Thomas Pfuner

The Lehigh Acres Community Cancel Planning Panel (LACPP) is looking for five residents of Lehigh who would like to serve on the board.

“We are looking for those people in Lehigh who are interested in making Lehigh a great community. We were formed as the LACPC to help prepare a land use code. Now that that task is nearly finished, the group has been renamed a planning panel and has formed an architectural review board under its umbrella.

Two new members were also selected at last week’s meeting to serve on the Architectural Board. They are Thomas Pfuner and Sheriff’s Lt. James Loethen. Pfuner himself is a developer and Loethen is a commander at the Bravo Substation in Lehigh. He said that his interest was also to know the designs of the interior of future buildings in Lehigh so that if there are ever problems, the department would have a layout of the interior. It was announced that ARB member Matthew Gordon has resigned. He had only been on the board for a couple of months. No reason was given for his resignation.

The LACPP meets monthly, on the second Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. at the Veterans Park Community Center. The LACPP is a group of 13 people from Lehigh. A 14th seat is left vacant in memory of the late Jim Fleming who served on the board at the beginning.

During the transition to becoming a planning panel and with the recent resignation of Gordon, Edd Weiner, the panel’s chairman said the group wants to fill the five empty seats.

Lt. James Loethen

If you are interested in what is going on in Lehigh and have some ideas about the future of the community, Weiner would love to have you on the board. You should come to the next meeting on May 11 at 6:30 at Veterans Park and be prepared to tell the eight present members why you would like to join the board. Weiner issued the invitation at last week’s meeting.

Meanwhile, the board gave its okay to the proposed budget of the new Architectural Review Board. Expenses and income are listed in the budget with $150 fees for large developers to appear before them. Smaller builders would pay much less, Weiner said.

Potential builders and developers with projects for Lehigh must attend a meeting in the community and present their plans to the public.

Weiner and the LACPP hope those people will appear before the architectural board.

But there is no requirement that any builder or developer or group seeking rezoning appear before that board and Kathie Ebaugh, the county’s principal planner, again as she did in March, announced that potential builders and developers can select any group or form their own meeting as long as they present their plans to the community of Lehigh and advertise the meeting and place where it will be held.

In fact, as per county policy 32.12.1, it is noted that “The owner or agent of a requested zoning action (planned development, conventional rezoning, special exception, or variance requests) within Lehigh Acres community Planning Community must conduct one public informational session where the agent will provide general overview of the project for any interested citizens. Lee County encourages zoning staff to participate in such public workshops.

“This meeting must be conducted before the application can be found sufficient. The applicant is fully responsible for providing the meeting space, providing notice of the meeting, and providing security measures as needed. Subsequent to this meeting, the applicant must provide county staff with a meeting summary document that contains the following: the date, time and location of the meeting; a list of attendees; a summary of the concerns or issues that were raised at the meeting, and a proposal for how the applicant will respond to any issues that were raised.”

Ebaugh said there had been questions raised and she wanted to make sure that everyone understood that future builders and planners do not necessarily have to come before the LACPP’s Architectural Review Board.

“We tell them the policy and the rest is up to them,” she said.

An Architectural Review Board submittal requirement was approved by the LACPP after some minor changes. It describes procedure to apply before the ARB and listed requirement documents that must be brought before the group.

The ARB passes it approval or non-approval with suggestions onto the LACPP which passes on to the hearing examiner. The ARB takes into consideration requirements that are built into the land codes for Lehigh, which should be fully completed by a group in May.

Ebaugh attends meeting whenever applicants have appeared for the board. She as an employee of the county is not paid overtime to attend the meetings in Lehigh. She takes notes and gives them to planners in the county without any suggestions or comments.

At the meeting last week, Thomas Pfuner, who is also on the board, presented a proposal on behalf of I&E Business, Inc. to rezone property at 3716 and 3718 Lee Blvd. from RS1 residential to CS-2, commercial. He abstained from any discussion about any decision to move on his proposal.

Pfuner told the panel that his firm is interested in providing office space there in the present house and has an attorney interested in the site. The panel voted to approve his proposal for rezoning with comment. He must come back to the May meeting for final approval.

The LACPP-ARB was created to provide a review forum for prospective developments to assist them in complying with the Lehigh Acres comprehensive Plan and land Development Code criteria. It is the objective of the LACPP-ARB to provide each applicant with a timely and thorough review of their project and provide a recommendation to the Lehigh Acres Planning Panel and Lee county Development Review.

Other discussion before the board included updating a website that gives all the information discussed by the board to the public including minutes of meetings and any plans for the future. The present website, as some members of the board complained, hasn’t been updated for some time.

Board members Tami Baker and Linda Carter promised to look into the situation and come back in May with a solution for a well run website.