City of Clermont Planning and Zoning Commission — March 3, 2026

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 members present) Duration: Approximately 2 hours 17 minutes (6:30 PM – 8:47 PM)

Attendance

• Present: Chair Colby, Vice-Chair Niemiec, Commissioner Tidona, Commissioner Entsuah, Commissioner May (by phone), Commissioner Cramer
• Absent: Commissioner Hoisington
• Staff Present: Development Services Director Curt Henschel, Planning Manager John Kruse, Planner Nicholas Gonzalez, City Attorney Christian Waugh, Planning Coordinator Rae Chidlow

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Agenda Items

Item 1: Resolution No. 2026-005R — Salt Shack on the Lake CUP Amendment

• Type: CUP (amendment)
• Case Number: Resolution No. 2026-005R
• Location: 846 W. Osceola Street (formerly Lilly's on the Lake), CBD Central Business District
• Applicant: Jimmy Crawford, Esq., for Salt Shack on the Lake
• Request: Amend Resolution 2023-011R to expand the restaurant deck and add an outdoor seating area on the north side of the building (no change of use; ~104 additional seats over existing 240, adding ~30 staff capacity)
• Current Zoning: CBD Central Business District
• Proposed Zoning: No change
• Staff Recommendation: Approve with conditions (parking-fund payment under LDC 115-14(c)(2) — 13 spaces × $3,000 = $39,000)
• Action: Approved (recommended for approval)
• Vote: 5-1 (Niemiec opposing) — preceded by failed 2-4 motion to table
• Conditions:
  • $39,000 payment into Parking Fund (or revised rate at site review)
  • Applicant to consult with DPZ planners prior to City Council
  • Provide letter from Lake County Water Authority
  • Add St. Johns River Water Management District signage (no boat mooring to deck)
• Notable Discussion: This was the most contested item of the night. Two members of the public — Charlene Forth and Evan Fracasso — opposed, citing noise, parking, environmental impact, and the inadequacy of the parking-fund contribution. Commissioners May and Tidona ran detailed environmental and structural questioning (shoreline setbacks, ordinary high-water lines, soil permeability, deck cleaning, gopher tortoise survey, turbidity barriers during construction). Vice-Chair Niemiec voted to table — and then voted no on the eventual approval — citing discrepancies between online and physical packet materials and unresolved DPZ-alignment questions. Applicant confirmed deck is wood, no boat mooring, existing speaker system only, music ends by 10:00 PM. Permit work has been a year-long process with SJRWMD.

Item 2: Ordinance No. 2026-013 — Certified Recovery Residences Text Amendment

• Type: Text Amendment
• Case Number: Ordinance No. 2026-013
• Location: Citywide (Land Development Code, Chapter 125)
• Applicant: City of Clermont (staff-initiated)
• Request: Amend the Land Development Code by adding a new article under Chapter 125 (Zoning) for certified recovery residences, aligning city procedures with Section 397.487, Florida Statutes (as amended by SB 954, signed June 25, 2025, effective July 1, 2025). State law requires local governments to formalize and streamline the review and approval process for reasonable-accommodation requests for certified recovery residences.
• Staff Recommendation: Approve, with one last-minute clarification: replace "Department" / "Department Director" with "City Manager" / "City Manager's designee" in four places on packet pages 56–57 (per City Attorney direction)
• Action: Approved (recommended for approval)
• Vote: 6-0
• Conditions: Final ordinance reflects the City Manager language change.
• Notable Discussion: Commissioner Cramer framed the policy explicitly: the city has both legal and moral obligations under state and federal law, and the ordinance is engineered to comply while preserving life-safety, building, parking, and property-maintenance enforcement authority. Commissioner Tidona pointed members to the Florida Association of Recovery Residences (FARR) website. Commissioner May raised the deepest substantive questions — whether parking standards should vary by level of care (especially Level 4, which can include clinical services), whether Planning Division (not the City Manager alone) should be the reviewing authority, and whether proof of state certification should be a required application element. Chair Colby asked if it was critical to pass now; City Attorney Waugh said yes.

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Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 3 (Charlene Forth, Evan Fracasso on Salt Shack; Katherine Horner of Salt Shack as co-applicant — Jeremy Darden also spoke briefly on music levels)
• General sentiment: Mixed — opposition concentrated on Salt Shack expansion; no public opposition on the Recovery Residences text amendment
• Key concerns (Salt Shack):
  • Noise carrying across the lake from amplified music
  • Parking saturation on weekends in nearby public lots
  • Environmental impact of deck expansion (runoff, soil erosion, vegetation loss)
  • Trust deficit with applicant team and SJRWMD oversight
  • Site-plan discrepancies between online and physical packets

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Key Signals

• Recovery Residences ordinance is regulatory infrastructure, not a single project. Clermont quietly added a new article to Chapter 125 of the Land Development Code to handle reasonable-accommodation requests for certified recovery residences — a sensitive land use that triggers federal Fair Housing Act questions. The framing was strikingly forward: Cramer named the legal-and-moral obligation explicitly, and the city kept enforcement authority over life safety, parking, and code compliance. Most cities reactively litigate this. Clermont built procedure first.
• Salt Shack approval reveals the parking-fund mechanism in action. A waterfront restaurant added 104 seats, triggering 13 parking spaces. Instead of a site expansion, the city accepted a $39,000 payment into the city Parking Fund (LDC 115-14(c)(2), $3,000/space). That mechanism is doing real work in the CBD — converting parcel-level parking demand into a pooled fund the city can deploy where it wants. Anyone betting on downtown commercial intensity should know this lever exists and is active.
• Vice-Chair Niemiec has emerged as the procedural-rigor dissenter. He voted to table Salt Shack, then voted no on the approval, citing packet discrepancies and the absence of DPZ alignment. The form-based-code conversation is no longer abstract — it now functions as a screen against which individual applications are tested. Salt Shack passed it; Niemiec said it shouldn't have, yet.
• Commissioner Tidona is moving the board's environmental scrutiny upstream. Floating turbidity barriers, soil classification, ordinary high-water-line measurement, gopher tortoise surveys, fish-and-wildlife protections — these are construction-phase concerns now being examined at the CUP stage. SJRWMD compliance is no longer treated as enough; the board is asking what the city will independently verify.
• The chair's "concise report or memo" idea quietly upgrades P&Z's voice to City Council. Chair Colby announced he is using a template originally developed by Councilman Bain to summarize commission discussions and votes for council ahead of formal minutes. That compresses the latency between deliberation and decision — and lets the commission steer council with a synthesized recommendation rather than a transcript.

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Raw Notes

• Reports period was unusually substantive. Commissioner Cramer reaffirmed support for form-based planning. Commissioner Tidona presented historical Google Earth imagery showing Lake County deforestation and tied it to a vehicles-vs-trees carbon-balance argument — a recurring frame for him on growth pressure. Commissioner May (by phone) and Chair Colby both reported on attending the DPZ charrettes and called the city's direction positive. Vice-Chair Niemiec asked whether staff intended to present a Council-requested report back to the commission.
• Chair Colby read formal disclosures into the record at the start of New Business — a practice he is institutionalizing.
• The Salt Shack hearing ran roughly two hours by itself; Recovery Residences moved quickly by comparison.
• February 3, 2026 minutes were approved 6-0.
• These March 3, 2026 minutes were approved 7-0 at the April 7, 2026 meeting (Niemiec moved, Entsuah seconded).