City of Eustis Local Planning Agency — May 7, 2026 (Agenda)

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: [not available — minutes not published as of 2026-08-15] Duration: [not available] Location: Eustis City Hall

The meeting was held. The video stream is posted at https://youtube.com/live/OXwE-_d731Y, and the April 16, 2026 minutes carry the stamp "APPROVED 5/7/2026." Minutes for this meeting had not been published as of 2026-08-15 — a gap of over three months, against a board that has historically published minutes within two to six weeks. This is the last Local Planning Agency meeting appearing on the Eustis portal; no LPA meeting has been noticed for June, July or August 2026.

Attendance

• Present: [not available]
• Absent: [not available]
• Staff Present: [not available]. The agenda packet is signed by Rick Gierok, Interim City Manager, with staff reports prepared by Jeff Richardson, AICP, Interim Director, Development Services, and reviewed by Sasha Garcia, City Attorney and Miranda Burrowes, Deputy City Manager.

Agenda Items

Item 1.1: Approval of Minutes — April 16, 2026

• Type: Other (procedural)
• Request: Approve the April 16, 2026 LPA minutes.
• Action: Approved — confirmed by the "APPROVED 5/7/2026" stamp on the published April 16 minutes
• Vote: [not available]

Item 2.1: Ordinance Number 2026-17 — Development Agreement with W. D. of America, Inc. (first reading)

• Type: Development Agreement (Florida Local Government Development Agreement Act, §§ 163.3220–163.3243, F.S.)
• Case Number: Ordinance Number 2026-17
• Location: County Road 44A at County Road 44, unincorporated Lake County — Parcel ID 06-19-27-0200-000-00500 (Alternate Key 1040141, the parcel denied 1-4 on February 19, 2026)
• Applicant: W. D. of America, Inc. (Travis Sawchuk)
• Request: Approve and authorize execution of a development agreement establishing development parameters, permitted uses and performance obligations for a commercial project on approximately 10 acres proposed for annexation with a General Commercial (GC) future land use designation.
• Current Zoning: Lake County urban low; annexation pending
• Proposed Zoning: General Commercial (via companion Ordinance 2026-07)
• Acreage: Approximately 10 acres
• Staff Recommendation: Approve, following the two public hearings required by § 163.3225, F.S.
• Action: [not available — minutes not published]
• Vote: [not available]
• Conditions: The agreement's terms, per the staff report:
  • Permitted uses: neighborhood commercial; food and beverage store including alcohol; restaurants with or without drive-throughs; retail sales and service; professional services and general office; common open space; a passive park.
  • Prohibited uses (Exhibit D): adult uses, vehicle repair, outdoor storage, bars/nightclubs, self-storage, tattoo parlors, cannabis dispensaries.
  • Design standards: public entrances oriented to streets; massing relief for buildings over 150 feet; storefront character with 40–80% ground floor transparency; at least three architectural features per elevation; perimeter buffers; conceptual elevations at Exhibit C.
  • Open space: 25% minimum, including usable stormwater areas; at least one passive park with benches, shade trees and pedestrian pathways.
  • Infrastructure: developer-funded water and wastewater extensions; stormwater per SJRWMD and state requirements; internal road network (Standard Street, Commercial Drive, Commercial Street); transportation improvements per the TIA; pedestrian and bicycle connectivity.
  • Administration: agricultural use may continue until FECP approval or construction start; phasing permitted; certificates of occupancy issuable for completed phases.
  • Term: 30 years, extendable by mutual consent; recorded within 14 days of execution, developer reimburses recording costs under § 163.3239, F.S.
  • The agreement does not create vested development rights or authorize development until all conditions precedent, including annexation and the effective date, are satisfied.
• Notable Discussion: [not available]

Item 2.2: Ordinance Number 2026-18 — Development Agreement with T & S FL Partners, Inc. (first reading)

