Zoning Signal

Meetings · Apopka

Apopka Planning Commission — June 9, 2026 minutes

City of Apopka Planning Commission — June 9, 2026

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 voting members present) Duration: 110 minutes (called to order 5:30 PM, adjourned 7:20 PM)

Attendance

  • Present: Chairperson William Gusler, Robert Ryan, David Woods, Eric Mock, Mary Norwood, Malika Harrison
  • Absent: Wes Dumey; Orange County Public Schools (non-voting representative)
  • Staff Present: Bobby Howell (Planning Manager) presented the Chandler Road ordinances and served as project manager on the Floridian Town Center hotel; Jun Sohn, Ph.D. listed as project manager on the Chandler Road items

Agenda Items

Item 1: Approval of Minutes — April 14, 2026

  • Type: Other (procedural)
  • Action: Approved
  • Vote: Unanimous (motion by Ryan, second by Harrison)

Item 2: Ordinance No. 3158 — Small-Scale Future Land Use Amendment — 4410 and 4420 Chandler Road

  • Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (Small-Scale FLU)
  • Case Number: Ordinance No. 3158
  • Location: 4410 Chandler Road and 4420 Chandler Road
  • Parcel IDs: 18-20-28-0000-00-030, 18-20-28-0000-00-063
  • Applicant: Camila Neira (owner: Richard Chandler); McGregor Love of Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A. appeared as counsel
  • Request: Change Future Land Use from Residential Very Low Suburban to Office to permit a child care facility
  • Current Zoning: RSF-1A (Residential Single-Family-Estate); existing use residential
  • Proposed Zoning: O (Office)
  • Acreage: 5.12 +/- acres
  • Project Manager: Jun Sohn, Ph.D.; presented by Bobby Howell
  • Action: Denied — recommended denial to the City Commission
  • Vote: Unanimous (motion by Mock, second by Woods)
  • Notable Discussion: Mock's motion was to deny "due to the possibility future land use being used as an commercial office" — that is, the board denied the amendment because an Office designation would permit commercial office use beyond the child care facility actually proposed. Three speakers: McGregor Love of Lowndes for the applicant, addressing the community meeting and a proposed limit on the number of students; applicant Camila Neira, on access issues with Mr. Sanders and discussions over widening the easement to 60 feet; and Bobby Sanders of 4404 Jason Dwelley Parkway, on property access and requesting a 60-foot easement.

Item 3: Ordinance No. 3159 — Change of Zoning — 4410 and 4420 Chandler Road

  • Type: Rezoning
  • Case Number: Ordinance No. 3159
  • Location: 4410 Chandler Road and 4420 Chandler Road
  • Parcel IDs: 18-20-28-0000-00-030, 18-20-28-0000-00-063
  • Applicant: Camila Neira (owner: Richard Chandler)
  • Request: Rezone from residential estate to Office to permit a child care facility
  • Current Zoning: RSF-1A (Residential Single-Family-Estate)
  • Proposed Zoning: O (Office)
  • Acreage: 5.12 +/- acres
  • Project Manager: Jun Sohn, Ph.D.; presented by Bobby Howell
  • Action: Denied — recommended denial to the City Commission
  • Vote: Unanimous (motion by Mock, second by Ryan)
  • Notable Discussion: Mock moved denial on the grounds that the rezoning was "not being compatible with the land use of the surrounding areas based on the findings presented." One speaker, Donald Hulser of 4306 Tigris Drive, asked how vehicles traveling northbound on Jason Dwelley Parkway would enter the child care parking lot.

Item 4: The Ridge Phase 3 — Major Development Plan

  • Type: Site Plan (Major Development Plan)
  • Location: Southeast corner of Binion Road and Boy Scout Road
  • Parcel ID: 17-21-28-7345-01-000
  • Applicant: VHB c/o James R. Hoffman, P.E. (owner: Apopka Centerline Development, LLC)
  • Request: Major Development Plan for a food market, gas station and office/warehouse
  • Current Zoning: PD (Planned Development); Future Land Use Mixed-Use; existing use vacant
  • Acreage: 13.23 +/- acres
  • Intensity: 0.2 floor area ratio
  • Staff Recommendation: Approve
  • Action: Recommended approval
  • Vote: 4-2 (motion by Ryan, second by Mock; nays: David Woods and Malika Harrison)
  • Notable Discussion: One speaker, Erin Hollerbach, raised concerns about further apartment development given the volume already built in the past year, and about traffic on already-crowded roadways including Ocoee-Apopka Road.

Item 5: Floridian Town Center Hotel — Major Development Plan

  • Type: Site Plan (Major Development Plan)
  • Location: Lot 5, Floridian Town Center PD
  • Parcel ID: 06-21-28-7172-16-042
  • Applicant: Jason W. Searl, Esq. (owners: Florence Hotel Company LLC, 73% interest; Apopka Acquisition Company LLC, 27% interest)
  • Request: Major Development Plan for a 137-room hotel
  • Current Zoning: PD (Planned Development); Future Land Use Commercial; existing use vacant
  • Acreage: 2.91 +/- acres
  • Project Manager: Bobby Howell
  • Staff Recommendation: Approve
  • Action: Recommended approval, with a correction
  • Vote: Unanimous (motion by Mock, second by Harrison)
  • Notable Discussion: Public comment opened and closed with no speakers. The motion recommended approval "as it is consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code based upon the facts and findings presented in the Staff Report and exhibits with the correction"; the nature of the correction is not specified in the minutes.

