Board of County Commissioners Adopts Boat Ramp Park Management Strategy

The Collier County Commissioners took a thoughtful approach to boat ramp management by adopting a strategy that looks to improve parking as well as support local businesses. As Commissioner LoCastro notes, this fluid approach will continue to evolve as the county finds a way to get to that “sweet spot” of accommodating commercial and recreational use. While the strategies affect all seven public boat ramp locations, the main focus was on Caxambas as unlike the other parks, that location is, as LoCastro said, “busting out at the seams.”

Barry Williams, Parks and Recreation Director, brought forward three Boat Ramp Park Management Strategies developed along with the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. The strategies were broken down into Short Term (present through 2021-2022 season), Intermediate Term (2022-2023 season) and Long Term (2023 and beyond). Commissioners made modifications to the Short Term Strategies while adopting them. The Short Term Strategies fall into three categories: Increase Oversight, Optimize Parking and Identifying and Developing Additional Facilities.

Adopted under Increase Oversight include:

• Staffing Caxambas Park Thursday through Sunday with existing staff to manage the parking lot, ramp and docks.
• Staff Caxambas Park and Goodland Boating Park full-time with one full-time employee and contract labor in season. Off season that will be limited to weekends and holidays to manage the parking lot, ramp and docks.
• Utilize a variable message board on Collier Boulevard advising when Caxambas Park is full and closed.

Currently, county Park Rangers conduct rounds throughout the day but there is no full-time County staff presence.

Adopted under Optimize Parking include:

• Prohibit trailers that carry more than four motorized vessels from parking in the boat ramp park, allowing them to launch and leave.
• Require commercial permit holders to encourage and promote ridesharing or shuttling of commercial customers to boat ramp parks.
• Only issue 2022 commercial launch permits to companies that were issued commercial launch permits in 2021. This grandfather approach is a modification to the proposed strategy of limiting permits to 150 for any commercial permit.
• Limit the number of 2022 commercial launch permits issued to each company to the number of commercial launch permits that were issued to each company in 2021. Another grandfather approach to the proposed strategy that as originally proposed, would have forced some companies to not be able to get the same number of permits they had been operating with before.
• Limit the number of total commercial launch permits issued to 180 annually. Currently, there are 180 annual permits so the Commissioners looked to maintain the status quo, hoping for attrition to get that number down to 150 (the limit initially proposed).
• Require commercial permit holders to carry liability insurance indemnifying Collier County.
• Prohibit commercial launch permit holders from using a County Park as their business address.
• Allow non-charter commercial permit holders in the marine service and sales industry to obtain one commercial launch permit that can be sued for multiple trailers.
• Increase fee for initial commercial launch permit and implement an escalating fee for each additional commercial launch permit issued to one company.
• Increase launch fees.
• Increase annual recreational launch permit fee for non-Collier County residents.
• Implement parking fee for vehicles without a Collier County beach sticker.
• Seek commercial use and site plan amendment at Caxambas Park.
• Seek new Conditional Use at Goodland for additional vehicle parking.

Currently, there is no parking fee and unlimited issuance of commercial and recreational launch permits.

The Board will hear the associated Fee Policy updates to approve and/or amend at their December 14, 2021 Board meeting. Currently, a Commercial Launch permit is $100 per year with launch fees and a Recreational Launch permit is $100 for a motorized or $50 for non-motorized with no launch fees.

One item that was suggested and turned down by the Board was limiting vessels that carry more than six people.

Commissioner LoCastro made sure to clarify that while Caxambas is the boat ramp area “most under the microscope” the county still falls under Marco City zoning ordinances. Caxambas has been zoned to restrict any commercial business but commercial businesses have been operating out of there for many years. LoCastro said that when he spoke with Marco City Council about the importance of the businesses utilizing the boat ramp, they were receptive to the county coming up with a plan to mitigate the challenges facing Caxambas.