City of Clermont Planning and Zoning Commission — August 4, 2026 (Agenda)

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: TBD (agenda only) Location: Clermont City Hall, 685 West Montrose Street

Attendance

Present: TBD
Absent: TBD
Staff Present: TBD

Agenda order: Call to Order; Pledge of Allegiance; Minutes (approval of July 7, 2026 P&Z minutes); Reports; New Business (Items 1–5); Discussion of Non-Agenda Items; Adjourn.

Agenda Items

Item 1: Resolution 2026-026R — Elite Veterinary Specialists Conditional Use Permit

Type: Conditional Use Permit (CUP)
Case Number: Resolution No. 2026-026R
Location: 235 Hatteras Avenue, Suite 100 (AK 3734173)
Applicant: Fourscore Operating Management LLC, d/b/a Elite Veterinary Specialists. Owners: Paul W. Jakubowski and Olga N. Jakubowski
Request: Allow a specialty veterinary clinic — advanced medical and surgical care beyond general veterinary services, with a specific focus on ophthalmology — to operate within the M-1 Industrial zoning district.
Current Zoning: M-1 Industrial (Future Land Use: Industrial; existing use: medical office)
Proposed Zoning: No change (CUP within M-1)
Acreage: 0.78 +/- acres
Staff Recommendation: Approve with the conditions contained in Resolution No. 2026-026R
Action: Pending (agenda only — public hearing August 4)
Vote: Pending (agenda only)
Conditions (as drafted): Small animals only (canine and feline) — no horses, cows, swine, or other livestock; appointments and surgical procedures only, no boarding (abandoned animals handled under F.S. § 705.19 without CUP-revocation exposure); hours Monday–Friday 8:30 AM–5:30 PM and Saturday 8:30 AM–2:00 PM; any outdoor relief/exercise area requires a clinic-managed waste station with animals monitored, leashed, and not left unattended; waste management and operation plan required, with the City reserving the right to reopen the CUP if odors become a nuisance; City Council may amend or revoke if parking proves inadequate.
Notable Context: Staff describe the site as "an established industrial/office area surrounded by compatible uses typical of M-1 zoning." The adjacent-use table records medical and office uses on three sides — Clermont Endodontic Specialist (north), Milestone Counseling (south), multi-tenant office buildings (east) — with Kalos Services, an industrial use, to the west. Legal ad ordered July 16, 2026.

Item 2: Resolution 2026-025R — West End Plaza Conditional Use Permit

Type: Conditional Use Permit (CUP) — mixed-use development with 12 or more dwelling units in the Central Business District
Case Number: Resolution No. 2026-025R
Location: 821 W. Minneola Avenue, southwest corner of West Minneola Avenue and 8th Street (AK 3793247 / 3793274)
Applicant: Patrick Bianchi. Owner: Coastal Investment Land Trust, 810 West Montrose Street, Clermont
Request: Allow a mixed-use development of four new three-story buildings containing 5,656 sq ft of ground-floor retail and restaurant space and 16 residential dwelling units (four per building — two on the second floor, two on the third, each a minimum of 580 sq ft), organized around a central courtyard. The existing 7,400 sq ft building remains and is incorporated into the site design.
Current Zoning: CBD — Central Business District (Future Land Use: Downtown MU; existing use: retail and restaurant)
Proposed Zoning: No change (CUP within CBD)
Acreage: 0.635 +/- acres
Staff Recommendation: Approve — staff find the request "consistent with the intent of the Central Business District, supports mixed-use urban infill, and aligns with the City's Comprehensive Plan by encouraging redevelopment and increased residential density in the downtown core"
Action: Pending (agenda only — public hearing August 4; Community Benefit Agreement dated for execution August 11, 2026)
Vote: Pending (agenda only)
Key provisions and conditions (as drafted):
- The density bonus rests on a settlement agreement. Staff state the request "is supported by the Settlement Agreement between the City and the property owner, identified as Contract 2025-009A, which retroactively amends the Comprehensive Plan to allow bonus density up to 40 units per acre when a project qualifies under a Community Benefit Agreement. The Settlement Agreement also exempts the development from minimum parking requirements."
- 16 units on 0.635 acres yields 25.2 dwelling units per acre, exceeding the 25 du/acre base threshold and therefore triggering a Community Benefit Agreement.
- Three public benefits offered: public access to the central courtyard during designated daytime hours, with the Trust retaining full ownership and operational control (hours, rules, temporary closure for maintenance, safety, or private events) plus maintenance, insurance, and liability; publicly viewable public art in the courtyard and along the street frontage; and a realignment of the public sidewalk along the Minneola Avenue frontage, limited to the property boundary, which "may support the City's future ability, if desired, to create a continuous pedestrian connection to 7th Street."
- A covered gallery supported by structural beams extending up to ten feet into the public right-of-way along the north and east sides, requiring a Right-of-Way Utilization Permit; the applicant bears the cost of redesign if underground utilities force column relocation.
- Ground floors of all four buildings limited to retail and restaurant space not to exceed 6,000 sq ft; density capped at 25 du/acre absent a Community Benefit Agreement; development in substantial accordance with the "821 W Minneola Street Design Set"; CUP null and void if substantial work has not begun within two years.
Notable Context: Adjacent uses are Becker Funeral Home (north), Clermont Dance Academy / Yummi's / barbershop and salons (south), Four Corners Health and Rehab plus a City restroom and pavilion (east), and residential (west) — all CBD, all Downtown MU. The design set in the packet (~30 pages of elevations and courtyard visualizations by Gian Lloyd Peñaredondo) presents three courtyard options priced "Less Cost / More Cost / Most Cost": the plain court, a court with a trellised entry, and a court with a pavilion.

