County of Charlotte - Board of County Commissioners Meeting
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
It has been almost eight months since I first announced that Kitson & Partners had signed a contract to acquire the Babcock Florida Company, which includes the approximately 91,000 acre Babcock Ranch. It would be an understatement to say that since that day last summer a number of extraordinary achievements have taken place, including an agreement with the State of Florida to purchase approximately 73,000 acres of Babcock Ranch in the single, largest purchase in the history of the state. While many achievements of the last 7 ½ months are notable, today is particularly special for Kitson & Partners and our team of visioning partners, because today is the day we unveil what I feel is an extraordinary plan for the new community of Babcock Ranch.
Many of you have heard me refer to this new community as a blank sheet of paper, with great potential to accomplish great things for Southwest Florida. As of this afternoon, I am pleased to announce the new community of Babcock Ranch is no longer a blank sheet of paper. This afternoon I am very proud to present the master plan for the new Babcock Ranch community. As you are about to see for yourself, the master plan for Babcock Ranch fulfills a shared vision and commitment to create a highly livable, vibrant, self-sustaining, environmentally friendly community.
I can’t begin to tell how proud I am of both the planning process we have undertaken over the last several months and the master plan that has resulted from that process. When we started this journey back in July, we wanted to provide Charlotte and Lee Counties with an innovative new community that would connect residents with nature in unprecedented ways, a community that would embrace and enhance the rich rural heritage and traditions of this region. We made a goal of creating a community where greenways, open spaces and nature would be an integral part of the daily quality of life.
We then focused on creating a true sense of place – a real hometown with diverse neighborhoods and housing opportunities, in all price ranges – a community where education and schools were a focal point that could draw neighbors together.
We also wanted to focus on physical connections within the community – easy access and close proximity to work, shopping, services and schools so that Babcock Ranch would be a town where cars are just one of many options for getting around.
As you are about to see, thanks to the help of over two hundred visioning partners who participated in the design of this new community, we have succeeded in turning those goals into important attributes of our master plan for Babcock Ranch.
I’m confident that as we share the details of our plan with you today, you will understand and share my enthusiasm about the ways we have incorporated all of these characteristics and much more into the new Babcock Ranch community.
This afternoon, as we begin the process of filling in this blank sheet of paper, we start, appropriately, with the color green. Kitson & Partners’ team of planners, with important input from the environmental community and the counties, have been extremely vigilant in creating what is surely one of the most environmentally friendly new towns ever proposed.
The question has always been, how much can we preserve within the new community itself, above and beyond the approximately 73,000 acres permanently preserved by the state? In initial discussions, we had always hoped that we could preserve as much as one-third of the community. I am pleased to announce that the plan we are presenting today has not only achieved that admirable goal, but has exceeded it by an impressive amount.
Our master plan preserves more than 50% of the community that will be devoted to greenways, wilderness and wildlife preservation areas, passive open spaces, lakes, flow-ways and blue-ways. Through this innovative and imaginative master plan, we have insured that nature will be a dominant factor in providing Babcock Ranch residents with unmatched outdoor opportunities and a peaceful and healthy quality of life.
The Kitson & Partners planners also worked to minimize any environmental impacts on the developed area – and the best way to do that was to listen to the land, and let the land dictate the location of many aspects of our plan. That meant restoring several flow-ways back to their original locations that had been artificially altered over the years, and creating marshlands that filter the water. As part of the planning process we actually looked at old maps and photographs to determine where these flow-ways naturally belonged. We then worked to buffer these and other important natural areas with greenways and passive recreation, and provide for additional buffers between all developed lands and the surrounding preservation areas.
I am extremely grateful to the many environmental experts who have worked closely with us to make sure that our plan was laid out in a way that will maximize water quality. I’m especially thankful for county staff who made significant contributions to this effort. With their help we’ve planned extensive surface water management systems for the developed areas with the same attributes of the natural systems – where water moves from hard surfaces to softer surfaces of grass then into marshes for filtering.
I think you’ll agree that the extent of the green space at Babcock Ranch is truly remarkable. To help everyone appreciate the scope of the open space, I’d like you to look at one special aspect of the plan.
If you look at the wildlife conservation areas that we are establishing both north and south of the central wildlife crossing corridor, you’ll note that those areas alone total approximately 800 acres. Let me put that in perspective for you – New York’s Central Park, the vast oasis in the middle of New York City, is 834 acres. That means that the amount of green space that Babcock Ranch is dedicating to animal crossing alone is nearly equal to what New York City provides to accommodate its 8 million residents with open green space. It is an excellent example of the genuine dedication we have made to protecting and nurturing the environment in every element at Babcock Ranch.
One of the key components of smart infrastructure and green planning is clustering the developable land, and that is exactly what we have done in our plan, by creating a series of smaller villages and hamlets, all connecting to a larger Town Center.
With residents able to live, learn, work and play all within close proximity, we have been able to minimize development impacts and most importantly prevent sprawl. We remain committed to assuring that this new community is an asset for Charlotte and Lee Counties, and that it prevents the kind of sprawl that would put unacceptable burdens on the counties and it’s infrastructure.
