As Collier population increases, county leaders grapple with long-range planning for growth

As builders eye undeveloped swaths of land in eastern Collier County and residents worry about clogged roads, environmentally sensitive lands and overpopulation, Collier leaders are grappling with how to balance private property rights and sensible growth.

County commissioners during a public workshop Tuesday focused on a variety of growth-related questions, from what type of housing younger residents are seeking to how to push developers to build communities in line with the county’s vision.

“We’ve got to figure out how we balance developer-driven needs versus what we know is the best planning practices for the future,” Commissioner Penny Taylor said.

With some residents calling on county leaders to curb development, commissioners mulled ways to plan for what county officials project will be between 122,000 and 162,000 new permanent residents in Collier by 2040. The county’s current permanent population is estimated at close to 373,000.

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But despite concerns from some residents about an influx of new development, county officials say Collier’s days of explosive growth are behind it.

“On a decade-by-decade basis, the fastest time of growth, the most rapid expansion that this county has seen, is in our rear view mirror,” planning and zoning director Mike Bosi told commissioners during a presentation Tuesday. 

Starting in the 1950s, Collier saw three consecutive decades of the county more than doubling its permanent population, he said. Since then that growth has slowed.

From 2010 to 2019, the county’s permanent population grew by about 16 percent, from 321,520 to 372,880. That compares to a peak growth rate of nearly 143 percent as the county population grew from 6,488 in 1950 to 15,753 a decade later.

Collier officials also tried to assuage fears of Collier turning into an east coast-style metropolitan area.

Collier’s underlying zoning, buffer and preserve requirements and other limitations "prevents us from looking like Miami,” Thaddeus Cohen, who heads the county's growth management department, told commissioners.

“Not in anybody’s lifetime will we look like Miami,” he said.

Commissioner Andy Solis agreed.

“Miami happened prior to the advent of comprehensive planning,” he said. “Having a policy document and a future land use element map that provides for how it’s going to grow, you’re not going to have industrial areas with no green space next to residential areas.”

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But some commissioners still worried about how to rein in growth.

Taylor suggested that commissioners may want to consider requiring developers to incorporate “smart growth principles” into their projects as they come before county leaders. Smart growth is a development approach that encourages, among other things, a range of housing choices and walkable neighborhoods.

Requiring instead of simply encouraging developers to adhere to smart growth principles, Taylor said, would empower county staff during their review of projects “to require the development community to bring forth these plans.”

“And the development community would know that we are building for the future,” she said.

Taylor also said county leaders perhaps need to revisit a community character plan written with the help of a citizen’s advisory panel in the early 2000s .

That plan, among other things, recommended making better use of vacant land within the urban boundary before allowing new development to creep further into the countryside. It also advocated for more housing choices in Collier by reintroducing walkable neighborhoods as an alternative to more gated subdivisions.

“I’d like a report card,” Taylor told county staff. “How well are we doing?”

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Many of the residents who spoke Tuesday expressed worries about overdevelopment in the county.

“While growth is inevitable, it must be tempered,” Michelle Avola, executive director with Naples Pathways Coalition, told commissioners.

The county is experiencing “traffic nightmares” because growth was not planned far enough in advance in the past, she said. 

“Developers should not be the ones dictating our community growth, our community design,” Avola said to applause from the crowd. “We need to dictate what we want.”

Avola and other speakers, including Solis, stressed that younger generations are not interested in living in gated communities, which are pervasive throughout the county.

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Judith Hushon told commissioners that the county should have multiple types of housing options available.

“It shouldn’t all be single-family houses,” she said. “The Gen X-ers don’t necessarily want that.”

Solis, referring to research showing that younger age groups don't want to live in gated communities, said the county needs to take into account what the residents who will be living in Collier in 2040 will be looking for in terms of housing, transportation and occupations.

“Because if we’re not taking that into consideration when we’re making these long-range plans," Solis said, "what’s going to happen to the communities that are gated communities with single-family homes and golf courses?"

Connect with the reporter at patrick.riley@naplesnews.com or on Twitter @PatJRiley.