Naples' planning advisers, homeowners' reps discuss retaining 'small-town feel'

Both the Naples Planning Advisory Board and a group of HOAs agree that protecting the small-town feel of Naples should be a priority for the city, even if no one can define exactly what "small-town feel" means.

The city is re-evaluating its vision plan, a process it undertakes about every 10 years, to decide whether it needs to make any changes.

One thing that should not change, according to the HOAs, is the single core goal of the 2007 vision plan, which is “Preserve the City’s distinctive character and culture by maintaining small-town look and feel."

The Naples planning board took up the HOAs' concerns Wednesday during a discussion about the visioning process.

“I’ve lived in the city of Naples now for almost two decades, and I’ve watched the growth and the changes and it’s a wonderful city,” said Linda Black, president of The Moorings Property Owners Association. “People have asked me what does it mean by a small-town feel, and I’m not really sure you can put that in a sentence, but with all the changes and all the growth and everything changing, doesn’t it still feel like a small town to you? It’s a charming place, and we don’t want to lose that charm.”

Janet Ferry, co-chair of the Old Naples Association’s planning and development committee, agreed.

"None of the residents tell you they wish for Naples to become more like the east coast," she said. "Residents tell you they love our small-town charm, however that's defined, and they love the sophistication of our nearby commercial areas that are a delight to be in. You will hear them say they want to protect, to preserve and to remain Naples."

The Moorings Property Owners Association and Old Naples Association are among eight HOAs that have united to express concerns about the visioning process. The group thinks the process is flawed and that as a result, its outcome will be flawed, too.

The group's primary complaint involves the lack of outreach to the HOAs, which together represent the majority of taxpayers in Naples. In August the city hired the Stantec consulting group to poll Naples residents, taxpayers and city-based businesses on the 2007 Vision Plan to determine whether it needs an update, but Stantec did not seek input from the majority of HOAs, according to the group.

Previously:Eight Naples Homeowners Associations unite to protect city's small-town feel

“Because the list of stakeholders has expanded significantly and because Stantec in its Nov. 26 review refers to organizations as stakeholders, there is some concern that residents have the potential here of being marginalized,” Ferry said Wednesday.

However, Tim Hancock, senior planner with Stantec overseeing the community outreach process, said he hasn’t started soliciting opinions about the vision plan. Instead, he has been informing businesses, organizations and residents about the process, which will start in earnest in January with a series of public workshops and an online survey. 

"I think there was a concern that there was a priority placed on some groups over others, but as you can see from this list," he said, displaying a list of individuals, groups, organizations and businesses Stantec already has met with, "our priority so far has really been community-based folks, the residents, the business owners."

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David Feight, chairman of the Planning Advisory Board, echoed Hancock's assurances.

"The primary stakeholders are the residents. Businesses are second," he said. "There's no indication that we're moving somebody up a level and moving somebody down a level."

Because each group of stakeholders will have different motivations, the wording of Stantec's online survey and the weight given to its responses will have to be considered carefully, board member Bruce Selfon said.

"While we have a small-town feel, we have a big-city taste for certain things — food, medical care, police protection — and it's the tension between those that the city has to rationalize and whether the economic interests, because the values of the properties here are so significant, tends to push us away from the small-town feel," Selfon said.

"So I think what we'd all like to know (in the survey) is who we think, fairly or unfairly, is more economically interested in the growth and development of Naples vs. people who more residentially are interested in preserving the feel of Naples," he said. "I think we're talking about the intrinsic tension between different kinds of stakeholders."

Stantec will host four public workshops in January. For a list of dates, times and locations, see naplesvisioning.com. Stantec will present a findings report to the Planning Advisory Board in April after the workshops and the closure of the survey.

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