Sanibel Plan Steering Committee discusses safety at last meeting
By MEGHAN BRADBURY
mbradbury@breezenewspapers.com The Sanibel Plan Steering Committee began its first discussion last month around safety.
Planning Director Paula McMichael said they are not the only community navigating Senate Bill 180.
The first proposed changes occurred for 3.1, safety, which included quite a bit of added discussion on resilience and lessons learned from recent hurricanes.
“There was a lot more added to this particular section than maybe you will see in other sections,” McMichael said.
Chair Calli Johnson DuPont said they would really like to see this wrapped up in a manner to provide the time needed for a thorough review, but also ensuring this is not an endless committee.
Jim Hickey of AICP Calvin, Giordana and Associations went through a presentation recapping workshops held on Sept. 24 and a virtual workshop on Oct. 8. He said the primary topics were to protect natural environment, strengthen resiliency and emergency preparedness, maintain and improve essential infrastructure and community services and improve mobility of transportation .
Considerations were shared to strengthen resilience and emergency preparedness, which included barge/ferry landing vital for disaster recovery, increase berms for surge protection, address climate change, more mangroves to protect islands, a dock with boat service on and off the island, and continued focus on flood mitigation.
Hickey said the next steps include a fourth public meeting in January, as well as the Planning Commission reviewing the proposed plan and providing recommendations to Sanibel City Council. The first hearing will be held in February, and the second hearing in May.
“Within this timeline how much time do we have for change? I think the committee is eager to ensure that we are actually making change in this process since it is 10 years in time before we get another shot at it,” Johnson DePont said.
Hickey said before they send it to the state, they may want to have them take a look and share what they think.
“I have done it with other communities and that seemed to help. I think if we get to the end and there are a few policies we don’t think can pass muster, those we can identify, pull those out and October of next year, you can have a second amendment to put the other policies in place,” he said.
James Evans, with the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, said it would be helpful to highlight the policies that are being removed and will not be put back in the plan at a later date because of Senate Bill 180.
“That would be helpful for the committee and community to understand as we move through the process,” Evans said.
Hickey said they may not be able to add teeth, but they don’t want to loose teeth through the process. He said they have to look at it holistically and say where are the pinch points and make a decision and run them by the committee to keep them or take them out.
“Other than SB 180, do they do a line by line,” Planning Commissioner Larry Schoop said.
Hickey said each of the agencies are supposed to do a full review.
“In my experience it is usually the Department of Commerce that is reading every word and maybe they are running it through systems of AI to find words that are restrict, forbid, increase, decrease — those types of words. The other department that tends to heavily review is DOT,” he said. “It really is trying to navigate the legislation.”
The section 3.1 highlights such areas as hurricane climatology; data and analysis; evacuations, sheltering and recovery; damage reduction; plan for hurricane safety; and sea level rise and flood risk.
The revisions were provisions in updating data to modern times and incorporating comments from the Steering Committee, city staff, and sub consultants.
The background discussion states that “the purpose of this element is to protect human life, reduce vulnerability to hurricanes, flooding and other coastal hazards, and limit public expenditures in areas that are subject to natural disasters. Because the City of Sanibel is located entirely within the coastal high-hazard area, hurricane preparedness, evacuation, hazard mitigation, post-disaster recovery, and resilient redevelopment remain fundamental components of the Sanibel Plan.”
Evans said they had a conversation about the hurricane safety element a year ago when they discussed issues on Captiva and development on Captiva.
“I don’t know if we need to include that in the beginning — more of background discussion. The continued development pressure on Captiva — more pressure on our roads — one way in and one way out,” he said. “It needs to be written wherever we can.”
Communication was also addressed.
Vice Chair Eric Pfeifer said there were lessons learned on how many people did not evacuate, so there should be a focus on communication — a chain of command passing down information about evacuation and the seriousness.
“There was a breakdown in communication,” he said.
McMichael said there is a communication policy in the emergency operation plan. She said a policy can be added regarding ensuring people evacuate.
The email messages, McMichael said, went out to around 20,000 people.
“There was an interesting document that I found that talked about some of the new ways to track who evacuates through the cell phone of who stayed or who left,” she said.
WIFI was also addressed.
“We all need to be able to know what is going on to help ourselves,” Johnson DePont said. “We couldn’t figure out what was even going on. We were all here — getting calls, watching the news telling us what is going on. As a resident we would like to understand what is going on.”
Bob Moore, with Committee of the Islands, raised concerns about the prolong failure of the grid — access to power critical to the emergency response, and access to food and water.
“Focus on public infrastructure, and bringing in the electric utilities that are an important piece to recognize,” he said.
Other topics discussed included promoting business and homes to obtain additional resilience, and hardening structures.
Nicole McHale, with Community Housing and Resources, asked if there was any data that can be added about their population, as the last census is from 2020.
“It would be important to address population changes because of COVID and (Hurricane) Ian,” she said.
The committees next meeting is scheduled for Jan. 20, 2027.
McMichael said they want to get the process right, which includes input from the committee and community.
“We are going to try to get everything wrapped up in January. If it takes until February or March, we will do that. We will take as long as we need to make sure we have a good final product that everyone has had a chance to review,” she said.