Growth in Lee County is nothing short of astonishing as it rapidly approaches one-million people. But tucked away from most of the hubbub of the city and suburban sprawl is one of the last vestiges of old agricultural Florida.
And like so many relics that have gone away, this too could also be a thing of the past.
“That’s Mr. Allen Hendry and his wife. They are the Hendrys. They've been here forever,” said Amanda Cochran.
Cochran is pointing out a house with a familiar family name, Just like the Hendrys, Amanda Cochran and her husband Darius' families have been around Southwest Florida for generations. WGCU spent the day touring the North Olga Alva area and northeastern Lee County with them.
“They’ve been here for a long, long time,” Amanda Cochran says as she continues with the tour on a four-wheel gator. “ … His name is Glen and his wife Ellen.”
We drive on a partially paved, one-lane road called Taylor Road. It's considered one of the oldest roads in the county in an area considered to be Lee's first known, platted settlements.
One lane roads aren't a problem around here. At least not yet.
“We're very southern polite out here he just move over wave and talk for a minute and keep on going,” Amanda Cochran said.
Missing from this place are the endless, large planned gated-communities.
Here the vegetation is native with gnarled oaks and Florida scrub. It's a place where creeks and many roads are named after families who settled here generations ago.
Federally endangered or threatened wood storks, tri-colored herons, roseate spoonbills, panthers and bears live among the generations of first families
Gates around here are for keeping cows and horses from roaming the roads.
The wide open expanses is some of the last remaining tracts of agricultural land in Lee County.
And from time-to-time, the quietness gets blunted When a cow is on the run.
“ Oh, oh here we go! Here Darius. Open the Gate. You all stay in the truck,” Amanda Cochran orders.
We have been brought to a stunning river-view home site that Darius Cochran’s father recently purchased.
Problem is one of the steers has apparently been lulled away from the pasture in search of apples that local schoolchildren have been feeding him.
As Amanda scampers in search of the steer, Darius mans the gate. Several children come racing down the road chasing it back to pasture.
To a layman like myself, it truly seems like an old movie reel is playing out right before my eyes.
But a bull, also part of the errant steer’s pack on the Cochran land, isn't too happy with us journalist interlopers.
“Hah! Hah! Get away. Hah!,” my colleague Andrea Melendez and I cry out
In time, all settles and crickets can be heard again.
“Cows, not condos,” Amanda says as a playful reminder that this is the way of life that she and a legion of others want to preserve in rural Lee County.
But all that is under threat.
The Board of Lee County Commissioners will soon hear a plan that could easily double, even quadruple the number of families in this area along the north side of the Caloosahatchee River.
Neal communities has an offer to buy 788 acres of rural land from longtime landowners who have primarily been operating the land as cattle ranch.
The group recently acquired some 350 neighboring acres of undeveloped land. Current codes allow for one home or residential unit per acre. But for the 788 acres, Neal communities would like to put 1,099 different units -- that's a 42% increase of homes.
Out here homes are on septic and well systems.
The developers are hoping to convince the county to include the area in its growth plans for public water and sewer services.
Residents of Alva and North Olga say they don't mind more houses and are keenly in favor of landowners having the rights to sell their property. What they are against is increasing density. Most homes are on many acres of land. So to increase density above the minimum one unit per acre goes against the very way of life out of here., destroying the last bits of rural Lee County.
An advisory group to the board of county commissioners, the Land Planning Agency failed to give a nod to the Neal proposal.
While that could be good news to the Cochrans, they believe in their hearts that the county will side with the developers and not the residents.
“We're not being selfish. We think it’s not fit in a farm cow town of 2,000 people,” Darius Cochran said. “Condos are good -- in the city. ... It is just nothing about Alva that fits with that.”
Darius and Amanda Cochran next take us on a tour of the bucolic Caloosahatchee River near the Franklin Locks. Like our tours on land, it's breathtaking. The stillness of it all is refreshing in fast growing Lee County.
“We're trying to preserve the rural character and honor the history of this area,” Amanda Cochran said. “Because once it's gone, it's gone. You can't get it back, you know.”
The Lee County Board of County Commissioners will take up the matter up when it meets January 17.
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