a road runs through it

I MAGINE FLYING OUT OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA INTERnational Airport and looking down. If the plane swings northward after takeoff, you'll see the

Babcock developers in Charlotte County aim to put six- or eight-lane highways across east Lee County for a future Babcock city whose residents are likely to shop and seek jobs in Lee. broad Caloosahatchee River stretching east of

Fort Myers out the starboard windows, flanked on the south side by State Road 80 (known as Palm Beach Boulevard) and on the north by County and State Road 78 (known either as Bayshore or North River Road) — essentially three easterly stripes painted down the back of the subtropical landscape, two of them asphalt and one water.

North of 78 you can also watch Lee meet Charlotte County in what is still mostly wild habitat, where the once great Babcock Ranch has now become almost 120 square miles of public land. At the heart of that spread lies 17,000 acres (about 27 square miles), set aside and ordained by official Charlotte County decree as a someday city of 17,800 homes and more than 40,000 residents, to be built in increments and completed by about 2030, say the developers, Kitson & Partners.

MANN At the moment, only a single two-lane strip known as State Road 31 emerges from Babcock running southward a mere six or seven miles to reach the muscular commercial corridors of Lee County — and that's where all those future Babcockians will head, according to planners on both sides of the Lee-Charlotte county line.

Therein lies both the problem and the prize, depending on your view: Kitson & Partners, supported by some officials in both Lee and Charlotte, propose a massive road-widening scheme that will create six or eightlane highways for almost 20 miles on each side of the Caloosahatchee — all for the benefit of future Babcockians.

In the final stages of planning, the scheme would spawn three potentially devastating consequences, in the minds of critics: It would destroy what remains of east Lee's rural lifestyle; it would potentially cost Lee County taxpayers millions of dollars — not to build the roads but to support, maintain, service and make them safe; and it would require a change in the Lee Comprehensive Plan that protects the region's less developed character.

DALLTRY Most of the road plan has been created out of sight of the public, which has only just become aware of the consequences of it, according to some government planners and critics.

"I've always thought the public was not brought along and notified properly. They took their eye off the ball when the state and counties purchased Babcock, and now they're starting to see what the result of those past deals will be," says Paul O'Connor, Lee's planning director.

The struggle between supporters and opponents of the amendment plan to widen Lee's roads appears to be coming to a head. On Sept. 22 and 23, Lee County Commissioners will meet publicly to consider recommending the plan.

During that two-day public debate (more than 20 proposed Comprehensive Plan amendments will be considered), commissioners can choose to "transmit" elements of the road plan to the state Departments of Community Affairs and Transportation for their takes on the matter, or not.

HALL Lee County's commissioners would then meet again to give either a thumbs up or a thumbs down to the road plan — probably in about February next year, they say. Only after that could the first bulldozer break ground on a Lee road.

Road plan details

No one disputes that Lee's roads could provide the easiest route for future Babcock residents to reach the lush shopping and numerous job opportunities Lee might offer. They would have to travel right through Bayshore, Buckingham and Alva to do it — to reach Interstate 75 and U.S 41, and from there, the plums of good living.

But it can't happen on the current two-lane road — SR 31 — and its peripheral arteries. They were designed very thoughtfully to accommodate Lee County traffic, but not the huge daily influx of other traffic the future may bring.

So the roads have to be significantly wider in the minds of developers and planners. The list currently proposed reaches deeply into the geography and the character of Lee County: In some stretches, Bayshore Road would go to six lanes, Business 41 to eight lanes, the Del Prado Extension to six lanes, Palm Beach Boulevard (SR 80) to eight lanes, and roads such as Immokalee (SR 82), Colonial Boulevard and Lee Boulevard would all go to six or eight lanes, here and there.

There is also a "new east-west corridor" proposed by the developers in an undefined place near the county line — that would be four lanes — and a dramatic widening of SR 31 to six lanes stretching from Babcock south to Bayshore Road, and to four lanes stretching from Bayshore on south to SR 80.

All of that appears in a document called the "CPA 2006-2008 Babcock Ranch Community Amendment to the Lee County Comprehensive Plan," where no firm project timing is pinned down.

But in the minds of critics, who only began to gather momentum in late July when the Lee Planning Authority looked at that amendment and voted 5 to 2 not to accept it (a vote that carries no authority except as a recommendation to county commissioners), any road widening in Lee would prove monstrous — an unfinished Frankenstein of bad planning, if you will.

That is, unless developers and planners agree to build the connecting road in Charlotte County from SR 31 west about eight miles to U.S. 41 (and if possible, I-75) first, before all the rest of it.