Item 3: Ordinance 2026-019 — Louisa Grande Small-Scale Comprehensive Plan Amendment

Type: Comp Plan Amendment (small-scale; paired with Item 4)
Case Number: Ordinance No. 2026-019
Location: Louisa Grande subdivision, west of the Hidden Court / US Hwy 27 intersection, south of Hartwood Marsh Road and northeast of Lake Louisa Road
Applicant: City of Clermont (city-initiated, following staff-initiated annexation)
Request: Change Future Land Use from Lake County Urban Low Density to City of Clermont Low Density Residential on a completed, built-out 75-lot single-family subdivision.
Current Zoning: Lake County Planned Unit Development (governed by Lake County Ordinance No. 2015-3)
Proposed (FLU): City of Clermont Low Density Residential
Acreage: 30.64 +/- acres
Staff Recommendation: Approve — consistent with the City's Comprehensive Plan goals, objectives, and policies
Action: Pending (agenda only — public hearing August 4)
Vote: Pending (agenda only)
Notable Context: Annexed by City Council on October 28, 2025 — the same council action that annexed Hammock Pointe / Hammock Reserve — "with the understanding that a Small-Scale Comprehensive Plan Amendment and Rezoning at a future date in time would occur." Lake County Urban Low Density allowed 4 du/net acre; the final plat was approved at 2.45 du/net acre; City Low-Density Residential allows 3 du/acre. The parcel is platted, developed, and receiving City wastewater, with central water provided by Sunshine Water Services — a split-utility arrangement. Surrounding development is single-family residential west and south, a mobile home park north, and undeveloped land east.

Item 4: Ordinance 2026-020 — Louisa Grande Rezoning

Type: Rezoning (paired with Item 3)
Case Number: Ordinance No. 2026-020
Location: Same 30.64 +/- acres
Applicant: City of Clermont (city-initiated)
Request: Rezone from Lake County Planned Unit Development to City of Clermont Planned Unit Development. Staff describe the transfer of the Lake County PUD ordinance into the City's PUD ordinance as "like for like" with small adjustments made for code references, in order "to encapsulate the current entitlements."
Current Zoning: Lake County PUD (Lake County Ordinance No. 2015-3)
Proposed Zoning: City of Clermont PUD
Acreage: 30.64 +/- acres
Staff Recommendation: Approve — compatible with adjoining properties as required by the City's Comprehensive Plan
Action: Pending (agenda only — public hearing August 4)
Vote: Pending (agenda only)
Key provisions: Development in substantial accordance with the recorded plat (Louisa Grande, Plat Book 70, Pages 1–4). Impervious Surface Ratio maximum 60%; building height maximum 45 feet. Several standard PUD conditions are already marked (COMPLETED) in the transferred ordinance — traffic study, school concurrency, preliminary plat / construction plans / final plat, and the three-year commencement-of-construction requirement — confirming the subdivision is finished. Condition 11 requires exterior lighting "in accordance with the LDC, as amended, and consistent with Dark-Sky Principles." Ordinance to be recorded in Lake County public records.
Notable Context: Legal notice published in the Daily Commercial July 20, 2026.

