Environmentalists, landowners debate whether land should be set aside for woodpecker

A corner of rural Collier County is taking center stage in a debate about protection for endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers.

The corner is called Section 24, a square-mile piece of North Belle Meade, on the edge of Golden Gate Estates and north of Interstate 75.

A years-long dispute about Section 24 came a step closer to being resolved in May, when Collier County commissioners voted 4-1 to amend the county’s growth plan to restrict growth there.

Before a final decision is made, though, commissioners asked for a more thorough on-the-ground look at whether Section 24 has red-cockaded woodpeckers or the old hollowed-out pine trees the birds favor for nesting.

The dispute over red-cockaded woodpeckers in Section 24 has its roots in a landmark growth plan that divided the county’s rural fringe into places where growth would be restricted — called sending areas — and where growth would be encouraged, called receiving areas.

Disagreement over how to designate the section in 2002 led to a deal between environmental groups and landowners to classify the section as neutral. The deal called for a new look at the designation after a study of the habitat in North Belle Meade.

The study, completed in 2003 by Southern Biomes Inc. in Fort Myers, determined that Section 24 is red-cockaded woodpecker habitat. Environmental groups claimed victory.

“We’ve always thought it should be sending,” Florida Wildlife Federation field representative Nancy Payton said. “It’s been a long time getting this very obvious section designated sending.”

Not so fast, said Rich Yovanovich, an attorney who represents landowners, including Hideout Golf Club, who control some 300 acres in Section 24.

Yovanovich takes issue with the 2003 study because it didn’t look for individual birds and was based on aerial mapping. He applauded the commissioners’ direction to undertake a new study of Section 24.

Since the 2003 study, county environmental specialist Mac Hatcher reported seeing and hearing a red-cockaded woodpecker during a survey of 65 acres the county bought from the Collier County School District for preservation in Section 24.

Yovanovich questioned whether an analysis of aerial maps and Hatcher’s discovery justifies designating his clients’ lands as sending lands.

“Does that seem fair to you?” he said.

A sending lands designation would restrict growth to one home per parcel, regardless of its size, that existed when the county adopted the new growth plan in 2002. It also carries a requirement that a site preserve 80 percent of its native vegetation.

Under the neutral designation, landowners can build one home per five acres and must preserve 70 percent of a site’s native vegetation.

Payton said the 2003 study went into more detail than the data the county used to divide up other parts of the rural fringe into sending and receiving lands for the 2002 growth plan amendments.

Yovanovich, representing another landowner in the rural fringe, joined the county in defending those designations against a lawsuit filed by opponents.

Looking for individual birds on Section 24 misses the point, she said.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s one (woodpecker) or 10 or none,” Payton said, noting that the point of the designation is to protect habitat.

The birds need two kinds of habitat for nesting and for foraging. The birds nest in holes they bore out of old pine trees, called cavity trees. When looking for food, they need open forested areas that are free of underbrush.

Yovanovich acknowledges that parts of Section 24 probably are red-cockaded woodpecker habitat, but other parts of it aren’t and shouldn’t carry a sending lands designation, he said.

For example, red-cockaded woodpeckers prompted a federal requirement that the Hideout Golf Club create a preserve for the woodpecker on its golf course.

Collier County consultant Roy DeLotelle, a red-cockaded woodpecker consultant based in Gainesville, counts four groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers in North Belle Meade.

He said there is an “outside chance” there are more on Section 24.

“That possibility is not great,” he said.

By DeLotelle’s count, the area along the county’s urban boundary contained 15 groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers 10 years ago and, 25 years ago, had 26 groups. That has dwindled to nine groups, including the four in North Belle Meade, DeLotelle said.

Each group can have between two and four birds plus so-called “floaters” that are not anchored to any particular group, DeLotelle said.

Payton said the declining numbers make Section 24 important.

“This is the last of the last, so it’s important to protect it,” she said.