Redfish Pointe
To the editor:
Recently, Joe Mazurkiewicz, former mayor of Cape Coral from 1983 to 1993 and now a private consultant, wrote a piece supporting the construction of Redfish Pointe.
In his pitch the author promoted that building this project, which will devastate Rotary Park (a beloved 97-acre city resource), route commercial traffic through established neighborhoods, and decimate the Cape’s largest stand of coastal mangroves is somehow a responsible act that will benefit all of us.
At this time, the three parcels comprising Redfish Point are zoned for Conservation. The property’s owners have requested that the city re-zone all 350 undeveloped acres from Conservation to Mixed Development. Mr. Mazurkiewicz, who represents the owners, wants us to believe that Redfish Pointe is a wonderful thing and grossly downplays the damage this development will do.
According to Cape Coral’s own Planning and Zoning Department, the majority of the of the impacted land is in the coastal high hazard area which has special limitations on development due to the probability of storm losses and increased evacuation times.
Mr. Mazurkiewicz makes the unsupported claim that Redfish Pointe’s economic impact will exceed $1 billion yet omits any mention of the area’s vital role as a storm buffer and mis-characterizes the function of this critical wildlife habitat.
Further, he implies that the public should take the owners at their word that traffic, flood safety and environmental issues have all been adequately addressed. According to Mr. Mazurkiewicz, not only should we blindly accept the owners’ assertions as accurate and true, we should feel sorry for them.
He claims they are “owed’ a rezoning because when the city changed the land use designation back in 1989, they were never informed. How interesting that the owners endured a 36-year tax benefit without complaint and are only now protesting the unfairness of it all.
The current shoreline configuration, including Rotary Park, provides the Cape’s citizens, human and otherwise, the benefit of almost 450 contiguous acres of critical mangrove habitat.
Hollowing out this protective barrier to build condos on a tiny scrap of wooded upland, draining and backfilling significant portions of wetland to provide sufficient elevation for roads etc. will destroy what is now a functional ecosystem. Fanciful descriptions of future boardwalks and wildlife viewing pavilions are shameless pandering and should viewed as the cynical sales verbiage that they are.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that Redfish Pointe is a fantasy, a projection.
If the zoning is changed the owners are free to alter the design or to sell any (or all) of the 350 acres as they please.
The city should definitely not submit to the desires of these few, well-resourced and influential individuals.
The bottom line is if you purchased swampland with marginal development potential and you are unhappy with the result, don’t try to salvage your investment by foisting your nightmare money-making scheme on your fellow taxpayers.
In conclusion, it’s worth noting that we enjoy the results of our previous leadership’s clear-eyed, visionary planning and effective stewardship every single day. We rejoice in finding ourselves shorn of our natural environment, facing breathtaking declines in water quality, tapping out our aquifers, and living in perpetual gridlock.
Enough already! We don’t need any more advice from you, Joe.
Lane Jones
Cape Coral