Written by Bill Smith
Commissioners voted 4-0, with Commissioner Frank Mann absent, to allow a land-use change to permit the duplexes in the area near Seventh Street and Broadway south of Joel Boulevard.
The vote was based on a finding by deputy hearing examiner Amanda Rivera that the request is “consistent with Lee Plan directives and compatible with the surrounding area.”
Rivera’s recommendation that rezoning the land owned by Quattrone & Associates was acceptable because the proposed zoning allowed lots of 10,000 square feet, rather than the 7,500 square feet in the existing single-family home districts.
She also found that “construction impacts of duplex/single-family homes would not be markedly more than single-family homes.”
In fact, a two-unit duplex on 10,000 square feet would have the equivalent of 5,000 square feet per housing unit. A single-family home complying with existing requirements would require 7,500 square feet or have 50% more land per unit than the duplex model.
No member of the board challenged the hearing examiner’s findings. Commissioner Kevin Ruane referred twice to the board making a choice between emotion and law.
Resident Donald Stein said in a plea to reject duplexes that he won’t be in a duplex neighborhood this time but fears the area is becoming another southwest Lehigh.
“There are no duplexes in line for my street but (are) two blocks to the west of me, two blocks to the east of me, so I’m in the middle of everything,” he said. “My biggest concern is comparing it to southwest Lehigh Acres. I would really hate to see that expanded to our neighborhood. We have a nice quiet neighborhood.”
Duplex housing in southwest Lehigh ranges from very well maintained and well-constructed dwellings to areas where homes are in disrepair and cars overflow the driveways, indicating the possibility of more than one family per unit.
At a prior board meeting on the issue, county staff claimed that duplex construction was unit-by-unit, as it is currently in the central city area of Fort Myers. But the staff said at a November hearing that home-by-home, piecemeal construction meant no “cohesive” approach to development.
The developer has a plan for building the new duplexes in organized phases.
Some residents fear that the impact of the duplexes has too much in common with serious issues raised when duplex apartments were built 15 years ago.
“We are looking to ideally start at least five duplexes here,” said Al Quattrone, who heads Quattrone and Associates, a Fort Myers civil engineering and development consulting firm.
The county staff noted that like most of Lehigh’s, lots in the area were built in a manner described as piecemeal — home by home rather than “the efforts of any large cohesive residential development in Lehigh.”
Quattrone said after developing five units, he foresees expanding to 10 per year on the property.
The developer also said that he planned to raise the bar in the construction of duplex buildings, creating “lakes,” otherwise known as stormwater retention ponds, to improve the quality of the subdivision.
Debra Shuman, a real estate agent, and 35-year Lehigh resident, said she moved to the area because she wanted a larger property and because “duplexes are typically rentals, which creates an issue of who is going to be living there, who is going to be monitoring it.”
Residents pleaded with commissioners to reject the addition of duplex apartments generally south of Joel Boulevard because of the impact on their property investment.
Ruane referred to supporting the position of neighbors as “acting on emotion rather than facts,” which he said could lead to an expensive court battle.
Deputy County Attorney Michael Jacobs warned commissioners that state laws do not allow the board to arbitrarily reject a zoning request based on the applicant, what the housing looks like, or what happened in other places where a similar zoning change was allowed.
“You cannot simply deny a zoning request cause you don’t like the aesthetics, you don‘t like the applicants. You must have competent substantial evidence in order to deny it,” Jacobs said.
I agree with the county commissioners, to do otherwise would lead to a department of justice investigation and millions in a law suit, one cannot justify not building in an area already built to service low income wage earners to include section 8 housing. It’s the police job to arrest drug dealers who may come but the county cannot be prejudice because they would be accused of racism and storing the vote for Republicans.