A Tale of Three Cities: Bonita Springs: Second Time's the Charm

Bonita Springs may be the poster child for incorporation.

Because of many wealthy, gated communities, the area was a tax donor to Lee County coffers because it sent far more than it received in services. But it also had some older, blighted areas far from the Fort Myers political center of the county.

Eleven years into life as a city, the community has a dedicated police force of 16 officers on contract from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, new parks and cleaned-up blighted areas, a downtown band shell and park that can hold 10,000 people, beefed up code enforcement, multiple environmental lands purchases and one salient fact for everyone involved: Taxes are lower living within the city than in the unincorporated county.

In essence, the city is far ahead of where it would have been, while saving money for residents.

For a resident of Bonita Springs, the tax rate on top of the basic county rate is .826 mills. (One mill is $1 per $1,000 of assessed property value.) Residents in unincorporated Lee County, pay a rate on top of the basic county rate called the unincorporated MSTU of one mill.

That’s because the promise of keeping Bonita Springs’ high-property-value gated community taxes within the city has been kept.

“It’s counterintuitive, but it’s actually cheaper to live in the city,” said Mayor Ben Nelson, who has been on the Bonita Springs City Council since its inception in 1999.

Second time around
In a quirk of history, Bonita Springs’ 1999 incorporation was actually its second time around as a city. It was a municipality from 1925-1932, but dissolved during the Great Depression, so Lee County could pay for the light bill. Literally. A 1965 attempt to incorporate was voted down 441-99.

But by the late 1990s, things were different. The Bonita Bay Group had built several large, upscale gated communities with golf courses. The area was booming with people and money and the sense was growing that the residents were subsidizing other parts of Lee County.

The Bonita Springs Area Chamber of Commerce commissioned an incorporation study in 1997 that found incorporation made financial sense. (Ironically, one-and-one-half years later, the chamber voted against incorporating, feeling services were good enough and its members fearing tax increases — a fear that turned out to be unfounded.)

In March 1998, the Bonita Springs Incorporation Committee was formed to study and educate the population on the issue, starting out with a neutral position. But by spring 1999, the committee was fully committed to creating a city. “It was a no-brainer,” Hal Brenner, president of the committee, told the Naples Daily News at the time.

The goal was to deliver higher services and cut taxes slightly while gaining local control. “Government lite” was the catch phrase; most government services would be outsourced and Bonita Springs would avoid creating a big bureaucracy.

By comparison
No two communities are exactly alike, but of the three cities the East County Observer is profiling, Bonita Springs is probably least like Lakewood Ranch.

Bonita Springs has some historically old communities, an old-Florida flavor in places and even some old-Florida shtick parks, such as Everglades Wonder Gardens on Old U.S. 41. It also has some small, impoverished areas. But near the Gulf of Mexico, the city boasts rows of upscale condo high rises and exclusive gated communities. In some ways, it is early Florida Oneco meets Longboat Key.

Lakewood Ranch makes up a much narrower swath of demography, dominated by middle-class and upper-middle-class communities.

And there are plenty of differences between the 1998-99 Bonita Springs incorporation effort and the 2010-2011 Lakewood Ranch effort as well.

First, there was no organized opposition to incorporation. Part of the reason, according to many involved at the time, was that almost no one gave incorporation a chance at passage. Of course, the Friends of Lakewood Ranch has organized well in advance to oppose it here.

Second, even after the Legislature approved Bonita Springs holding a referendum for city-hood, there was little public interest at first. Four information meetings in the spring of 1999 — the year of the vote — averaged a sleepy 26 residents. By comparison, a debate sponsored by the East County Observer in May attracted more than 300 people long before the Legislature even votes on any Lakewood Ranch incorporation, if it ever does.

Of course, that is largely a result of having organized opposition.

By the time of the vote in November 1999, residents were convinced it was a good idea, convincingly voting in favor 4,262 to 3,101 with 58% turnout.

But Bonita Springs was starting from scratch.

“We literally didn’t own a pencil,” Nelson said.

The first order of business was buying office supplies. The first Bonita Springs City Council was elected in April.

Timing, timing, timing
Bonita Springs could not have incorporated at a better moment. The next decade saw enormous growth in both population and property values.

The population was about 32,000 in 2000, shortly after incorporation, and grew to about 44,000 in 2010. Property values went from about $160,000 in 2000 to $470,000 during the peak of the bubble in 2006. They are now at about $223,000.

A major challenge was keeping to the “government lite” promise.

But city leaders largely have done so, albeit not to the same degree as Weston. Bonita Springs has about 60 full-time employees. For a city of 45,000, that is quite low. Sarasota, for example, with a population of about 52,000 has 721 employees.

“‘Government lite’ works amazingly well if you are not wed to it,” Nelson said.

The city found that as it grew, it made sense to bring some things in-house. Code enforcement was one of those, because it can be such an intimate relationship with residents and businesses.

The Bonita Springs Fire Department and all utilities remain independent of city government — but are devoted to the city. Plus, the police department is on contract from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

A decade of change
People who have lived in Bonita Springs for more than a decade marvel at the change that has occurred. Some of it was bound to happen, because all of Southwest Florida was engulfed in the housing boom and associated commercial construction that followed the rooftops.

Tamiami Trail through Bonita Springs was an open stretch of road whisking people through at 55 mph. No real reason to stop. Today, it is six lanes to eight lanes lined with shopping centers covering the range from affordable to upscale.

Much more impressive, however, is the old, poor parts where Old U.S. 41 crosses the Imperial River (more of a lazy stream) that had been the epicenter of the city 50 years ago but by 1999 was a rundown embarrassment. In fact, right on the shores of the river were two dilapidated mobile home parks.

One of the early orders of business for the new city was to buy those parks and remove the mobile homes. On one side, the city built Riverside Park that features the large band shell, the historic Liles Hotel as a small community center, fountains, a playground, a kayaking center and other amenities. Most people you talk to have been to events at the park and love it, from the Christmas festivities that include “snow” to the Fourth of July parades.

People who have been around do not doubt that incorporating into a city was the key to the renovation of historic old Bonita Springs and that without it, the area would remain an impoverished backwater of neglect.

Another element that came only with the city was increased levels of service, from several fire department stations within the city to a full-size police force and stronger code enforcement for what the city has agreed it wants.

Dep. Mayor John Spear sums up the incorporation this way: “The feasibility study … promised modestly increased levels of service and the same or very modest decreases in property taxes. … The result was very high increased levels of service and more than modest property tax decreases.”