In this issue we continue our series of research based articles on factors affecting the governance alternatives that the citizens of Estero may want to consider over the next few years. This information appears at the end of the report.

Estero
Community Plan Update

The Lee County Board of County commissioners adopted Administrative Code AC 13-3 specifying procedures that community groups must follow if they wish to develop a Community Plan and related legal changes. This legislation requires that the community create a legal entity, a "Community Planning Panel". Each member of the Panel must file a "Statement of Financial Interests" with the County and be subject to Florida's "sunshine" law. The sunshine law requires that each member of the panel may discuss any proposed provision of the community plan with another member only at a public meeting that satisfies the notice and publication requirements of the law. Other "sunshine" provisions seek to maximize public participation in the community planning process through meeting notices and publication requirements and that all decisions of the panel must be made in public. For further information visit the Lee County Website, www.lee-county.com

On October 17th and again on October 29th Estero citizens and the Estero Community Planning Panel (ECPP) met to organize Phase 2 of Estero's community planning effort. Phase 1 of the Community Planning process, when fully approved early next year, will incorporate Estero's community vision and the goals and objectives necessary to create that vision into the Lee County Plan. Phase 2 will put some teeth into those goals and objectives by amending Lee County law (the Land development Code) in ways that will make them enforceable. Once enacted by the County Board even properties that were zoned many years ago will have to satisfy these new legal requirements when their owners seek to develop that property. If we are to prevent more undesirable and unsightly developments we, as a community, need to move ahead expeditiously with Phase 2.

Lee County has budgeted for grants of up to $25,000 for each Community Planning Panel to develop a Community Plan and Land Development Code changes for their unincorporated communities. At the October 17th meeting the Panel discussed the requirements for applying for such a grant. A Grant Application has been prepared and will be submitted to Lee County by the Panel in early November.

The panel also discussed two alternative approaches for satisfying the "legal entity" requirement of the County Code-- a new legal entity to be created for the Estero Community Planning Panel or using the Estero Chamber of Commerce as its legal entity. It was decided that the Panel will incorporate as a legal entity.

Finally the Panel was presented with two consulting contracts for Phase 2 from Vanasse and Daylor, the planning firm that supported the community's efforts in Phase 1. The Panel discussed the alternatives-- one a bare bones approach with limited opportunity for public input and limited assistance in pushing the proposed amendments through the review and approval process; the second a bottom up, grass roots, broad public input approach with full assistance. The Panel has decided to go with the proposal for full public workshops and full assistance.

At its October 29th meeting the Community Planning Panel made the following decisions:

• Appointed Gregory Toth of Select Real Estate to the panel to replace Frank Weed of West Bay Club, who is leaving the area;
• To incorporate the Panel as a separate legal entity;
• Elected Eileen Galvin as the Treasurer of the Panel;
• Designated Jim Ramsburg as Secretary for the Panel; and
• To apply to Lee County on or about November 1, 2001 for $25,000 in Community Planning financial assistance using the Grant Application (modified as necessary) that has been reviewed by the Panel.

The need for insurance was discussed and two insurance proposals were presented. The Panel decided that insurance is required for the panel members and for liability coverage of meetings but will further explore this issue with County Government and some of the other Community Planning entities in Lee County to see how they are handling this matter before deciding how to proceed.

A full day community workshop will be conducted by the Panel and Vanasse and Daylor Planners and Landscape Architects on Saturday, December 1st for the purpose of eliciting community input regarding community character, architectural standards, landscaping and street scaping, lighting, signage and other concerns. This will be a most important watershed event in the history of our community. We need the participation of citizens, landowners, developers, business and community leaders to make it a success. Please consider participating.

The Estero Community Plan, related materials, and meeting minutes are available for your review at the South County Regional Public Library. Ask for the notebook/file designated “Estero Community Plan”. Ms Andrea Carter is the librarian most familiar with this file.

The members of the Estero Community Planning Panel are:

Eileen Galvin, Executive Director of the Estero Chamber of Commerce
Eddie Perri, President of the Estero Civic Association
Neal Noethlich, Chairman of ECCO (Estero Concerned Citizens Association)
Don Eslick, Representative of ECCO
David Graham, Bonita Bay Properties
Greg Toth, Select Real Estate

Estero Fire Rescue Final Tax Rate

All three local fire districts have now taken final action on their 2001 property tax rates. As the following chart indicates the rate in Estero is now well below that of the adjacent districts, both of which increased their rates substantially this year while the Estero Fire Rescue district kept its rate the same as last year. This year Estero taxpayers will pay fire district property taxes that are 11% less than Bonita Springs and 40% less than San Carlos Park taxpayers.

