CAPE CORAL, Fla. — In Northwest Cape, the future of Burnt Store Road is being outlined.
Earlier Saturday, a public meeting took place laying out how undeveloped land could soon start to take shape. Inside the Northwest Regional Library, the future of Cape Coral was being discussed.
"This is what the planning process is all about.”
Dozens living in Cape Coral turned out to hear the plans for the development of Burnt Store Road.
“This started five or six years ago when we saw development increasing on Pine Island Road and a lot more infill development on Del Prado," says Vince Cautero, Development Services Director for the City of Cape Coral. "We talked with the former city manager and former council members about doing something different on Burnt Store.”
Saturday’s presentation outlined a four-step process for the zoning project. Turning patches of unused land north of Kismet Parkway into a commercial corridor.
“We want to make sure we don’t drag our feet on this and allow for some of those portions of property that we’re looking to change with this zoning become developed or applied for before we get this in place," said Keith Long with the Cape Coral City Council District 6. "So certainly it’s my goal to make sure we stay on that timeline.”
It also outlined features that they would like to see prohibited. Car wash facilities, self-storage buildings— those common sights of the city won’t be going up. Another concern brought up— dealing with potential traffic congestion as Burnt Store Road serves as a county wide, hurricane evacuation route.
Said Long, "We’re going to be coordinating with the county to make sure that whatever we put in place here works with their visions for continuing to develop that roadway and make sure it maintains its use as an exit route for citizens to get out in case of an emergency.”
The development still has quite some time to go with step four planned for next summer. In the meantime, meetings like this will continue.
“We love when we get this type of input," said Cautero. "We can explain it to more people and some of the people you even heard said this is information they hadn’t been made aware of before and they really appreciate it."
