A group working toward rebuilding Punta Gorda after Hurricane Charley hopes to deliver its new Master Plan to the city council by the end of the month. The non-profit Team Punta Gorda is a public/private partnership whose mission is to help create an environmentally attractive and commercially viable city. Members raised money to hire a well-known urban planner Jaime Correa to help create the new master plan, which they say builds on existing city and county plans. Team Punta Gorda co-Vice President Cecily Truett says the plan comes from a community-wide collaboration—brought about by a series of public workshops.

“This is the citizens’ master plan for Punta Gorda. We accessed the best and the brightest minds…we had specialists in housing and waterfront, we had landscape architects there, all under the leadership of Jaime Carrea consulting with and working next to members of the community. So our master plan is really the vision of the people who live there, in consultation with the experts.”

Truett says she expects the plan will be well received by city and county leaders because many have played a role in devising it. Others have expressed concern about the Master Plan… and fear it’s overly optimistic at best— or a doorway to over-development, at worst.