In spite of its relatively low tax rate, Estero's Fire District will construct two new fire stations; and will hire six firefighters, three company officers and three shift commanders to man those stations.

This tax rate pattern is likely to persist because the Estero Fire District has a larger tax base per person than either of the adjacent districts as shown in the following chart. As discussed elsewhere in this report, Estero's advantage is likely to grow as our commercial growth catches up with the dynamic population growth now underway.

Estero Building Permit Activity

The attack on New York and Washington on September 11th may have had some impact on Lee county residential housing starts. The following chart indicates only 128 housing units were permitted for Estero during the month of September, the smallest number for any month this year.

Despite the September decrease, during the first 9 months of the year 1,748 housing units have been permitted for Estero with a total building value of $263,800,000, up from 1,710 units and $235,700,000 (+12%) last year.

During the first 9 months of 2001 the building value of housing units permitted for Estero was more than double the $121 million recorded by Bonita Springs and equal to 46% of the total for the non-Estero part of unincorporated Lee County of $576 million.

Simon Suncoast Mall (on 41 in front of The Brooks)

The feasibility of this 500 acre regional shopping center, office, hotel and residential project will be greatly increased if the following recent roadway decisions are fully implemented:

• Approval by the Florida Legislature of Governor Bush's economic recovery program which includes funding for widening 41 from Old 41 to Corkscrew Road from 4 to 6 lanes; and
• Approval by the Florida Department of Transportation's "Transportation Outreach Program" (TOP) Advisory Committee of a $9 million state grant to speed up 6 laning of 41 from Bonita Beach Road to the northern end of Old 41.
• Approval by the Florida Municipal Loan Council of a $38 million bond issue for the City of Bonita Springs to finance infrastructure improvements. $16 million of this money is scheduled to be used to construct Three Oaks Parkway south from Coconut Road to Bonita Beach Road.

If the Governor signs the first item and the Legislature and the Governor approve the second the 6 laning of 41 could begin as early as next fall with most of the construction of the 10 mile stretch from south Old 41 to Corkscrew Road to be completed during 2003 and 2004, up from 2007 or 2008.

During this same time period (2002-2004) Three Oaks Parkway will be completed as a four lane roadway from Alico Road on the north to Bonita Springs Road on the south. The combination of these actions will increase the number of lanes of traffic on major north-south thoroughfares from our present 8 lanes to 14 lanes three years from now.

Finally, the acceleration of these road projects will reduce the amount that the Simon Corporation must contribute toward the construction of roadway improvements that are affected by the Mall. These reductions will make the entire Simon Suncoast project more financially feasible for the developer.

On November 26, 2001 Lee County's Land Planning Agency is expected to consider an amendment to the Lee County Comprehensive Plan that would change the classification of the project land from "rural" to "urban community" In addition, this Development of Regional Impact project has been scheduled for consideration by the Regional Planning Council on January 17, 2002.

Indigo Isles Rezoning

(On south side of Koreshan Boulevard between 41 and Three Oaks)

In response to community concerns the Board of County Commissioners on October 1st voted to amend the requested zoning for Indigo Isles by:

• Limiting access to the property from Broadway to emergency use only,
• Requiring upgraded landscaping along the 3/4 mile frontage of the project on Koreshan Boulevard,
• Obtaining the developers agreement to accept the drainage off the future Sandy Lane extension within the project boundaries,
• Removing the off site alignment of Sandy Lane, and
• Reducing the overall density of the project from 5.17 units per acre to 3.5 units per acre.

Four days later South Star Development Partners, the original developers of the site, filed a Request for Rehearing with Lee County asking the Board of County Commissioners to increase the overall density of the project from 3.5 units per acre to 4.0 units per acre. If approved the Indigo Isles site would be permitted 634 units, down from 812 units as approved by the hearing officer and up from 555 units as approved by the Board of County Commissioners.

Later in the month the community representatives who had participated throughout the rezoning process met with the developer and Lee County zoning staff to see if the developer would meet our objectives in exchange for our support of 4 units per acre. This meeting resulted in the following agreement that will be communicated to the Board of County Commissioners through the zoning staff's pending report:

• The development will provide at least a 30 foot wide berm along Koreshan Boulevard with extensive plantings at least equal to the County's highest landscaping standard (Type F).
• The developer will join a public-private partnership that, if approved by a majority of the property owners, will work with Lee County to install and maintain median landscaping along Koreshan Boulevard between 41 and Three Oaks Boulevard. In addition the developer will assist ECCO and the County to recruit and organize the other property owners to join this effort.
• The developer will work with ECCO to upgrade the buffering and landscaping along Sandy Lane when it is built later this decade, and
• The developer will explore with the local sewer utility to determine how the project's sewer system must be changed in order to permit sewer services to be available to existing communities along Broadway should they want to upgrade from their current septic systems.