"The problem with that," explains Mr. O'Connor, "is that it takes about 10 years to move through the process of permitting an interchange on a federal highway, I-75. I don't know why, but that's the way it is. So for them (Kitson & Partners) it's just easier to start with the Lee County roads."

And that means the nearest entrance to I-75 for 40,000 people who might inhabit Babcock Ranch in Charlotte County is at Bayshore Road on the north side of the Caloosahatchee, or at Palm Beach Boulevard on the south side, in Lee County.

Nevertheless, by first building an east-west connector north of Lee, either along State Road 74 toward Punta Gorda or somewhere else, and connecting it with U.S. 41 — an interim measure until a connection with I-75 could be permitted — significant pressure could be taken off Lee roads, the critics say.

Then, the Lee Comprehensive Plan might not have to be amended to end the "rural" way of life it now protects for residents in east Lee County.

The consequences of change

If the proposed changes ultimately occur, nothing will be the same again for the tens of thousands of residents in "rural" settings now protected by the Lee Comprehensive Plan, according to experts on either side of the issue.

"This is a nuclear explosion when it comes to our rural way of life here in east Lee, and it also violates completely the Lee Comp Plan," says Jim Green, a Realtor and member of the Lee Planning Authority, who strongly opposes the amendment as it now stands.

"It would be the third biggest change to ever occur in Lee County, after Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres," says Commissioner Frank Mann, who lives in Alva. "It's the most important project of my life and it violates every principle of Smart Growth and good planning we now have. We're going to get all the impacts of this community and Charlotte County will get all the impact fees and property taxes."

A Bradley Road resident of North Fort Myers who has begun to fight the road widening plan, Karen Kamener, points out that elevating as well as widening SR 31 is one of the prominent early needs identified by Kitson & Partners, since that road traditionally floods. And that could prove catastrophic for many people in her neck of the woods.

"This entire plan is totally unnecessary — it was focused only on profit from raw land, not on any environmental concerns like the panther or endangered native ecosystems or proper use of water," says Ms. Kamener, who stables horses and raises chickens and other animals on her property.

"My property is now about knee deep in water and that's traditional for a few months each year. I will live at 18 inches of water, but not at 30 inches. But Kitson plans to raise SR 31 six inches because it floods every year, and that's going to flood all these homes out here and put us hip deep — and it will make it more difficult for rural people in Charlotte County, too."

The lone Charlotte County commissioner to dissent from the plan to let developers drop a city located miles from any infrastructure — not only from roads but from worthy water and sewer or power connections — was Andy Cummings, a Republican. Mr. Cummings expresses a "sense of betrayal" at the willingness of former Republican Gov. Jeb Bush and his administration to make a city development in Babcock part of the deal, back when the state and counties bought land from Syd Kitson & Partners, the developers who had acquired it from the Babcock owners themselves.

But that's a done deal now, Commissioner Cummings says.

"We have hundreds of pages of analysis from the staffs of Charlotte and Lee counties and the Regional Planning Council, saying this is a bad idea — and not only that but it's against state law. It was clearly contrary to Charlotte County's comprehensive plan, and the only reason it got this far was because the governor (Mr. Bush) and local commissioners waved their wands and changed the law, like magic. The state Department of Community Affairs (which signs off on such permits) was simply not prepared to take them to task.

"So now it's done. The development rights have been given out, and you can't just take them back. We have every reason for the citizens of both Charlotte and Lee to expect this will cost hundreds of millions of dollars before it's all done, and Lee County can expect a huge increase of traffic on its roads. This is infrastructure subsidy and it doesn't count all the hundreds of millions we've already paid for the total land purchase, which raised the value of Kitson's property tenfold."

Who pays, and how much

In 2006, Lee County commissioners signed an agreement with Kitson & Partners to allow road-widening in Lee, if the developer agreed, in theory, to pay the bill. (The process allowed the county to buy 5,000 acres from Kitson.) But the specifics were left out — how much and when, officials say.

"We're still bound by that agreement as far as I know, but things have changed," says Commissioner Mann, who was not part of the board that signed that deal.

Then about 16 months ago Lee sued Charlotte County for violating its own comprehensive plan in a debate not just about altering roads but altering water flows that would affect Lee — a suit that was finally settled out of court recently, with Kitson & Partners sitting in on negotiations and becoming part of them.

That lawsuit effectively prevented the public from following the compromises made by officials in Charlotte and Lee with the developers, putting negotiations out of the "sunshine," as public records laws are called. That's part of the reason critics were so slow to recognize what was happening, they say.

