City of Apopka Planning Commission — June 10, 2025

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (7 of 7 voting members present) Duration: 42 minutes (called to order 5:30 PM, adjourned 6:12 PM)

Attendance

• Present: Chairperson William Gusler, Howard Washington, Robert Ryan, Eric Mock, Wes Dumey, David Woods, Mary Norwood
• Absent: Orange County Public Schools (non-voting representative)
• Staff Present: Jean Sanchez (Senior Planner); Jun Sohn (Planner II); Amer Hamza (Planner I); Andrew Hand (City Attorney, Cliff Shepard's office); Vladimir Simonovski (City Engineer); Kelly Robertson (Content Administrator); Marta Schwarz (Content Specialist); Erin Arnold (Executive Assistant)
• Members of the public signed in: Josh Enot, Carter Elfert, Andrew Vaclon, Ben Henry, Genevieve Labuda, Maurice Grier, Steve Acevedo, Kim Fischer

Agenda Items

Item 1: Ordinance No. 3110 — Future Land Use Amendment — The Summit at Wolf Lake Ranch (Wolf Lake Ranch Phase III)

• Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (FLU)
• Case Number: Ordinance No. 3110
• Location: North of Ponkan Road, east of Ponkan Pines Road, west of Jason Dwelley Parkway
• Applicant: William Maki (owners: Lutz David L Life Estate; Lutz Mary T Life Estate; Rem: David M Lutz; Rem: Michelle M Gregory)
• Request: Future Land Use amendment for Wolf Lake Ranch Phase III
• Acreage: 21.43 +/- acres
• Density: 2 dwelling units per acre
• Project Manager: Jean Sanchez
• Action: Tabled to the August 12, 2025 meeting
• Vote: 7-0 (motion by Dumey, second by Washington)
• Notable Discussion: Senior Planner Jean Sanchez asked that the item be administratively pulled "due to a discrepancy in advertisement."

Item 2: Ordinance No. 3111 — Change of Zoning — The Summit at Wolf Lake Ranch (Wolf Lake Ranch Phase III)

• Type: Rezoning
• Case Number: Ordinance No. 3111
• Location: North of Ponkan Road, east of Ponkan Pines Road, west of Jason Dwelley Parkway
• Applicant: Bill Maki (owners: Lutz family life estates, per Item 1)
• Acreage: 21.43 +/- acres
• Density: 2 dwelling units per acre
• Project Manager: Jean Sanchez
• Action: Tabled to the August 12, 2025 meeting
• Vote: 7-0 (tabled together with Item 1 on a single motion by Dumey, second by Washington)
• Notable Discussion: Same advertising discrepancy as Item 1.

Item 3: Zoning Variance — Maximum Building Height — 2560 W. Orange Blossom Trail

• Type: Variance
• Location: 2560 W. Orange Blossom Trail
• Applicant: Joshua Enot (owner: MG88 Central Florida Cold Storage II LLC)
• Request: Variance from the maximum building height standard to permit an additional 18 feet of height, to 58 feet, for a cold storage expansion
• Project Manager: Jun Sohn, Ph.D.
• Staff Recommendation: Approve
• Action: Approved
• Vote: 7-0 (motion by Dumey, second by Mock)
• Notable Discussion: Ben Henry appeared for Mandich Group MG88 Central Florida, owner of the Cold-Link Logistics facility. The expansion adds more than 17,000 pallet positions, includes infrastructure upgrades to Mayflower Avenue and improvements to the stormwater retention pond intended to aid flood management for the surrounding neighborhood. Maurice Greer estimated 15 to 20 new hourly jobs at approximately $21 per hour plus a small number of salaried positions. Josh Enot of Kimley-Horn, the project's civil engineer, stated the hardship is that the site cannot expand horizontally, so vertical expansion is the only option, and confirmed the project would not proceed without the variance. Commissioner Mock sought conditions on semi-truck turning radii; Chairperson Gusler and City Attorney Hand ruled that traffic conditions belong to the site plan stage, not the height variance. Enot confirmed a traffic impact analysis was complete and identified off-site improvements. Enot also confirmed the adjacent county parcel was mid-annexation into the city, having passed first reading and awaiting second. Two residential buildings on the site will be demolished; no existing industrial buildings will be torn down.

