Without proper permits, Celebration Park parking lot draws concerns from some neighbors

When Ken Young left his Becca Avenue home in East Naples for a trip to Wisconsin in May 2018, his property bordered a residential home, typical for the quiet neighborhood off Bayshore Drive.

Young, a disabled Vietnam veteran, returned in November to find the home next to him had been replaced by a gravel lot. Eight feet from his bedroom now sat a parking lot that frequently filled up with cars from patrons of a new food truck park across the street, known as Celebration Park. 

“It was a conventional residential neighborhood,” said Young, 72, who has lived at the home on and off for six years and had some relatives staying there as caregivers.

But with the widely popular food truck park opening in the fall of last year, noise, congestion and traffic moved into Young’s neighborhood.

“The first month, the opening was terrible,” said Young, a retired land-use planning engineer in Brown County, Wisconsin. 

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The food truck park — launched by local entrepreneur Rebecca Maddox, who also owns Three60 Market, a waterfront restaurant and wine store close by — and its parking situation soon caught the eye of county code enforcement after Young lodged a complaint with Collier officials.

The food truck park had become so popular that it needed the “overflow” parking, said Jamie French, the county’s deputy department head for the growth management department. The park currently has 12 on-site parking spaces, according to county officials.

And although the owners of Celebration Park had agreements with other businesses to allow parking for food truck patrons, including at Three60 Market, “people started parking in the empty lot,” French said.

The problem? The property owners of the empty lot were using it for parking without having the proper permits in place.

“They jumped the gun, so to speak,” French said.

Code enforcement staff issued a notice of violation in December, noting “unpermitted construction work,” including “lot clearing and the introduction of gravel fill” on the property at 2831 Becca Ave., which is owned by Bayshore Redevelopment GP LLC. The limited liability company lists Maddox as its manager and registered agent, state business records show. 

The home that once stood on the now-empty lot was demolished with the proper approvals, French said. When code enforcement staff first visited the site Dec. 17, the house was gone and the current parking lot was already built and in use, county officials said.

“They were essentially in violation the day they started to build the permanent commercial parking lot without county approvals,” county spokeswoman Connie Deane said in an email.

The property owners can seek the use of a parking lot based on the county’s rules for the specific area, but they have to go through the application process for a parking exemption, French said.

County documents show representatives for the property owners submitted an application, dated Oct. 22, for a parking exemption for the lot at 2831 Becca Ave.

The county’s online records show the parking exemption request went back and forth between county staff and the applicant a few times, with county officials asking for corrections and the property owners resubmitting the application three times before it was accepted in July.

The matter is now headed before the county’s hearing examiner, who is scheduled to hear the petition for a parking exemption Aug. 22.

Although the property is in violation at the moment, French said the issue is on a path to compliance. The latest design meets the county’s criteria to schedule it before the hearing examiner and includes plans for a decorative wall that would channel pedestrians toward a crosswalk to safely cross Becca Avenue to get to and from the food truck park, he said.

“Our goal really is to get the community back into compliance ...,” French said. “We want a long-range solution.”

The proposed parking lot would include 76 parking spots, county officials said.

If the use is not approved by the county’s hearing examiner, the property will have to be restored to a vacant lot and can’t have the current material on it, French said.

“That all has to be removed if it doesn’t get approved,” he said.

Patrick Johnson, the general manager for Celebration Park, said the group is working hand in hand with the county. The permitting process “takes some time” and “we’ve had open communication with all the neighbors,” Johnson added. 

“We’re just trying to make Naples a better place,” he said.

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Maddox said she bought the lot across from her food truck park with the expectation of turning it into a parking lot. With no parking garage or on-street parking on Bayshore Drive, she said her intent was to provide some parking for the Bayshore area, “which is sorely needed.”

She thought her food truck venture would be successful, but the instant popularity exceeded expectations.

“The multiplier of the success was two and three times of what we thought it would be,” Maddox said. 

The first couple nights, people parked everywhere, and her focus was to prevent them from parking on the street or residents’ properties, she said.

“People started parking in that lot,” Maddox said.

Maddox said she wished the process had not taken so long, and said the plan is to have the permits by September to build the parking lot and have it in place by the end of the year.

“If we made mistakes, I take full responsibility,” she said.

Commissioner Penny Taylor, whose district includes the area off Bayshore Drive, said the food truck park’s popularity brought Collier to the East Naples area, causing a big shift from what the community there was used to.

“No one dreamed it would be this busy,” she said. “This food truck park was a new animal for us.”

The neighbors have been patient, Taylor said, but the situation needs to be moved toward a solution.

“We need to really make this right,” she said.

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To some in the neighborhood, the current situation also presents a safety concern.

Robert Messmer has lived on nearby Orange Street for 21 years. Food truck patrons cross the street diagonally to get from the parking lot to the venue, at times texting, intoxicated or not paying attention, he said. 

He worries about an accident with visitors crossing the street and cars turning in and out of Becca Avenue.

“I’m surprised nobody’s been hit yet,” said Messmer, 75.

If the parking lot situation becomes a life-safety issue, county officials said, it can be closed down while it is going through the approval process.

“We maintain the ability to shut that lot down,” French said.

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Messmer — who sits on the Bayshore Beautification Municipal Service Taxing Unit advisory committee but did not speak in his capacity as a committee member — said the county should not have allowed Maddox to continue to use the lot for parking without a permit.

“The county could have stopped her use of the parking lot and they did not,” he said.

Young said that he would want at least a buffer of trees or a berm to shield his property from the parking spaces, although he would prefer a nice residential lot.

Since he remarried in February 2018, he has spent less time at the house, Young said. His relatives who lived at the Becca Avenue home moved to Golden Gate Estates because “they couldn’t take the noise,” he said.

Young said he tried to sell the home but was unsuccessful. He wonders what the situation has done to his property value.

So far, a solution to his problem has been elusive.

“Everybody is sympathetic to me, but nothing happens,” Young said.

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