{"id":52940,"date":"2022-04-10T18:03:38","date_gmt":"2022-04-10T22:03:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=52940"},"modified":"2022-04-10T20:11:46","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T00:11:46","slug":"lee-commissioners-back-more-lehigh-acres-duplexes-amid-neighborhood-objection%ef%bf%bc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2022\/04\/lee-commissioners-back-more-lehigh-acres-duplexes-amid-neighborhood-objection%ef%bf%bc\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee commissioners back more Lehigh Acres duplexes amid neighborhood objection\ufffc"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Written by Bill Smith <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/images.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52941\" width=\"399\" height=\"298\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The vote was based on a finding by deputy hearing examiner Amanda Rivera that&nbsp;the request is &#8220;consistent with Lee Plan directives and compatible with the surrounding area.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jfY7VqZPutE\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>Rivera&#8217;s recommendation that rezoning the land owned by Quattrone &amp; Associates&nbsp;was acceptable because the proposed zoning&nbsp;allowed lots of 10,000 square feet, rather than the 7,500 square feet in the existing single-family home districts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She also found&nbsp;that &#8220;construction impacts of duplex\/single-family homes would not be markedly more than single-family homes.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" data-id=\"52943\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/e2188f73af501a58b60f3c134ea90af9l-m3448179879od-w480_h360_x2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52943\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/e2188f73af501a58b60f3c134ea90af9l-m3448179879od-w480_h360_x2.jpg 960w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/e2188f73af501a58b60f3c134ea90af9l-m3448179879od-w480_h360_x2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/e2188f73af501a58b60f3c134ea90af9l-m3448179879od-w480_h360_x2-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"259\" height=\"194\" data-id=\"52942\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/images-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52942\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>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&nbsp;7,500 square feet or&nbsp;have 50% more land per unit than the duplex model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No member of the board challenged the hearing examiner&#8217;s findings. Commissioner Kevin Ruane referred twice&nbsp;to the board making&nbsp;a choice between emotion and law.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Resident Donald Stein said&nbsp;in a plea to reject duplexes that he won&#8217;t be in a duplex neighborhood this time&nbsp;but fears the area is&nbsp;becoming another southwest Lehigh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;There are no duplexes in line for my street&nbsp;but (are) two blocks to the west of me, two blocks to the east of me, so I&#8217;m in the middle of everything,&#8221; he said. &#8220;My biggest concern is comparing it to southwest Lehigh Acres.&nbsp;I would really hate to see that expanded to our neighborhood.&nbsp;We have a nice quiet neighborhood.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Duplex housing in southwest Lehigh&nbsp;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.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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 &#8220;cohesive&#8221; approach to development.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The developer has a plan for building the new duplexes in organized phases.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some residents fear that the impact of the duplexes&nbsp;has too much in common with serious issues raised when duplex apartments were built 15 years ago.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We are looking to ideally start at least five duplexes here,&#8221; said Al Quattrone, who heads Quattrone and Associates, a Fort Myers civil engineering and development consulting firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The county staff noted that&nbsp;like most of Lehigh&#8217;s, lots in the area were built&nbsp;in a manner described as piecemeal \u2014&nbsp;home by home&nbsp;rather than &#8220;the efforts of any large cohesive residential development in Lehigh.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Quattrone said after developing five units, he foresees expanding&nbsp;to 10 per year on the property.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/download-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52944\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/download-3.jpg 225w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/download-3-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/download-3-50x50.jpg 50w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><figcaption>Shuman<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The developer also said that he planned to raise the bar in the construction of duplex buildings, creating &#8220;lakes,&#8221; otherwise known as stormwater retention ponds, to improve the quality of the subdivision.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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 &#8220;duplexes are typically rentals, which creates an&nbsp;issue of who is going to be living there, who is going to be monitoring it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Residents pleaded with commissioners to reject the addition of duplex apartments generally south of Joel Boulevard because of the impact on their property investment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ruane referred to supporting the position of neighbors as &#8220;acting on emotion rather than facts,&#8221;&nbsp;which he said could lead to an expensive court battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/KEVIN-RUANE-1-683x1024-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-52928\" width=\"560\" height=\"840\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/KEVIN-RUANE-1-683x1024-1.jpg 683w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/KEVIN-RUANE-1-683x1024-1-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><figcaption>County Commissioner Ruane <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;You cannot simply&nbsp;deny a zoning request cause you don&#8217;t like the aesthetics, you don\u2018t like the applicants.&nbsp;You must have competent substantial evidence in order to deny it,&#8221; Jacobs said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":52941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[1214],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52940"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52947,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52940\/revisions\/52947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}