NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014Lee County is considering significant changes to its land use codes, concerning some neighbors who fear that it could pave the way for development.<\/p>\n
The county said it’s designed to increase efficiency and reduce unnecessary regulations, while maintaining public health, safety, and welfare. County commissioners directed staff to amend the Lee Plan, which is a long-range planning document that guides growth, land use, and development.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The amendments will not increase allowable densities, according to a staff report. However, it would eliminate some Lee Plan goals designed to protect the rural character of areas like Olga, Bayshore, and Alva.<\/p>\n
The report said these areas would be moved under the Rural Community Preserves category. That protects the land from being converted to future urban or suburban areas.<\/p>\n
By consolidating the land under one code, staff said it’s easier to understand and implement.<\/p>\n
“There’s just a lot of opportunity to make it a more predictable document,” said Mike Rozdolski, Lee County director of community development.<\/p>\n
However, the changes would eliminate some unique protections \u00a0– including that new developments in Buckingham’s commercial district provide a minimum of 30% open space.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The proposal would also eliminate public input requirements for the land development code amendment process, according to the report.<\/p>\n
That includes at least one public meeting for privately-initiated applications that propose changing a community plan. That exceeds what’s currently required under state law, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than 200 people attended a community meeting in North Fort Myers on Tuesday night to learn more.<\/p>\n
“They’re going to eliminate a lot, and we’re just going to become another Miami,” Cheryl Fischer of Buckingham said.<\/p>\n
The county said it won’t change the density or intensity of development. Rozdolski said the county has information and documents available online.<\/p>\n
But with more than 100 pages, some say they’re scrambling to understand what it means.<\/p>\n
“This couldn’t be less clear,” Michael Hannon of Matlacha said.<\/p>\n
The Lee County Planning Agency will consider the changes during a public meeting on Monday.<\/p>\n
It will then go through several committees and public hearings before county commissioners eventually vote on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014Lee County is considering significant changes to its land use codes, concerning some neighbors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,325,115],"class_list":["post-381375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-lee","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381375","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=381375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}