| The Saga of Slippery… Please Pay Attention! North Naples is literally fighting to protect its quality of life for the next century, maybe longer. If One Naples is allowed to proceed as designed, the next thing will be Stock Development’s expansion onto contiguous land to the east and maybe north making congestion and safety even worse. I offer the Waterside Shops as a pure example of this. Originally a boutique shopping area with plenty of available and free parking, once the developers opened the development door, up went the Nordstom Building and that disgraceful parking garage. Barnes and Noble was added, too. And guess what? A Mall… not a boutique shopping area any longer. Now it’s almost impossible to find a parking space unless you choose to pay to use the valet service. The original intent was lost years ago!Now we are faced with the same dynamic at the north end of Pelican Bay. One Naples is being sold to us as a wonderful, high end, residential project that will generate a modest increase in traffic and only for a very few months of the year. Anybody who has lived in Naples for any significant amount time whatsoever knows that this record has been played so much that it is severely scratched. See Below for the dynamics of approving One Naples so far. Ted Raia’s recent article posted on the PBPOA website demonstrates how difficult it is to anticipate any County Board or Committee action. There is muscle and money on the other side, make no mistake! It is our intention to present the facts. We have plenty. Any “reasonable” person will interpret these facts and know that to approve One Naples, as proposed, is anabsolute disaster for North Naples. From Ted Raia’s Article about the Rural Lands Stewardship Area.  “The Rivergrass Village project to be built in the RLSA was voted down by the Planning Commission 4 to 1. However, our Commissioners voted approval 3 to 2. One of the three owns property there and should have recused himself. Another did not attend the public hearing and is not running for re-election. The third is the Commissioner whose district will be negatively impacted by this yet voted for it. The Conservancy is fighting a tough battle over the RLSA and is in court.” What it means to us. This demonstrates how unpredictable these Board votes can be. These Board members vote, go home, have a nice sleep, are eventually replaced by other Boards and Board members, and we live with the results for decades. We must get this right. Please make your voice heard on this quality of life altering initiative by Stock Development. If you haven’t already (we do not want nor need duplicates), sign and submit the petition: Click Here. |
