§ 262-723. Ascertainments.

(a)

Based upon these findings, the legislature has learned and ascertains:

(1)

There are two public government alternatives and one private alternative available to plan, construct, maintain, and finance the provision of systems, facilities, and services in and subject to the stewardship overlay:

a.

One of the public or governmental alternative is by the board of county commissioners within the Collier County political subdivision which can provide certain basic systems, facilities, and services directly, or with management by its staff with financing through either a municipal service taxing unit for ad valorem taxes or municipal service benefit for assessments, or indirectly, by nonemergency ordinance use of a dependent district.

b.

The second public alternative is use of an independent special district.

c.

The private alternative is the private landowner, a private homeowners' association, a private utility, a private business corporation or partnership, or a combination of these various private alternatives.

(2)

Planning, permitting, and creating the Ave Maria University new town community and using the independent specialized single purpose Ave Maria Stewardship Community District created by this Act are consistent with and implement both the Collier County Growth Management Plan and Land Development Code and also the following long-standing and expressed policies of the state:

a.

To allow the creation of independent special taxing districts which have uniform general law standards and procedures and which do not over burden other local governments and their taxpayers while preventing the proliferation of independent special taxing districts which do not meet the standards set forth in F.S. § 187.201(20)(b)2.

b.

To encourage the development of local water supplies, pursuant to F.S. § 187.201(7)(b)3.

c.

To recognize the existence of legitimate and often competing public and private interests and land use regulations and other government action, pursuant to F.S. § 187.201(14)(a), as provided for expressly in the stewardship overlay program.

d.

Consistent with the stewardship overlay program, to recognize the importance of preserving natural resources and enhancing quality of life by development in those areas where land and water resources, fiscal abilities, and service capacity can accommodate the land use and growth in a manner that is environmentally acceptable, pursuant to F.S. § 187.201(15)(a).

e.

To allocate costs of new public facilities on the basis of benefits received by existing and future residents while planning for the management and financing of new facilities to serve residents in a timely, orderly, and efficient manner, pursuant to F.S. §§ 187.201(17)(a) and 187.201(17)(b)3.

f.

To encourage local government financial self-sufficiency in providing public facilities and in identifying and implementing physically sound, innovative, and cost effective techniques to provide and finance public facilities while encouraging development, use, and coordination of capital improvement plans by all levels of government, pursuant to F.S. §§ 187.201(17)(b)5—7., and as provided in the stewardship overlay program.

g.

To increase access to, and to promote and provide access for, cultural, historical and educational resources and opportunities, pursuant to F.S. §§ 187.201(18)(a) and 187.201(18)(b)1.

h.

To enhance and diversify the economy of the Collier County area by promoting partnerships among education, business, industry, agriculture, and the arts, provide opportunities for training skilled employees for new and expanding businesses, and promote self-sufficiency through training and educational programs that result in productive employment pursuant to F.S. §§ 187.201(21)(a) and 187.201(21)(b)6.—8.

i.

To encourage and to enhance cooperation among communities that have unique assets, irrespective of political boundaries, to bring the private and public sectors together for establishing an orderly, environmentally, and economically sound plan for current and future needs and growth, pursuant to F.S. § 187.201(b)8.

j.

To create independent special districts by or pursuant to general law to ensure long-term management and related financing, to meet the need in Florida for timely, efficient, effective, responsive, innovative, accountable, focused, and economical ways to deliver basic services to new communities to solve the state's planning, management, and financing needs for delivery of capital infrastructure in order in turn to provide for projected growth only and to do so without overburdening other governments and their taxpayers, pursuant to F.S. § 189.402, so that providing to the Ave Maria community basic systems, facilities, and services by independent special districts remains pursuant to uniform general law and F.S. §§ 189.402(3)(a) and (c).

k.

To ensure that those independent districts and the exercise of their powers are consistent and comply with applicable due process, disclosure, accountability, ethics, and government-in-the-sunshine requirements of law, both to the independent districts and to their elected and appointed officials, pursuant to F.S. § 189.402(3)(b), because independent special districts are a legitimate alternative method available for use by both the public and private sectors to manage, own, operate, construct, and finance basic capital infrastructure systems, facilities, and services, pursuant to F.S. § 189.402(4)(a).

l.

To ensure that an independent special district is created to serve a special purpose to cooperate and to coordinate its activities with the applicable general purpose local government because aspects of growth and development transcend boundaries and responsibilities of individual units of government so that no single unit of government can plan or implement policies to deal with these issues unilaterally as effectively, pursuant to F.S. §§ 189.402(7) and 189.402(8).

(3)

Construction and operation of the Ave Maria University, the development of the new town university community, and the use of the special and single purpose independent district are not inconsistent with the Collier County Comprehensive Plan and the requirements of the stewardship overlay and implement both.

(4)

This land area for the private university and its new town community requires an independent, special, and single purpose local government, in the form of an independent special district as defined in F.S. § 189.403(3), subject to all substantive and procedural limitations under Florida law, including this Act, in order to constitute the highly specialized alternative and viable growth management mechanism appropriate for this unique stewardship overlay available to both the private and public sectors.