"The whole process has been fairly nauseating," says Wayne Daltry, Lee's director of Smart Growth and a strong, long-time proponent of the kind of regional thinking and planning that did not take place here between the two counties, he says.

The new settlement, building on the old one, calls for Kitson & Partners not only to pay an estimated $500 million but to put the money up front at every stage of road improvement, before work begins.

"We're saying (to Mr. Kitson), 'We're not letting you impact our roads without the money," Mr. Daltry explains. "And we're saying, 'You better have all the shopping and the churches and the schools on site.' When they came in with the Comp Plan Amendment (for Lee), I kept saying, 'But 31 floods. It's not an evacuation route.' And when Kitson came in with his road-going-west plan, we said we weren't committing to anything until he shows us the money. As long as he has the money, we're not saying no.

"But that doesn't mean we've stopped saying, 'This can happen in Charlotte County.'"

roads to be improved

>>Babcock Ranch master road list for the Lee County Comprehensive Plan amendment

The devil in the details

Troubling even to Lee officials who have tentatively recommended that commissioners accept the developer's proposal is the lack of detail in it.

"We still have a lot of things to work out," says Dave Loveland, Lee County's Transportation director.

Mr. Loveland estimated the costs of road improvements in the proposed amendment to Lee's Comprehensive Plan at roughly a half-billion dollars and he also estimates that the future won't look like the current plan, necessarily.

"Our commitments could change the character of east Lee, and there's a lot of arguing still to be done about what Kitson & Partners will be obligated for. But we won't add anything to our financially feasible map until they show the funding for it up front. And historically — take Gateway (in Lee County), for instance — plans like this have a way of changing a great deal."

Commissioner Mann insists that any future agreement to amend the Lee Comprehensive plan by his board should include a great deal more definition.

"There is still not a clear understanding. When is the first payment to be made and what is it to be based on: the number of houses, the road miles the bulldozers put in, amount of traffic and traffic counts, something else?

"There's been no money set aside. And the minute you start putting hundreds of dump trucks and bubbatrucks up and down SR 31, you'll have an immediate impact on 31 alone and everybody around it in Bayshore and Alva. And it will cost $50 million just to four-lane the little 31 bridge."

But funding up front isn't good enough either, suggests Commissioner Brian Bigelow, who with Mr. Mann has been the only Lee County elected official to dispute the plan outright, so far. (Commissioners Ray Judah and Bob Janes did not respond to interview requests for this story.)

"No matter how 'green' Syd Kitson's new city is being marketed to be, it will pale in comparison to the amount of green Lee County taxpayers will be left to pay. Even if this leap frog development pays for the initial road building costs, the long term consequences of the roads and other development they will spawn is sure to be ours to suffer.

"As our county's history has shown us, ever since the introduction of the automobile suburban sprawl spawns more suburban sprawl."

Kitson & Partners, meanwhile, have convinced Charlotte officials to create a special taxing district, which means that future residents of the Babcock Ranch community will foot the bill for much of the work — eventually, officials say. Kitson & Partners did not respond to phone calls to talk about the roads for this story.

If that bill was ultimately $500 million and the cost was divided equally among Babcock Ranch home owners, then each of the 17,800 owners would ultimately pay about $28,000 just to widen Lee County roads, alone.

But Commissioner Mann is skeptical the developers can get to that point.

"It seems to me right now that the whole project is financially unfeasible because of that half-billion-dollar requirement," Commissioner Mann says.

"I don't see any way the developer can bond that and later get bonds paid off by individual home owners and lot purchasers in that project."

As good as that may sound to those who don't want Lee County's rural character changed, Commissioner Mann remains worried.

"What's been happening is, the process is oozing forward without recognizing the impossibility of the developer to pave or pay that obligation.

"What I'm afraid of is that there will be permits granted, and he'll start developing before we get the plan on how the money for the roads will be paid. So I'm afraid they'll get the state and Charlotte County to sign off on permitting before we get the money or have the infrastructure permits in hand."

Inevitable outcomes?

But Lee County already bought into that process when its commissioners agreed in 2006 to widen the roads with developer money, says Mr. O'Connor, the planning director.

"What we bought into was reality. The entitlements have been granted in Charlotte, so we did not want to bury our head in the sand and pretend it wasn't going to be there.

"Where discussion has gotten to now is, are the proposed roadway improvements the fairest way to go, and are impacts being spread fairly between Charlotte and Lee? Those are two questions, and the answers are hard to determine.