Item 6: Items for Discussion — Removal of Planning Commission Board Members; Resignation of the Chairperson

  • Type: Other (discussion)
  • Action: Discussion only; no motion or vote. Chairperson Gusler announced his resignation
  • Notable Discussion: The minutes record: "Chairperson Gusler – Spoke about the Motion made by Commissioner Ruth regarding removing the Planning Commission Board Members. He announced that this was his last meeting he would be in attendance and his resignation." The minutes for this meeting are signed "Chairperson" without a name, unlike every prior meeting in the record.

Public Hearings Summary

  • Number of speakers: 5 (McGregor Love, Camila Neira and Bobby Sanders on Ordinance 3158; Donald Hulser on Ordinance 3159; Erin Hollerbach on The Ridge Phase 3)
  • General sentiment: Opposed on the Chandler Road items and on development pace generally; no speakers on the hotel
  • Key concerns:
    • Access to 4410/4420 Chandler Road and a neighbor's request that the easement be widened to 60 feet
    • How northbound traffic on Jason Dwelley Parkway would enter the proposed child care parking lot
    • Volume of residential development approved in the past year and resulting traffic on Ocoee-Apopka Road

Key Signals

  • A City Commissioner moved to remove the Planning Commission's members, and the Chairperson resigned at this meeting. The minutes record Gusler addressing "the Motion made by Commissioner Ruth regarding removing the Planning Commission Board Members" and announcing his resignation and last attendance. This is the corpus's first appointed-planning-board removal motion outside Lake County, and Apopka's version has a longer arc than Lake County's: this same board had already voted away its plat approval authority on September 9, 2025 under Ordinance 3128. Two months later, on July 14, 2026, the reconstituted board voted unanimously to convene a Land Development Code workshop on its own rights.

  • The first unanimous double denial in the Apopka record, and the board's reasoning has not moved in thirteen months. Both Chandler Road ordinances were denied 6-0. Mock's stated ground on the Future Land Use amendment — the possibility of the Office designation "being used as an commercial office" — is the same containment logic Chairperson Gusler used on May 13, 2025 to justify approving a special exception on these exact parcels instead of a rezoning: a use permit expires with the use, a land-use designation does not. This board will grant a use and refuse the conversion, and it did so against Lowndes Drosdick counsel, the firm that carried Wyld Oaks to unanimous approval four months earlier. Representation did not change the outcome.

  • The dissent bloc reconstituted around new members. Woods and Harrison cast the two nays on The Ridge Phase 3. This is a different pairing from the Mock-and-Washington 5-2 on Cip's Tavern in October 2025 — Washington has left the board and Harrison, who first appears on the April 14, 2026 roster, has now dissented at her second recorded meeting. Split votes in Apopka are not a stable faction; they form around specific project types, and commercial-intensity site plans are drawing them now.

  • Food market plus gas station is becoming the corridor's standard commercial package. The Ridge Phase 3 pairs a food market, a gas station and office/warehouse on 13.23 planned-development acres at Binion and Boy Scout Roads, five months after Freshfields Farm's 17,550 square foot food store was approved on Ocoee-Apopka Road. The same grocery-and-fuel combination is the Ocoee Village Center play in the adjoining jurisdiction. The public objection recorded here was not to the retail but to cumulative traffic.

  • The first hotel in the Apopka record. A 137-room hotel on 2.91 acres in the Floridian Town Center PD, with ownership split 73/27 between Florence Hotel Company LLC and Apopka Acquisition Company LLC, passed unanimously with no public comment. Hospitality entering the entitlement pipeline is a demand signal distinct from the residential and industrial conversions that dominate every other Apopka docket in this cycle.

Raw Notes

  • Board composition changed between the March 10 and April 14, 2026 meetings. Howard Washington's last recorded appearance in the corpus is the March 10, 2026 roster, where he is listed absent; Malika Harrison first appears on the April 14, 2026 roster. Harrison is present here and at the July 14, 2026 meeting.
  • The meeting was held in the "City Commission Chambers" per the minutes header; earlier minutes in this record use "City Council Chambers." The city's naming of its elected body and its chamber is inconsistent across documents in this period.
  • The minutes give no first name or further identification for "Commissioner Ruth," and record no detail of the removal motion's content, sponsor's rationale, status, or the body before which it was made. Nothing beyond the sentence quoted above is in the source.
  • This is the second-longest meeting in the harvested Apopka record at 110 minutes, behind May 13, 2025.
  • Source: minutes embedded at pages 2-5 of the July 14, 2026 agenda packet (CivicClerk apopkafl, agendaId 1325, fileId 3190). Agenda: agendaId 1316, fileId 3154.

Connected records

2 connected records

Corridors1

Places1