A major goal of ours was also to give residents a real hometown – a sense of place, and a place to share common interests with their neighbors, even by virtue of where they’ve chosen to live. This desire for “community” came up again and again during our visioning workshops, and so we’ve anchored residential areas around magnets or attractors in order to draw in residents who share similar priorities. Those focused on lifelong learning will likely cluster near the Research or Wellness Centers – while those seeking rural character will be drawn to live near community farming areas – or to the far northern areas for more outdoor recreation activities.
One of the key features shared by all of the residential areas of Babcock Ranch is their “walkable” design. It’s a return to the old hometown design, where residents are never more than a short walk from schools, shopping or other services. Interconnected neighborhoods and mixed residential zoning provide residents from all walks of life and economic means with the opportunity to get to know each other and come together as a community.
The country town is one of the great American institutions – and we want to bring back the character and community sentiment of the small hometown to Babcock Ranch. This means organizing our villages and hamlets around greens and community parks that will be shared by neighboring properties. They will feature town halls, religious institutions, schools and day care facilities all sited on central greens or at the ends of central boulevards. Fire, rescue and law enforcement facilities, libraries as well as corner stores will all be a part of the hometown design.
A good example of these unique villages and hamlets at Babcock Ranch would be the one we have decided to call Old Babcock Town located in the northern section of the community. Old Babcock Town celebrates the heritage of old Florida, the Babcock family and its legacy of stewardship. Old Babcock Town is the gateway to the activity center of the ranch, providing easy access to the eco-tour operation, Cypress Lodge and the working ranch. It will also boast horseback riding opportunities – offering miles and miles of trail riding in a rural setting that has been all but lost in this country.
This brings up another vital element of our plan --- transportation. The Kitson & Partners team has made a conscientious effort to insure that residents of Babcock Ranch will have multiple options for getting around the community.
The solid lines on the Master Plan represent the roads for cars, but as you can see, there are also extensive dotted lines on the plan. The dotted lines represent mile after mile of bike trails, walking trails and horse trails where appropriate. In addition, every major roadway will have dedicated paths for other modes of transportation such as Segway® Human Transporters and golf carts. We have designed Babcock Ranch so that residents will have a number of different, innovative ways to move around the community that make leaving the car at home a viable and safe option.
It’s also important to point out that – by the very design and layout of the villages, hamlets and Town Center – we’re planning ahead for the possibility of environmentally sensitive, internal transportation systems whether it be electric trolleys or new developing technologies. By utilizing the transportation hub in the Town Center, along with regular stops at the villages and hamlets, the internal transportation system at Babcock Ranch will encourage residents and visitors alike to leave their cars behind.
The Town Center will be the heart of the new Babcock Ranch Community – as well as the main connection between Babcock Ranch and other Charlotte and Lee county communities. We’ve located the Town Center near the southwest corner of the Charlotte County property line in order to provide all area residents with access to the new community with the least amount of travel time.
Features of the Town Center include an office park, business park, medical facilities, shopping, restaurants, entertainment and guest lodges located on the shores of expansive recreational lakes. It will be the downtown core of Babcock Ranch. In addition to the significant non-residential aspects, the Town Center will also provide extensive residential opportunities for those who want a “downtown” home with all of the added convenience. The Babcock Ranch Town Center will provide for authentic inclusionary planning – a place that brings together a truly diverse mix of people to provide the synergy and energy necessary for a vibrant community that will benefit and become an asset to the entire region.
We are also very focused on assuring that this new community includes housing opportunities for all income ranges – so that the people who serve the community - the teachers, firefighters, police and others – can afford to live here.
I would also like to point out that even here, at the Babcock Ranch Town Center, just as in the villages and hamlets – the greenways and lakes remain integral to the design. Nature does not just surround this community, but is the very essence of the community, transforming every neighborhood. Linear parks, as wide as football fields are long, serve as the core of the Town Center.
One of the most important elements of Babcock Ranch, education, is also located at the heart of the community in the Town Center. Three of the six planned public schools that will serve the children of Babcock Ranch are within walking distance of the town center – an elementary school along with the middle school and the high school. Two other elementary schools are located at the center of the larger residential villages – and we’ve provided for a potential additional school to be located at the southwest corner of the community.
We want families to be able to allow their children to walk or ride their bikes to school in a safe, convenient manner. All of the elementary schools are centrally located near village centers. Middle and high school students living in the villages and hamlets can easily get to the high school and middle school on their own if they wish by utilizing the community’s extensive network of walking and biking paths.
In addition, a Nature Center and a Research Center will provide for education opportunities beyond traditional schools. Also, a Wellness Center and a Medical Center will provide lifelong learning focused on health, fitness and nutrition as well as opportunities for assisted living and eldercare.
This afternoon I have only touched on a few of the important highlights of what I believe is a truly remarkable plan that people around the country will used as a model for the right way to create an innovative, self-sustaining , environmentally friendly community.
Babcock Ranch is a new community that is truly a team effort. Hundreds of citizens and public servants have made vital contributions over the past several months as they shared their ideas and dreams, and invested their time and talents to help us look beyond what is, and plan for what is to come. I am very proud of what we have all achieved in this effort to date, and I look forward to continuing the dialogue as we create a new community we can all be proud of.
View Syd Kitson's Interactive
Press Conference
(Mar 14, 2006)
Video of press conference including
multimedia presentation
Babcock Ranch Visioning Concept Master Plan
Conceptual Town Center
Conceptual Village Center
Conceptual Hamlet Center
Babcock Ranch Master Plan Press Release - Mar 14, 2006