just south of the park near the Caloosahatchee River, the decision means the 350 acres next to his home will not become a hotel, marina or mixed-use development \u2014 at least for now.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really good news,\u201d Pavek said. \u201cWe know that this is still not done. They could bring it forward again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The property owners, the Zemel family, sent a letter to the City of Cape Coral on Tuesday formally withdrawing their four-year-old rezoning request<\/a>. The letter did not provide a reason for the decision.<\/p>\n When asked whether the move could be tied to it being an election year, Mayor John Gunter said there is no clear indication.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if that was the reason, because if you read the letter, there was no real reason given,\u201d Gunter said.<\/p>\n Gunter added that he does not expect the rezoning issue to return to the city council before November.<\/p>\n From an observation deck south of Rotary Park<\/a>, the land in question stretches across hundreds of acres of mangroves and wildlife habitat. Many residents say the area serves as a critical natural barrier against storms and flooding.<\/p>\n Even the mayor acknowledged environmental concerns tied to potential development.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the wildlife, all of the endangered species, all the protected species \u2014 the possibility of doing some type of development that would enhance the probability of flooding,\u201d Gunter said.<\/p>\n While the rezoning request has been withdrawn, Gunter believes the property owners may still be looking to maximize the land\u2019s value in the future.<\/p>\n That uncertainty has neighbors like Pavek pushing for a permanent solution: selling the property to Conservation 2020, a county program that preserves environmentally sensitive land.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil this is purchased and they no longer own it, I think the risk remains,\u201d Pavek said.<\/p>\n The property owners declined to comment when asked why they withdrew the rezoning request.<\/p>\n DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents living near Rotary Park are breathing a sigh of relief after the owners of Redfish Pointe withdrew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[5211,209,211,210,3371,2152,2927,69885,1548,20347,4333,69884,2468,27642,8075,69819,69820,43374],"class_list":["post-144128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-acre","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-cape-coral-resident","tag-development","tag-flooding","tag-four-year-old-rezoning-request","tag-good-news","tag-gunter","tag-hundred","tag-jim-pavek","tag-land","tag-letter","tag-owner","tag-redfish-pointe","tag-rotary-park","tag-wildlife-habitat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}