Collier County commissioners decided against a 12-month moratorium on growth management plan amendment applications for two major roadways during a three-hour public hearing Jan. 23.
The moratorium would have affected Immokalee Road from Interstate 75 east to Oil Well Road and Vanderbilt Beach Road from I-75 to its end, and created an ordinance that wouldn’t allow property owners to apply for amendments to the plan that would cause a change in density.
“[A moratorium] will send a message to developers and speculators who are buying residential lots with the belief that they’re automatically going to get a rezone to commercial and a comprehensive land-use change,” Commissioner Burt Saunders said. “But it’ll also basically put a pause to these site-specific comprehensive land-use changes that are resulting in these traffic problems.”
Saunders, who brought forward the moratorium concept at a December meeting, was unable to get a second motion from another commissioner to allow the county attorney to bring to the board an official ordinance for a hearing. However, a second objective brought forward by Saunders relating to traffic relief on those major roadways received unanimous support from commissioners.
To find solutions to the growing traffic issues on Immokalee and Vanderbilt Beach roads, Saunders asked for the board to consider and commit funding to the Immokalee Road and I-75 interchange, which could cost the county about $40 million.
In 2022, the county conducted the Immokalee Road Corridor Congestion Study, which concluded that a diverging diamond interchange was necessary for Immokalee and I-75. The Florida Department of Transportation reached the same conclusion in its I-75 Master Plan, showing the improvement was needed by 2025. However, the county would be responsible for funding, as the project is not part of FDOT’s Moving Florida Forward program nor its 2045 Strategic Intermodal System Plan.
Trinity Scott, head of the county’s Transportation Management Services Department, said the county has been in this position before with FDOT and still received funding from the state for other major projects, including the $90 million Collier Boulevard and I-75 partial cloverleaf intersection. Scott said it would be a good idea to allow FDOT to work on the Immokalee Road interchange in concurrence with its mainline interstate improvements.
“When we go through construction, it’s not going to be fun. Go drive Colonial Boulevard [in Fort Myers] right now. It’s not fun, it’s in the middle of construction. But the improvement, once you get it, will be amazing,” Scott said. “To be able to do that concurrent with those mainline improvements means that we’re only inconvenienced by construction one time and not two separate times and with who knows how many years in between.”
Commissioner William McDaniel said a moratorium wouldn’t make a difference in the current state of the county and supported the push for the Immokalee Road diverging diamond interchange. McDaniel said a more immediate solution would be to have a member of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office at meetings to listen to public concern about certain areas with heavy traffic that need more police presence.
“There’s not enough signage to control people to make good decisions while they’re driving, but enforcement is an important component that I think we need to be having in order for us to address the immediacy of the need to have better traffic flow within our community,” McDaniel said.
After the unanimous vote to pursue funding for the interchange, Scott said she would speak with FDOT to get final numbers and a timeline. The discussion ended with Saunders expressing his gratitude to the staff for their work to bring forward answers.