(5)

Such a district requires timely, flexible, limited, and specialized management and related financing capabilities under its uniform state charter, created by this Act pursuant to general law, in order to produce those flexible, innovative, and highly specialized benefits to the new town university community property in the stewardship receiving area and to the stewardship overlay in eastern Collier County.

(6)

Such a district must have management capabilities to provide pinpointed, focused, accountable, responsive, limited, specialized, and low-overhead-based capability, authority, and power to provide basic systems, facilities, and services to the new university community development with economies of scale but at sustained high levels of quality over the long-term.

(7)

In order to be responsive to the critical timing required through the exercise of its special management functions, an independent district requires financing of those functions, including bondable lienable and nonlienable revenue, with full and continuing public disclosure and accountability, funded by landowners, both present and future, and funded also by users of the systems, facilities, and services provided to the land area by the district, without burdening the taxpayers and citizens of the state, of Collier County, or any municipality in Collier County.

(8)

The provision of services by this independent district must implement, be subject to, and function not inconsistent with, any applicable provisions of the stewardship overlay area and related permitting and planning requirements of Collier County and of the Collier County Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code.

(9)

The creation, existence, and operation of the Ave Maria Stewardship Community District, as limited and specialized to its single narrow purpose, will also:

a.

Constitute a public mechanism to translate the antiurban-sprawl requirements of the stewardship overlay into reality;

b.

Constitute a disincentive for premature or inappropriate municipal incorporation consistent with state law.

c.

Provide a mechanism for full and continuing disclosure of how basic systems, facilities, and services are both managed and financed, including full and continuing disclosure to both prospective purchasers and all residents of public financing related to any burdens of land ownership and any related burdens on existing or future residents.

d.

Implement Rural Land Stewardship Area Zoning Overlay District Regulation, section 2.2.27.10.L.4. because such an independent single purpose special district is encouraged in the stewardship receiving area where the new town community and university are located.

(10)

The Ave Maria Stewardship Community District is also a mechanism to implement the Collier County Concurrency Management System designed to coincide with, and to implement, both the Collier County future land use element and the capital improvements element for basic systems, facilities, and services consistent with the best interests of the Ave Maria community in the stewardship overlay.

(11)

By serving its single specialized purpose, the district will not result in needless proliferation, duplication, and fragmentation of local government systems, facilities, and services in this area of eastern Collier County.

(12)

Subject to its substantive and procedural limitations, the Ave Maria Stewardship Community District will assist directly in public and combined public and private planning and coordination in order to achieve innovative solutions to the needs and requirements in this unique academic new town community located in this Stewardship Overlay Area of eastern Collier County.

(13)

Management of the timing and phasing of critical sequential events, coordinated by the initial private landowner, the private university, and the Board of County Commissioners of Collier County is of fundamental importance and is the basis of the inordinate burden on the initial landowner developer and on the private university to enhance the stewardship overlay and to implement its requirements.

(14)

The critical single purpose of the Ave Maria Stewardship Community District to provide basic infrastructure systems, facilities, services, works, and improvements to the private Ave Maria university new town community is in the public interest because it:

a.

Does not pass on taxes or profits to purchasers of property or to landowners and residents within their jurisdictions.

b.

Decreases the tendency toward short-term planning, construction, and management considerations because the elections for members of the government board are staggered.

c.

Is not influenced, guided, or limited by quarterly and annual profit statements.

d.

Does not have police or regulatory powers.

e.

Does not have larger general purpose overhead responsibilities.

f.

Is not subject to legitimate but countervailing fiscal, economic, policy, and political considerations to which large general-purpose local governments and large landowners and developers would be subject in the natural course of events.

g.

Does not constitute needless duplication, proliferation, or fragmentation of local government systems, facilities, and services in Collier County.

h.

Shall operate and function subject to and not inconsistent with the county comprehensive plan and not inconsistent with, but rather shall enhance the purpose and requirements of, the rural lands stewardship overlay with the least overhead cost and the highest amount of public disclosure, accountability, responsiveness, and productivity.

i.

Coincides its functions with the authority and best interests of general purpose local government, the private university, the private landowners, both present and future, the taxpayers, the future residents, and the state in the provision of needed infrastructure to the community at sustained levels of quality over the long-term.

j.

Provides highly accountable innovative systems, facilities, and services close to the land and close to the people to constitute expressly the stewardship of the lands of the new community within and subject to the stewardship overlay area in eastern Collier County and within its jurisdiction.

k.

Serves a land area that is amenable to separate special district government.

l.

Serves a land area that is sufficiently compact and of size sufficient for the functionally interrelated Ave Maria new town community development.

m.

Serves a land area in which there is no existing local or regional system, facility, or service with which creation and operation of this district and the provision of its systems, facilities, improvements, and infrastructure would be incompatible.

n.

Will enhance the intrinsic value of the property and the new community development, for the purpose of the stewardship overlay, and be a sustaining source of public revenue.

(15)

The independent district charter created in this Act involves innovative general and special powers not otherwise available for this unique and highly specialized first ever academic Ave Maria new town community in such a unique multi-faceted rural lands stewardship overlay.

(16)

The minimum requirements of general law or creation of this district by special act have been met as confirmed and set forth expressly in subsection 262-729(a).

(Laws of Fla. ch. 2004-461, § 2)