In late September South Star Development Partners sold the Indigo Isles site to Levitt and Sons, a national housing developer. Levitt was represented at the meeting by Harry Sleek, who indicated that Levitt would develop the property as an age restricted community (55 years and up) if four units per acre zoning is approved by the County Board. The mix of units would be about 2/3rds single family homes with the balance being condominiums. Mr. Sleek indicated Levitt planned to emulate an existing Levitt project called "Cascade Lakes." Pictures of this project depicted an attractive, quality project that would exceed our setback, landscaping and appearance concerns.

Estero's Population
and its Growth

In Florida two measures of population are important to communities:

• The number of full time or permanent residents. This measure is important because many state and federal funding programs use it to allocate funds and because it is used to determine how much political representation an area shall have. These are residents counted by the census or comparable thereto.

• The total population including seasonal residents or "snowbirds". This measure is important because most governmental services must have the capacity to serve this larger population even through those services are not needed year round.

Permanent Residents

The University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR) estimates the population of all Florida municipalities and counties as of April 1 each year so that state funding for local governments are apportioned fairly between censuses. BEBR did not do a 2001 estimate for Estero because we are not a municipality but they have shared with us their procedures so that we could make comparable estimates.

BEBR uses the 2000 census to determine two important factors that it uses, along with residential building permit data, to estimate a community's population.

• First it determines the community's housing occupancy rate by dividing the total number of census households into the number of housing units identified by the census takers. In April 2000 Estero had 7,345 housing units but only 4,608 households for an occupancy rate of 62.7%. At that time Estero's other 2,737 housing units presumably were occupied by seasonal residents who did not seek to be counted in Florida.

• Next BEBR calculates the average number of persons living in each census identified household. In April 2000 Estero had 9,503 persons living in 4,608 households for an average of 2.06 persons per household.

• The number of new housing units built and occupied is the key variable BEBR uses for projecting the population growth of a community. BEBR assumes that single family homes are occupied three months after the building permit is issued and nine months after a multifamily building permit is issued.

Thus, Estero's April 2001 permanent population is determined by adding the April 2000 population to total the product of the following multiplication: the number of new housing units built and occupied during the intervening year(s) times the occupancy rate times the average persons per household. Using this formula Estero's permanent population increased in one year from 9,503 to 12,062 -- an increase of 2,559 full time residents or 26.9%. Based upon residential permits that have already been issued Estero's full time population on December 31, 2001 will be 14,377, an increase of almost 5,000 full time residents, or 51%, in just 21 months.

Total Population

Estero's April 2000 snowbird population was not measured by the Census Bureau but can be estimated using their data. The census found that Estero contained 2,737 seasonal housing units, or 37.3% of all housing units, in April 2000. Assuming that Estero's snowbird households are the same size as its full time households (2.06), Estero's seasonal population in April 2000 was 5,638. Estero's April 2001 snowbird population is estimated by adding 5,638 to the product of the number of new residential units built and occupied by seasonal residents during the intervening year times the average persons per household. On this basis Estero's snowbird population increased during this year by 1,523 persons, or 27%. By December 31, 2001, based upon residential building permits already issued, the snowbird population of Estero will exceed 8,500.

Estero Population Growth

Population	April 1, 2000	April 1, 2001	January 1, 2002
Permanent Residents	9,503	12,062	14,377
Snowbirds	5,638	7,161	8,538
Total	15,141	19,223	22,915

The above Table shows that Estero's total population has grown in 21 months from just over 15,000 to almost 23,000 on December 31, 2001.

By way of comparison BEBR's estimate of Bonita Springs' permanent population increased from 32,797 in April, 2000 to 38,003 in April 2001. Thus Estero's permanent population was equal to 31.7% of Bonita's population in April 2001.

Estero's Governance Alternatives

As Estero continues to grow rapidly the ability of the citizens of Estero to manage that growth may depend importantly on how we are governed. We have three governance alternatives that we should study. They are:

• Stay unincorporated under the jurisdiction of the Lee County Board of County Commissioners; or
• Be annexed, in whole or in part, by the City of Bonita Springs; or
• Become a municipality.