"I think the development is going to impact us. So we have policy language that says, 'When you come up with a definite funding source, we'll agree to add a particular segment, a road widening, into our financially feasible plan. Then we'll take the funding source you've identified and apply it to that project.'

"So all Mr. Kitson needs to improve a road is an OK from the state. If he identifies the funding source, it can get done, because we've agreed to it. And Mr. Kitson's plan is to identify those sources and bring those improvements into the plan and onto the ground."

Among the worst outcomes for Lee, in that case, could be an inflated business bubble — which could happen if Babcockians of the future had easy access to Lee County on widened roads before the developers had created ample shopping and living attractions at Babcock Ranch, says Mr. Daltry.

"If he first hyperinflates some commercial sites in Lee, and then he puts it in Babcock later, the Lee businesses would all die. So we want no false bubble from Babcock on the commercial side in Lee."

And predictions by the developers that a sustainable green Babcock Ranch can have an "internal capture rate" of 65 percent, compared to a typical 20 to 25 percent capture rate in upscale gated communities — the rate at which residents decide to stay on site and not drive elsewhere for working, shopping, worshipping, eating or recreating — are probably wildly excessive, says Mr. O'Connor, an opinion seconded by other planners.

Commissioner Mann says that figure is not only excessive but impossible in the foreseeable future.

"Kitson says that ultimately they'll be a self-contained community with all the things you need — gas stations, restaurants, movies, supermarkets, all that stuff — so they won't have to use the roads. Well hells bells, what about in the meantime — not in the next 40 or 50 years?"

What the plan's supporters say

Lee Commissioner Tammy Hall insists there are huge advantages to going ahead with plans to widen roads

in Lee — not the least of them being that the county is bound legally to do so now, if Kitson & Partners can find the money.

But she also points out that land owners with property zoned for other than agricultural uses should get to exercise their rights and pursue the highest and best uses of their own lands — which might mean more commercialization of lands already zoned for it but still agricultural in east Lee.

Besides, she adds, "This project was never about good planning. It was about, how do we buy down the largest preserve in Florida History?"

To do that required a compromise with developers, she insists.

"People say, 'Tammy Hall is pro development — well I'm not pro development. I'm pro balanced growth. I believe we need to protect land uses, but let's have open dialogue and help people understand where they live and what the eligible uses property owners can ask for are.

"Do I have to like Kitson developing Babcock or selling it, or doing anything else? No. But I have to work within the law, and Florida is still a strong property rights state. Now the law says, 'If you will do all this, you have to take financial responsibility to do it.'

"So I am going to make sure that any permit (Mr. Kitson) pulls, the impacts are going to be negated as much as possible."

To help clear up questions, Commissioner Hall recently hosted a town hall meeting on the Babcock issues.

"I completely understood the public's frustration at not being able to follow what was going on during our (15-month lawsuit negotiations) with Charlotte County," she said prior to that meeting. "So this town hall meeting is to clear up what permits are in the agencies — what are those permits and what is the access. It's about what Lee is doing to protect our quality of life and land uses, based on what Charlotte County is doing." (The meeting was recorded and may be viewed by going to the official Lee County Web site, www.Lee-county.com.)

For example, the Babcock developers aim to install a 400-acre solar field, which requires Florida Power and Light to "change the legislation to allow it," Commissioner Hall explains.

"To get on the grid they have to come into Lee, so we'll have to put up transmission poles in Lee. And I don't want anybody to say, 'What the hell is this all about?' Be a promoter of the facts, and then say, if you want to, 'I just don't like this project.' But my job is to make sure you have the facts. I don't get to be an advocate. I don't get to deny someone something just because I don't feel like it. I have to be pragmatic."

There is no downside to the Babcock plan, according to Charlotte County Commissioner Robert Skidmore, who supports not only the road plans, but argues against requiring the developers to build an east-west connector from Babcock to Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte before the development is in place, years from now.

"Absent the Babcock Ranch development, transportation demands do not warrant an east-west connector well into the foreseeable future," he says.

Nor have Charlotte officials given too much to Babcock developers, ignoring the needs of people in Lee County, he adds.

"Like hundreds of other developments across the state, the Babcock project has undergone a very intense and detailed Development of Regional Impact review," he said.

"That involves state, regional and local reviews and approvals. Lee County retains all the rights related to the Babcock Ranch development it always had."

What everyone will benefit from in the end, he insists, "is the creation of a green, sustainable city. Charlotte County will be expecting great things from the Babcock development. We are expecting the project to be a global leader and worldwide destination for both sustainable living and green economies. There's no downside to that."

For the time being, that remains a very distinct matter of opinion.