A developer fires back

Plans at the Kingston development call for a number of wildlife crossings like the one pictured here. COURTESY PHOTO

Joe Cameratta believes he and his Kingston development project are being victimized and vilified by the public — and he’s not shy about saying so.

And all he and his development company, CAM7-Sub, LLC/Cameratta Companies LLC of Estero, were doing was following the rules of the state DEP wetlands permitting process, he said.

Cameratta, who feels he is being treated unfairly by everyone from the media to the courts to government agencies to environmentalists, was offered an opportunity to have his say in an interview.

Some of his points have follow-up comments from other sources when necessary.

The basics

Kingston is a massive development that would be built on more than 6,600 acres, including 3,330 acres of primary and secondary panther habitat. It would bring 10,000 homes and 25,800 residents to Corkscrew Road in East Lee County, along with 95,000 additional vehicle trips per day.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Service, after the project’s first year, Kingston would result in three to 22 panther deaths per year. The deaths would fall under the category “incidental take,” and most likely be due to vehicle collisions, the main cause of panther mortality. Yet, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) said the project as proposed “is not likely to jeopardize the existence of the Florida panther.”

The FWS bases its statement on several criteria, mostly mitigation by the developer, financial and otherwise, to offset the estimated panther deaths, including restoration and preservation of 3,273 acres of already existing habitat, building a wildlife crossing onsite and contributing to others offsite, contributing millions for panther conservation and research, and about $20 million to a Lee County Proportionate Share Fee fund for Corkscrew Road roadway improvements.

The response

“I mean, they (FWS) basically recommended the project to the (state) DEP and felt that, you know, the project should go forward and that the mitigation that we’re doing will more than satisfy any type of panther takes,” Cameratta said.

Other than not getting his permit, Cameratta is outraged the most, it seems, by two things: (1) the large number of panther deaths due to Kingston estimated by FWS, and (2) the 25-mile radius “action area” the FWS draws around Kingston to determine its cumulative impacts.

For the large number of panther deaths due to vehicle collisions, “They just used a very conservative approach to make it a worst-case scenario,” Cameratta said.

Since the panther mortality numbers come from the FWS, not any environmental group or media, Cameratta was asked if he talked to FWS about the number and the spread.

“When I challenged Fish and Wildlife on that, you know, their comment was to us that, ‘We don’t believe it’ll be anything near that. But we got to look at the range,’” Cameratta said.

For determining the impacts of the project, the “action area,” a 25-mile radius, is ridiculous, Cameratta said. How can Kingston be responsible for a panther killed 25 miles away, he asked.

Cameratta insists that for his other projects, the permitting only involved a 5-mile radius. However, Amber Crooks, environmental policy manager, and Julianne Thomas, senior environmental planning specialist at Conservancy of Southwest Florida; Christina Reichert, attorney at Earthjustice; and Elise Bennett, senior attorney at the Center for Biodiversity all say their experience is that the 25-mile radius is the norm and has been the standard.

In fact, a March 31, 2020, letter sent by FWS to the Army Corps of Engineers regarding a biological opinion for Verdana, another Cameratta development, shows that the action area was a 25-mile radius. A similar letter sent Aug. 9, 2016, regarding a biological opinion for The Place, another Cameratta development, also had a 25-mile radius action area.

In its review of Kingston, FWS wrote: “The Action Area is defined as all areas to be affected directly or indirectly by the action and not merely the immediate area involved in the action. For this Project, the Service considers the action area for panthers as all lands within the footprint of the Project, and all lands within 25 miles of the Project footprint. The 25-mile buffer around the Project footprint is designed to encompass mean dispersal distance of sub-adult male panthers,” reported to be 23.2 miles or 24.9 miles in different studies. “The 25-mile buffer distance encompasses the dispersal distance of both male and female panthers because male panther dispersal distances are known to exceed those reported for female panthers. … The size of the Action Area for this consultation is consistent with action areas defined in our recent biological opinions for the panther, and it accounts for the large movements and home ranges of panthers.”

But the Camerattas had a consultant look at a 5-mile radius around the Kingston project and found that there had been 28 panther deaths in that radius from December 2004 to December 2023, said Cameratta’s son, Tony. There were six in Lee County, 17 in Collier County and five in Hendry County, he said.

Crooks said the Conservancy saw the consultant’s report, drafted a comment letter in response and sent it to the state DEP, the FWS and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They wanted to rebut some of the problems they saw in the analysis, she said. “It did appear that they were missing important information.”

Thomas said it looked like the consultant had cherry-picked the data “so they could get the answers they were looking for, instead of using the entire body of knowledge, instead of using the best available science and the best available data to come up with the actual facts.”

Cameratta doesn’t own the land for Kingston — yet. It is under contract, and the last thing he needed to seal the deal was the state DEP wetlands permit. He says he was just on the verge of getting it.

What if he doesn’t get the permit?

“I just have to make a decision to lose a lot of money. And let the guy have the property back,” he said of the current property owner. “I don’t know what else to do at that point. I can’t force the permit if they don’t, you know, if they don’t set some new guidelines. I’m a little disappointed because, in my mind, I did what I was supposed to do. I submitted to the only process that was available, which was a 404 (wetlands permit), and it’s been cleared to go forward,” he said. “And then at the 12th hour, these groups want to, you know, holler and scream that it’s a bad process.”

Meanwhile, homes at Kingston are already being advertised at a site called kingstonesterohomes.com . The website says that Kingston is a brand-new community in Estero: “This will be a jewel in the heart of Estero being one of the fastest growing areas in Southwest Florida.” Besides homes and preserves, “the community will also include 700,000 square feet of commercial space for restaurants, offices and retail options to create a live, work, play a community not unlike the recent development of Babcock Ranch.”

There shouldn’t be a jurisdiction that takes that away from you, Cameratta said. “You know, if they don’t like the rules, that’s fine. Change the rules, but don’t change the rules on people that already went through it. You’re not talking about a little bit of money to get these permits. Millions of dollars were spent.” ¦

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