The first alternative may not be sustainable if the City of Bonita Springs decides, and a majority of the residents of the area concur, that a portion of Estero should be annexed to Bonita.

In this issue we continue to provide factual information and analysis that we hope will assist the citizens of Estero to effectively participate in this important debate and decision. We plan to address other important Estero governance questions in the months to come.

Estero's Governance Options and Our Taxes

Will our property taxes be increased if Estero is annexed by Bonita Springs? …if Estero becomes a municipality? These are among the first questions that most Estero residents will be asking as we consider the alternative governance options before us.

The following paragraphs explain why the answer to both questions is "Not much, if at all".

• Our 2001 tax bills will soon be arriving in our mailboxes. Your total tax bill depends on the taxable value of your home multiplied by the total tax rate imposed by each of the taxing bodies that serve your property. In Estero we are all served by the following taxing bodies that have adopted these tax rates for 2001:

• Note first the Lee County Unincorporated tax rate of 1.2847 mils. This is the tax rate that Lee County is authorized to impose on residents and businesses located in the unincorporated area of the county for "municipal" services provided exclusively to those areas. The Lee County government tax rates listed above are paid by all Lee County taxpayers for countywide services.

If Estero becomes a municipality or is annexed by Bonita Springs the "unincorporated area rate" will be eliminated from our tax bills and replaced by a tax rate adopted by the municipality. When Bonita Springs became a municipality last year the city council adopted a total property tax rate of 1.22 mils. This year Bonita's city council maintained that same rate, slightly lower than the county's unincorporated rate of 1.2847 mils.

• Second, note that this unincorporated area tax rate is only 6.8% of your total property tax bill--1.28 mils out of a total of 18.99 mils. That's because municipalities (and counties to a somewhat smaller degree) rely less on the property tax and have access to many more revenue sources than any other type of local government. A 1977 Report by the Legislative Commission on Intergovernmental Relations found that all Florida municipalities obtained only 16% of their total revenue from property taxes.

In Lee County, as in many other Florida counties about three-fourths of all property taxes support county government and the schools.

• Third, wealthy communities tend to have lower property tax rates while poor communities tend to have high tax rates. For property tax purposes a wealthy community is one that has a large amount of taxable value for each resident of the community. As the following table indicates, if Estero were a municipality, it would presently be less wealthy than Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach but wealthier than Bonita Springs and much wealthier than Cape Coral and Fort Myers. The community populations used in these calculations are 2000 Census counts. The taxable value per person of each community would change if we had accurate 2001 population counts for each community and included "snow birds" in the calculation, but the rankings of the communities probably would not change.

The following chart shows the three wealthiest municipalities in Lee County have far lower property tax rates than the communities with less taxable wealth. Only Fort Myers Beach and Bonita Springs have rates lower than the Lee County Unincorporated rate of 1.2847 mils, which has not been increased for many years. Sanibel is somewhat of an anomaly -- a very wealthy community with a tax rate higher than some communities with far less wealth. Some communities (like Sanibel) want more municipal services than others and are willing to pay for them through higher property taxes.

As noted earlier Estero today is wealthier than Bonita Springs but not as wealthy as Sanibel or Fort Myers Beach. In the years ahead Estero is likely to improve its relative position because, unlike the two wealthier communities, most of Estero's commercial sites have not yet been developed. Most of Estero's growth in recent years has been residential growth --higher property values produced by an expanding population. As Estero's commercial sites are developed over the next decade the community will add wealth without commensurate population growth.

• If Bonita Springs annexes Estero, its wealth would increase, thus reducing the likelihood that Bonita's property tax rates would be increased. If Estero incorporates its relative wealth is likely to result in property tax rates comparable to the other wealthy municipalities in Lee County. If Estero is able to stay as part of unincorporated Lee County, its "municipal" rate would likely stay quite low.

• Finally, it is not a coincidence that the last three municipal incorporations in Lee County are the wealthiest municipalities in the county. Although there are typically many reasons why areas incorporate, wealthy communities have a unique incentive--keeping more of the property tax produced by the community's wealth within the community.

• If we assume that Lee County spends the property tax revenue that it gets from unincorporated taxpayers equitably throughout that area, any community that is wealthier than the overall unincorporated area will, as a municipality, have available for spending more property tax revenue than the county is spending in the community. Right now Estero's wealth is more than twice that of the overall unincorporated area. Consequently if Estero becomes a municipality and maintains the unincorporated tax rate it will be able to spend more than twice as much property tax revenue on municipal services in Estero than the County would spend on services in Estero.

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