Item 5: Ordinance 2026-029 — Administrative Adjustments Land Development Code Amendment

Type: Text Amendment (Land Development Code)
Case Number: Ordinance No. 2026-029 (amending Chapter 101, Article II, Division 3, § 101-104, "Granting of variances")
Location: Citywide
Applicant: City of Clermont (staff-initiated at the direction of the City Manager's Office)
Request: Repeal and amend § 101-104(b) to establish a new Administrative Adjustment process authorizing staff — specifically the Development Services Director — to review and approve minor deviations from certain dimensional and development standards without a public hearing before City Council.
Current Zoning: N/A (citywide text amendment)
Proposed Zoning: N/A
Acreage: N/A
Staff Recommendation: Approve
Action: Pending (agenda only — public hearing August 4)
Vote: Pending (agenda only)
Key provisions:
- The gap being filled: existing administrative variances under § 101-104(b) apply only to minor deviations on already-approved developments, are capped at five percent, and require the applicant to show the deviation "was caused by a factor beyond the applicant's control, such as a verifiable survey error." Staff state the Code "does not offer a broader mechanism for minor dimensional or development standard modifications that do not warrant a full variance review."
- Table 101-104(b)(2) allowable adjustments: lot width and/or depth, front / side / rear yard setbacks, maximum height, setback area encroachment, and off-street parking / loading / stacking space count — all at 25%; Impervious Surface Ratio at 10% (subject to an engineered site report by a licensed professional engineer, plus subdivision-wide drainage analysis where applicable); retaining wall height at 35%, or up to 67% where walls are inward-facing and address significant topography (properties with 50 feet of fall within the site) or help minimize tree removal; private roads / gated entry by request.
- Worked examples in the staff report: a 25-ft rear setback reduced by 6.25 ft to 18.75 ft; a 7.5-ft side setback reduced by 1.875 ft to 5.625 ft; a 6-ft retaining wall raised 2.1 ft to 8.1 ft at 35%.
- Six review standards, all mandatory — the adjustment must be listed in the table; must be required to compensate for some unusual aspect of the site, support a purpose statement of the zone district, protect sensitive natural resources or water quality/demand, or save healthy existing trees; must be consistent with the comprehensive plan; must be consistent with surrounding character and create no incompatible development; adverse impacts mitigated to the maximum extent practicable; and must not substantially interfere with adjacent lands' use or pose a danger to public health or safety. "Failure to meet any one of these standards will result in a decision of denial," on competent substantial evidence.
- Submittal requirements include letters of support from adjoining neighbors and from the HOA if applicable. Any omission from the submittal list renders the application incomplete "and will require a City Council variance."
- Director may approve, approve with modifications or conditions (including a lesser adjustment than requested), or deny. Adjustments expire within one year unless acted upon. Decisions appealable to City Council under Article VI.
Notable Context: Staff cite Seminole County, City of Maitland, and Miami-Dade County as jurisdictions already using this procedure. The existing requirement that the City Manager report the number of standard-variance deviations to Council annually is retained. Legal ad ordered July 13, 2026.

Public Hearings Summary

Pending — this is a pre-meeting agenda document. Items 1 and 2 are advertised quasi-judicial CUP hearings; Items 3 and 4 are advertised hearings on a paired small-scale comprehensive plan amendment and rezoning; Item 5 is an advertised legislative hearing on a Land Development Code amendment. Public participation will be recorded in the August 4, 2026 minutes.

