August 14, 2006 Meeting
Alva Community Center

Vice president, George Berczik, called the meeting to order since the president was unable to be at the beginning of the meeting. The minutes of the June 12 meeting were read and approved with the notation that the scheduled July 10th meeting was postponed until August 14th. The treasurer reported a balance of $4,741.71 and a relatively quiet period of financial activity. 
The remainder of the meeting was given over to Wayne Daltry, Director of Smart Growth and David Crawford, Senior Planner for the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council. Rather than focusing on Alva Inc.’s concern for a commercial standard along Rt. 80, Mr Daltry said now is the time to resurrect the rejected 2002 Alva Community Plan. A community plan will give the framework to work off of for any other planning. In many ways the 2002 Alva Community Plan was ahead of its time. The County is now more supportive of community plans and the potential growth forecast by the Alva Plan is now becoming a reality, much to the concern of many residents who didn’t believe such development could or would happen in and around Alva. 
Other reasons for getting a community plan in place are: without a community plan, Alva is left undefended; county officials will refer and defer to a community plan; a plan empowers the community to more effectively interface with developers; there needs to be a discussion in the community of what the community wants, and getting a plan together will make this happen; if the rural life style characteristic of Alva can be preserved in at least a part of Alva, the quality of life and property values will thus be safeguarded in that area. 
What needs to be done: the 2002 Alva Plan needs to be reduced in verbal content and in the geographic area included in the new plan. Mr. Daltry emphasized the need to isolate the area covered by the plan, get community agreement on the area and community consensus of the plan’s content. In order for the plan to be in this year’s county approval cycle, the plan must be submitted to the head of zoning by Sept. 29, 2006. 
David Crawford of the Regional Planning Council reported on the growth of development in the surrounding area, especially the Four Corners of Lee, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades county. Here studies and assessments are showing there will be a lot more people; there is not adequate infrastructure and there isn’t any money for infrastructure. He expressed his desire to keep Alva rural, a little gem in the midst of burgeoning suburban-ization and gated-community development. The recent go ahead for the development of Babcock City is, in the words of Mr. Daltry, “the gorilla is let out of the cage and the monkeys had better get stirred up.” 
Before the meeting adjourned those present agreed upon the following actions: an executive board meeting, Friday, August 18 7 PM ; reserving the Alva Community Center for several Saturday 9 AM to noon workshops for community input on the plan; getting a notice of the workshops in the legal notices of the News Press and flyers in the community.
Those in attendance: Rob Andrys, George and Bertie Berczik, Colette and Stan Corwin, Ruby Daniels and Norm Walker, Jr.