The Captiva Community Panel received updates on ongoing initiatives at its recent meeting, including the South Seas rezoning and Lee County legal efforts, septic-to-sewer conversion project and more.

On June 11, Vice President David Mintz reported on the progress of the Protect Captiva coalition, of which the panel is a member, regarding South Seas’ redevelopment and rezoning and the county.

On behalf of the coalition, the Captiva Civic Association’s challenge filed with the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings regarding the county’s Land Development Code amendments that increase building heights, density and intensity for Captiva and the resort has been assigned to an administrative law judge. The judge has asked the involved parties to collaborate on the possible dates for the trial.

“What we’re looking at is the end of July, beginning of August,” he said.

Also, the Sanibel City Council voted unanimously to intervene on the CCA’s behalf at its request.

“We are very grateful to Sanibel for their continuing support and their intervention in this case on our behalf. They will be represented by their city attorney and that’s a great addition to our legal team in this process,” Mintz said, noting that South Seas has made a motion to intervene on the county’s behalf and its own.

In addition, the CCA’s legal action to enforce the 2003 Settlement Agreement between it and the county that was filed in circuit court has been scheduled for a hearing on July 9. He reported that the county has filed a motion to dismiss citing various claims, but the CCA believes it will be denied.

Also, South Seas filed a third revised plan application with the county on May 28. The first two applications were rejected as being insufficient, according to the responses from county staff.

Mintz explained that the resort is still seeking to build two hotels on the property with a total of 435 rooms, but it has reduced the number of condominiums that it is requesting from 272 to now 196.

“So their new application is seeking to increase density on South Seas to 1,271 units,” he said.

Mintz continued that for the first time, South Seas has gone out of its way to claim that the application is consist with the island’s historic development pattern in terms of building heights of 45 to 75 feet.

“There’s nothing on Captiva that I’m aware of that is 45 feet above base flood elevation,” he said. “So I think that their argument is incorrect. I don’t think it’s going to be persuasive to the county or to anybody else looking at it.”

Also, South Seas has still not received and included with its application a letter of sufficiency from the Island Water Association. Mintz noted that IWA has asked the resort for the necessary information.

“So they can make a determination as to the needs with portable water and that hasn’t happened,” he said. “What South Seas has done is asked for a waiver on their obligation to provide a sufficiency letter.”

“So I think there’s a good chance that this third revised plan application is going to be again rejected by the county as being insufficient,” Mintz added. “But we don’t know, and that remains to be seen.”

The CCA has submitted comments to the county in response to the new application.

In addition, the attorneys are continuing to review the public records documents from the county.

“What we’re finding is that the characterization of the amendments that were passed were not county initiated at all. They were initiated by the developer, and we have a lot of evidence of that,” he said. “The attorneys are determining whether mislabeling of the amendments invalidates the process or the amendments themselves and whether there’s sufficient grounds for additional legal action on that.”

Lastly, the Protect Captiva Legal Fund is nearing $600,000 with over 900 separate contributions.

“But there’s a lot more work that needs to be done so we’re continuing to ask people, if they have the financial ability to do so, to continue to make contributions to the legal fund, which are tax deductible,” Mintz said.

Also during the meeting, President and Wastewater Committee Chair Jay Brown reported on the ongoing potential project of connecting Captiva to the city of Sanibel’s wastewater system.

“We have learned that there is a substantial public funding opportunity to pay for our central wastewater system,” he said. “We are going to make an application to have HUD pay for the collection system that would gather the wastewater in Captiva, and then the cost of the new piping to transport our wastewater through Sanibel.”

Brown added that Sanibel will apply to cover its new deep injection well that will be needed.

He reported that county Commissioner Kevin Ruane made the panel aware of the funding opportunity. The collection system and piping are estimated to cost about $40 million, plus $25 million for the well.

“So that would be amazing if we could get this paid for,” Brown said.

Also at the meeting, Mintz provided an update for the Stormwater Committee.

He reported that the panel is online to receive the $200,000 from the county that is needed for the engineering study to address the flooding issues in the Village. Mintz continued that Ruane has asked for a waiver for the firm Kimley-Horn, which drafted the study, to be able to follow through on it.

“Our understanding is that’s going to be granted,” he said. “So we’re hoping that gets approved.”