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Eustis Local Planning Agency — December 9, 2025 minutes

City of Eustis Local Planning Agency — December 9, 2025

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting (held on a Tuesday, not the board's usual Thursday) Quorum: Yes (4 of 5 members present) Duration: 5:30 PM – 6:08 PM (38 minutes) Location: Eustis City Hall

Attendance

  • Present: Chair Willie L. Hawkins, Vice Chair Gary Ashcraft, Mr. George Asbate, Ms. Emily Lee
  • Absent: Mr. Michael Holland (not listed present; the minutes carry no absence line)
  • Staff Present: Tom Carrino, City Manager; Mike Lane, Development Services Director; Kyle Wilkes, Senior Planner; Sasha Garcia, City Attorney; Christine Halloran, City Clerk
  • Also appearing: Ray Greer, Design West Group — the City's planning consultant on the Evaluation and Appraisal Report

Prior minutes: September 18, 2025 minutes approved (moved Ashcraft, seconded Asbate), 4-0. The board did not meet in October or November 2025.

Agenda Items

Item 1: Approval of Minutes — September 18, 2025

  • Type: Other (procedural)
  • Request: Approve the September 18, 2025 LPA minutes.
  • Action: Approved
  • Vote: 4-0 (moved Ashcraft, seconded Asbate)

Item 2.1: Ordinance Number 25-38 — 2025-CPT-01, Evaluation and Appraisal Report amendment to the Comprehensive Plan

  • Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (text — Evaluation and Appraisal Report, large-scale)
  • Case Number: Ordinance Number 25-38 / 2025-CPT-01
  • Location: Citywide
  • Applicant: City of Eustis, with Design West Group as planning consultant
  • Request: Adopt the statutorily required seven-year Evaluation and Appraisal Report update to the City's Comprehensive Plan and transmit it to the state.
  • Current Zoning: N/A (citywide)
  • Proposed Zoning: N/A
  • Acreage: N/A
  • Staff Recommendation: Transmit to City Commission
  • Action: Recommended for transmittal to the City Commission
  • Vote: 4-0 (moved Lee, seconded Ashcraft)
  • Conditions: None
  • Notable Discussion:
    • Carrino asked the board to take Ordinance 25-38 before 25-35 because the second is dependent on the first. The board agreed by consensus and swapped the order.
    • Lane said staff have been working with Design West Group and principal Ray Greer since June.
    • Greer's framing: the EAR update is statutorily required every seven years under Florida Statutes Chapter 163; Chapter 163 "changes almost every year"; he cited the extension of the comprehensive plan horizon from ten years to 20 years. Items no longer required were removed, others relocated between elements. He confirmed the EAR constitutes a large-scale plan amendment, that the state compiles comments and returns a report within 60 days, after which changes are made and the document returns for final Commission approval.
    • On maps: Map #19 was removed because it is not required to be part of the future land use map and belongs to an interlocal agreement, not the comprehensive plan. Four or five maps were removed as redundant or not required.
    • The board said it wanted more time with the document and asked what delay would cost. Carrino's answer is the operative constraint: until Ordinance 25-38 is transmitted to the state, the City cannot make any further comprehensive plan amendments — it can annex property, but it cannot assign a future land use.
    • Garcia noted the City had proceeded with MAS Development notwithstanding, because those ordinances included language conditioned on approval of the EAR amendment, and that the same device is available to other applicants who agree to the stipulating language.
    • Greer added that transmittal does not foreclose changes — the Commission has the 60-day state review window to keep working.

Item 2.2: Ordinance Number 25-35 — Future Land Use amendment for annexation of 5.5 acres

  • Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (small-scale Future Land Use Map amendment on annexation)
  • Case Number: Ordinance Number 25-35
  • Location: Parcel with Alternate Key Number 1213835; discussion referenced potential impact on Trout Lake, the adjacent conservation area, and drainage into Lake Eustis
  • Applicant: [not named in the minutes]
  • Request: Change 5.5 acres from County Urban Low to Mixed Commercial/Industrial in the City.
  • Current Zoning: Urban Low (Lake County)
  • Proposed Zoning: Mixed Commercial/Industrial (MCI)
  • Acreage: 5.5 acres
  • Staff Recommendation: Transmit to City Commission — consistent with the future land use map, the Comprehensive Plan, and surrounding designations
  • Action: Recommended for transmittal to the City Commission
  • Vote: 4-0 (moved Asbate, seconded Lee)
  • Conditions: None
  • Notable Discussion:
    • Wilkes confirmed utilities are available, acknowledged the site is in a flood zone with low recharge, and said any future development would have to apply to FEMA for a map revision.
    • Notices and advertisements were completed; one inquiry was received, from an individual who believed the City was annexing her property.
    • The board discussed impact on Trout Lake and the conservation area, and the City's need to control what is developed on the site. It asked whether a development agreement could be used.
    • Garcia's answer restates the rule: a development agreement must be completely voluntary and the annexation cannot be contingent on one. On annexation the owner would hold vested rights based on the designation.
    • Asked again about the other development agreement, Garcia explained the difference: that applicant approached the City about using an agreement in order to obtain additional lots in exchange for meeting the design guidelines.

Public Hearings Summary

  • Number of speakers: 1 speaker across two hearings — Cindy Newton, unincorporated Lake County resident
  • General sentiment: Cautionary
  • Key concerns:
    • On the EAR (hearing 5:44 PM – 5:47 PM): possible discrepancies in some of the tables.
    • On Ordinance 25-35 (hearing 6:00 PM – 6:01 PM): the subject property is in a flood zone and is an environmentally sensitive area; concern that use of fill will affect drainage into Lake Eustis.

Key Signals

  • Until Eustis transmits its Evaluation and Appraisal Report to the state, it cannot assign a future land use to anything it annexes. Carrino stated the constraint plainly when the board floated delay: annexation stays available, land use assignment does not. That single dependency explains the shape of the Eustis pipeline through 2026 — a queue of annexations whose land use decisions are gated behind one document, and a board that transmitted a plan it said it had not had enough time to read.

  • There is a drafting workaround, and Eustis has already used it once. Garcia told the board the MAS Development ordinances included language conditioning them on approval of the EAR amendment, letting that project proceed ahead of transmittal, and that the same stipulating language is available to any applicant who agrees to it. The gate is real but permeable to applicants willing to accept conditional language — which means the queue is ordered by legal sophistication, not by filing date.

  • The comprehensive plan horizon moved from ten years to 20. Greer cited the change as one of the statutory revisions folded into this update. A 20-year planning horizon changes what "consistent with the Comprehensive Plan" means in every future land use hearing — the document the LPA measures against now projects demand a full decade further out than the one it replaced.

  • Five acres in a flood zone with low recharge, adjacent to conservation land, went to Mixed Commercial/Industrial 4-0 — and the board's own question was how it could control what gets built there. The answer it received: it cannot, absent a voluntary agreement the applicant has not offered. On annexation the owner holds vested rights based on the designation. This is the third consecutive meeting at which the LPA asks for a binding instrument and is told the only one available is one the applicant must want.

  • Four or five maps came out of the comprehensive plan, including Map #19, on the ground that it belongs to an interlocal agreement. Interlocal boundary and service-area maps carry real consequence in north Lake County, where Eustis, Mount Dora and Tavares annex against one another along SR 44 and CR 44. Removing a map from the plan does not void the agreement, but it does remove it from the document the LPA consults.

Raw Notes

  • Source: minutes PDF at https://mccmeetings.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/eustisfl-pubu/MEET-Minutes-4ede812b216f4cf898028ddde6d22f82.pdf (3 pp.), retrieved 2026-08-15.
  • Minutes stamped "APPROVED 1/22/2026".
  • The meeting was held on Tuesday, December 9, 2025 — a departure from the board's Thursday cadence.
  • The minutes list only four members present and carry no absence line; Michael Holland is the member not listed.
  • The agenda lists Ordinance 25-35 as Item 2.1 and Ordinance 25-38 as Item 2.2; the board swapped them by consensus, and the minutes are numbered in the order taken.
  • The board did not meet in October or November 2025 — a three-month gap between the September 18 and December 9 meetings.
  • Minutes pages headed "Eustis City Commission" (clerk template artifact).

Connected records

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