Key Signals

Downtown gets its first real vertical mixed-use project — and it arrives through a settlement agreement, not the zoning code. West End Plaza puts 16 apartments over 5,656 sq ft of retail and restaurant space on 0.635 acres at Minneola and 8th. The density that makes it work — 25.2 du/acre, above the 25 du/acre base — is available only because Contract 2025-009A, a settlement agreement between the City and the owner, retroactively amends the Comprehensive Plan to permit bonus density up to 40 units per acre under a Community Benefit Agreement, and separately exempts the project from minimum parking requirements. Clermont's 2024 Live Local defensive posture worked by shrinking the density ceiling developers could reference; a litigated settlement has now reopened a 40 du/acre ceiling for this parcel. Anyone reading Clermont's downtown density as code-determined should read the settlement instead.
The community benefit being purchased is a privately controlled courtyard. In exchange for the density bonus, the owner offers public access to the central courtyard "during designated daytime hours" while retaining "full ownership and operational control, including the ability to establish hours of use, set rules, and temporarily close the space for maintenance, safety, or private events," plus public art and a sidewalk realignment that "may support the City's future ability, if desired," to reach 7th Street. This is the first activation of the Community Benefit Agreement mechanism in the corpus, and the terms are worth watching as the template: the public gets conditional access to private space, and the connectivity benefit is contingent on future City action that is not committed here.
Ordinance 2026-029 moves setback, height, parking, and ISR relief out of public hearings and onto the Development Services Director's desk. Today a variance means City Council and a hearing; the existing administrative path is capped at five percent and requires proof of a survey error or similar factor beyond the applicant's control. The new Administrative Adjustment allows 25% on setbacks, lot dimensions, height, and required parking counts, 10% on impervious surface, and up to 67% on retaining wall height on steep sites. Six mandatory findings and neighbor/HOA support letters are the guardrails, with appeal to Council. For the hillside topography that defines Clermont — the ordinance explicitly contemplates sites with 50 feet of fall — this is a meaningful transfer of discretion from an elected body to staff, arriving in the same year the board pushed back on a proposed magistrate.
Two ordinances tightened public notice; the third narrows what the public gets noticed about. July's Ordinance 2026-026 tripled the mailed-notice radius to 450 feet and added HOA notification. August's Ordinance 2026-029 removes an entire class of dimensional relief from the hearing process altogether — a 25% setback reduction would be decided administratively, with neighbor support letters collected by the applicant rather than testimony taken at a podium. Read together, Clermont is widening notice for the applications that still get hearings while shrinking the set of applications that get one.
The October 28, 2025 annexation batch is still being processed, one subdivision at a time. Hammock Pointe / Hammock Reserve (196 homes, 88.5 acres) cleared P&Z in June; Louisa Grande (75 homes, 30.64 acres) is the August installment, from the same Council action on the same date under the same "designate land use and zoning later" understanding. Both are built-out, both are on City wastewater, neither adds a single unit. Louisa Grande sits on the Hartwood Marsh / Lake Louisa / US-27 triangle. Expect further installments from the same batch, and note the utility split — City sewer, Sunshine Water Services water — which is a different service posture than Hammock Pointe.
Specialty veterinary care is opening in an industrial district, and the neighbors are already medical. Elite Veterinary Specialists is an ophthalmology-focused referral practice requesting a CUP in M-1 at 235 Hatteras Avenue, where staff's own adjacency table lists an endodontic specialist to the north and a counseling practice to the south. Clermont's M-1 inventory is quietly converting to a medical-office district through the CUP process. This is the second veterinary CUP in two months after CityVet on US-27 — general practice on the highway, specialty referral in the industrial park, which is the settlement pattern of a market with enough households to support tiering.

Raw Notes

Source: August 4, 2026 P&Z agenda (CivicClerk file ID 5709, 2 pp.) and August 4, 2026 agenda packet (file ID 5710, 120 pp.). Meeting ID 1153; portal event 1766.
The packet's pages 3–10 carry the approved July 7, 2026 minutes; August 4 staff reports and ordinance text begin at PDF page 11.
Item numbering note: the agenda lists Resolution 2026-026R (Elite Veterinary) as Item 1 and Resolution 2026-025R (West End Plaza) as Item 2 — the resolution numbers run in reverse of the agenda order.
West End Plaza Community Benefit Agreement: between the City and Coastal Investment Land Trust, dated for execution August 11, 2026. Legal description — East 200 feet of the North 138.36 feet of Block 92, City of Clermont, Plat Book 8, Page 17. Recital 7 records the owner electing "the Density Bonus Elements of Public Open Space and Public Art as the justification for the density bonus."
West End Plaza design set (packet pp. 40–67) by Gian Lloyd Peñaredondo: first-level floorplans show Building A at 1,398 sq ft and Building B at 1,440 sq ft of commercial; upper-level units range 638–729 sq ft. Three courtyard schemes presented with relative cost ranking.
Elite Veterinary Specialists staff analysis dated 7.24.26; resolution dated 07.27.2026. West End Plaza staff analysis and Community Benefit Agreement both dated 7.24.26; resolution dated 07.27.2026.
Louisa Grande: Ordinance 2026-019 (SSCPA) and Ordinance 2026-020 (rezoning) both dated 07.16.2026. Legal description places the parcel in Tracts 55–58, Monte Vista Park Farms (Plat Book 2, Page 27) and portions of the SW 1/4 of Section 9, Township 23 South, Range 26 East.
Ordinance 2026-029 drafting note: the amended § 101-104 contains three consecutive subsections lettered (b) in the source text — the existing administrative-variance provision, the annual-reporting sentence, and the new Administrative Adjustment section. A codification or scrivener's correction is likely before adoption; the ordinance carries standard scrivener's-error authority.
Ordinance 2026-029 submittal detail: applications must include a vicinity map, a scaled site plan with legal description, property record card or recorded warranty deed, street address, all existing and proposed buildings and impervious surfaces with height and square footage, property line dimensions, wall-to-property-line distances, height from grade, and recorded utility or drainage easements.
No City Council adoption dates appear on the Item 1–5 materials in this packet, unlike the July packet which carried July 28 and August 11 Council dates.
As of the 2026-08-08 harvest, August 4, 2026 minutes had not been published. Per Clermont's established pattern they should appear in the September 1, 2026 agenda packet.

Clermont Planning and Zoning Commission — August 4, 2026 agenda