Item 4: Invitation Cove — Major Development Plan

• Type: Site Plan (Major Development Plan)
• Location: West of Sheeler Avenue and east of S. Christina Street
• Applicant: Kim Fischer (owner: A&R Meridian Apopka Development LLC)
• Request: Major Development Plan for 43 townhomes
• Density: 7.6 units per acre (Mixed-Use Future Land Use permits a maximum of 15 du/ac)
• Project Manager: Amer Hamza
• Staff Recommendation: Approve
• Action: Recommended approval
• Vote: 6-1 (motion by Mock, second by Woods; nay: Wes Dumey)
• Notable Discussion: The site previously carried a plan for multifamily apartments; this is a different developer proposing townhomes. Commissioner Dumey objected that mature oak trees would be cleared with only 15 feet of preservation on the east side, and cast the sole nay on green-space grounds. The applicant identified Tract E, adjacent to SR-436, as the tree preservation area and stated the site had become an illegal dumping ground generating code enforcement costs for the owner. The stormwater pond is a dry pond with an emergency outfall connecting to Monroe Avenue. Code requires a block wall along the east property line plus perimeter landscape buffers. Staff described a proposed left turn lane from Monroe Avenue westbound and a right turn lane from the east.

Item 5: Crossroads at Kelly Park, Phase 2B — Plat

• Type: Other (plat)
• Location: East of Round Lake Road, south of Ondich Road, west of Zepher Lily Avenue
• Applicant: Poulos & Bennett, LLC c/o Genevieve LaBuda (owner: Kelly Park Land Investments, LLC)
• Request: Plat of 90 single-family lots
• Acreage: 18.75 +/- acres
• Project Manager: Jean Sanchez
• Staff Recommendation: Approve
• Action: Approved
• Vote: 7-0 (motion by Washington, second by Norwood)
• Notable Discussion: Lot widths between 52 and 55 feet; single-family homes, not bungalows. The applicant noted several phases in the neighborhood are already platted or under construction and this plat subdivides the phase so vertical construction can begin.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 4 (all applicants or their representatives — Ben Henry, Josh Enot and Maurice Greer for the Cold Link height variance; Kim Fischer for Invitation Cove; Genevieve Labuda for the Crossroads plat)
• General sentiment: No public opposition recorded on any item; every public hearing closed with no one wishing to speak
• Key concerns: Raised by commissioners rather than residents — semi-truck turning movements onto W. Orange Blossom Trail, tree clearing and inadequate green space at Invitation Cove, stormwater overflow paths, and whether the townhomes are rear-loaded

Key Signals

• The cold storage facility on W. Orange Blossom Trail bought its height first and its building later. This 18-foot variance to 58 feet is the entitlement that unlocked everything downstream: the Cold Link Apopka Major Development Plan at 147,624 square feet in February 2026, then a revised plan at 168,180 square feet in July 2026. The stated hardship was that the site cannot grow horizontally. For anyone reading industrial land near US-441, the sequence matters — a height variance with no building attached is the leading indicator, and it arrived thirteen months before the larger footprint.

• The city entitled land it did not yet own. The Cold Link expansion parcel was still in Orange County, having passed only the first reading of its annexation, when the Planning Commission granted the height variance. Apopka routinely runs annexation and entitlement concurrently rather than sequentially — a cadence that makes county parcel maps a poor guide to what is already approved.

• Advertising defects, not opposition, are what stops projects in Apopka. Wolf Lake Ranch Phase III was pulled here on a notice discrepancy and returned two months later. The same defect pulled the Wyld Oaks Town Center Overlay on September 9, 2025 and pulled both Wyld Oaks ordinances again on January 13, 2026. Across fourteen months of dockets, four items were delayed by advertising error and none by organized public objection.

• A one-member green-space dissent is now a pattern, not an incident. Dumey dissented on the comprehensive plan rewrite in May over open space and dissented here over oak clearing at Invitation Cove — two consecutive meetings, same grounds. This predates by four months the Mock-and-Washington 5-2 split on Cip's Tavern that the corpus previously recorded as Apopka's first substantive dissent. The board's consensus baseline is real, but the fracture line is environmental standards, and it opened in May 2025.

• The July 2025 meeting was flagged for cancellation at this meeting. Staff advised the board that the July Planning Commission meeting conflicted with a budget meeting and might be cancelled or postponed. It was — and it became the first of three calendar absences in the Apopka record (July 2025, November 2025, May 2026), each removing a month of public entitlement review from a jurisdiction approving several hundred units per cycle.

Raw Notes

• No minutes were prepared for approval at this meeting; the April 8 minutes had been approved May 13 and the May 13 minutes were not yet drafted. Both the May 13 and June 10 minutes were subsequently approved together at the August 12, 2025 meeting.
• The minutes render the second Wolf Lake Ranch item as "Ordinance No. 2111" in Sanchez's request to pull it; the agenda and the item heading both give Ordinance No. 3111. Recorded here as 3111.
• In New Business, Commissioner Washington congratulated Gusler, Norwood and Dumey on their reappointments to the Planning Commission.
• Staff attendance shifted from May: Bobby Howell did not attend and Jean Sanchez presented in the senior staff role.
• Source: minutes embedded at pages 17-21 of the August 12, 2025 agenda packet (CivicClerk apopkafl, agendaId 1249, fileId 2856). Agenda: agendaId 1212, fileId 2772.