City land evokes battle of ideas, wills

The original idea to run a four-lane highway extension through the property was scrapped. Later, more than a year's worth of planning to construct 168 city-subsidized, affordable apartments met the same fate.

City fathers agreed last month to set aside 6 acres of the pine-tree-covered parcel for a gopher tortoise preserve and a park. As for the remaining 11 acres, they are still pursuing an undetermined type of affordable housing project.

Recent public discussions about the land's fate have boiled down to a battle of ideas between two men who have similar goals but differing philosophies. Both councilmen espouse the facts that underlie their emotional arguments.

Neither is backing down.

Jay Arend, a retired businessman, has argued the city should try to plug the dire need for housing for people who have low and very low incomes. For a family of four living in Lee County, those income categories are defined as those who make no more than $42,000 and $26,000, respectively.

David Piper, the owner of the iconic attraction Everglades Wonder Gardens, has stressed that people in the moderate-income range -- defined as those earning as much as $62,000 a year -- have been long overlooked in the city's housing push. Nurses, police officers and firefighters would be among those who benefit, he has said.

Both men agree the council needs more information before deciding the future of the East Terry site, which is on the north side of the east-west road near the Leitner Creek bridge.

"The question I have," Arend said, "is if you build moderate-income housing, do you have enough people with moderate incomes looking to fill those houses and looking for assistance to get in there?"

At the council's request, city staff members were poised to look into the matter. They tapped Naples-based Feasinomics to apply for a study that, according to the firm's application, would have determined "a demographic profile of the affordable housing needs" for Bonita's residents and analyzed the existing supply of low-priced housing.

Feasinomics offered to do the study for between $2,500 and $3,000.

Instead, Piper convinced City Manager Gary Price to yank the study. Piper said he would consult with lenders, developers and mortgage brokers to find out realistic prices for affordable housing in the Bonita area.

"In all fairness to everybody, I thought it was important to meet with financial institutions and find out exactly what the numbers mean. The way I look at things, I feel you should know all the facts before you undertake anything," Piper said.

"One of the problems of government is that they continue to do studies after many studies have already been done. I figure the only way to get the true facts, I'm going to have to get them myself."

The only affordable housing study the city has commissioned was written by a pair of Florida Gulf Coast University researchers about a year and a half ago. The study focused on two census tracts in the hardscrabble Rosemary Park neighborhood, where nearly one-third of the affordable homes were deemed overcrowded and almost 82 percent of those surveyed said they needed better housing.

Piper said he is charging the city nothing for his work. He plans to bring his findings before the City Council on Dec. 3. The city's staff is standing behind his decision to helm the study.

"He's going to do some research and present it back to the council," Assistant City Manager Barbara Barnes-Buchanan. "I think they'll have a real detailed discussion when it goes back to council."

Arend is concerned Piper's work won't offer any new information to the council.

"I don't know what David's purpose is, really. It all depends what you're going to come up with. It sounds like he's going to come out with information we already have," the councilman said.

So far, two roads have diverged in a bureaucratic wood, and city officials, sorry they could not travel both, have taken neither.

(Contact Staff Writer Jeremy Cox at 213-6041 or jgcox@naplesnews.com )