• Type: Development Agreement (§§ 163.3220–163.3243, F.S.)
• Case Number: Ordinance Number 2026-18
• Location: County Road 44A at County Road 44, unincorporated Lake County — Parcel ID 06-19-27-0200-000-00501 (Alternate Key 3959037, the parcel tabled on February 19, 2026)
• Applicant: T & S FL Partners, Inc. (Travis Sawchuk's personal property)
• Request: Approve a development agreement for a commercial/industrial project on approximately 2.8 acres proposed for annexation with a Mixed Commercial-Industrial (MCI) future land use designation.
• Current Zoning: Lake County urban low; annexation pending
• Proposed Zoning: Mixed Commercial-Industrial (via companion Ordinance 2026-10)
• Acreage: Approximately 2.8 acres
• Staff Recommendation: Approve, following the two public hearings required by § 163.3225, F.S.
• Action: [not available — minutes not published]
• Vote: [not available]
• Conditions: Per the staff report:
  • Permitted uses: professional services and general office; research lab without manufacturing; small artisanal manufacturing or assembly; light assembly operations; accessory warehousing. Employee count limited to two to three per business due to limited parking.
  • Prohibited uses: restaurants, retail stores, convenience stores, drive-thru facilities, car washes, pharmacies, indoor shooting ranges, major vehicle repair, schools, wireless communication towers, among others.
  • Design: architectural consistency with conceptual elevations; minimum 25% open space; perimeter buffers; street trees every 50 feet; parking allowed in Zones 1, 3 and 4.
  • Infrastructure: developer-funded water and wastewater extensions; SJRWMD-compliant stormwater; concurrency compliance and proportionate share mitigation; fire code compliance, hydrants and emergency access.
  • Term: 30 years with option for extension; recorded within 14 days of execution.
• Notable Discussion: [not available]

Item 3.1: Ordinance Number 2026-07 — Comprehensive Plan Amendment for annexation of Alternate Key 1040141

• Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (Future Land Use assignment on annexation)
• Case Number: Ordinance Number 2026-07
• Location: Corner of County Road 44A and County Road 44 (Alternate Key 1040141)
• Applicant: W. D. of America, Inc. (Travis Sawchuk)
• Request: Assign a General Commercial future land use designation. This is the same ordinance the LPA denied 1-4 on February 19, 2026, returning paired with the development agreement whose absence caused the denial.
• Action: [not available — minutes not published]
• Vote: [not available]

Item 3.2: Ordinance Number 2026-10 — Future Land Use Map Amendment for annexation of Alternate Key 3959037

• Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (Future Land Use Map amendment on annexation)
• Case Number: Ordinance Number 2026-10
• Location: Adjacent 2.8-acre parcel at County Road 44A and County Road 44 (Alternate Key 3959037)
• Applicant: T & S FL Partners, Inc.
• Request: Assign a Mixed Commercial-Industrial future land use designation. This is the item the LPA tabled on February 19, 2026 with direction to return with a complete agreement.
• Action: [not available — minutes not published]
• Vote: [not available]

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: [not available — minutes not published]
• General sentiment: [not available]
• Key concerns: [not available]. The February 19, 2026 hearings on the same two parcels drew objections from Spring Ridge resident Sabrina Lewis (flooding, property values, prior conservation designation) and from Trina Marquez, who twice asked whether the development agreement was publicly available.

Key Signals

• Eustis restructured its annexation process around a February denial, and this agenda is the restructuring made visible. The order of business is the point: development agreements first (Items 2.1 and 2.2), land use assignments second (Items 3.1 and 3.2). On February 19 City Attorney Sasha Garcia proposed exactly this sequence — bring the annexation forward alongside a fully developed agreement for transparency, then take up land use and design district separately. Eleven weeks later the agenda is built that way. A board that could not condition annexation on a covenant found the one lever it had: refuse the designation until the covenant exists.

• The prohibited-use lists are the enforceable answer to nine months of neighbor testimony about this specific corner. Trina Marquez told this board on August 7, 2025 that she would be "fine with houses but not gas stations." Ordinance 2026-17's Exhibit D prohibits adult uses, vehicle repair, outdoor storage, bars and nightclubs, self-storage, tattoo parlors and cannabis dispensaries; the T&S agreement additionally bars convenience stores, drive-throughs, car washes and pharmacies. These restrictions run 30 years, are recorded in the Lake County public records, and bind successors — a durability no zoning designation in Eustis offers.

• The design standards in these agreements are stricter than anything in the Eustis code, and they arrived by contract because the code is frozen. Forty to eighty percent ground floor transparency, three architectural features per elevation, massing relief above 150 feet, street trees every 50 feet, 25% open space with a passive park. The City's own Kimley-Horn rewrite has been unadoptable since the state's post-hurricane land development regulation freeze, which the City Attorney told this board runs to October 1, 2027. Eustis is now writing its design code one recorded covenant at a time.

• The T&S agreement caps employees at two to three per business because of parking. That is an operational restriction embedded in a land use instrument — a covenant regulating tenancy intensity, not just built form. It is enforceable as contract, applies for 30 years, and would be difficult to impose through zoning.

• The Local Planning Agency has not met since this meeting. Between May 7 and August 15, 2026 the Eustis portal records City Commission meetings on June 4, June 18, July 16 and August 6, two Commission workshops, a Community Redevelopment Agency meeting and a Historic Preservation Board meeting — and no Local Planning Agency meeting, cancelled or otherwise. At 100 days and counting, that is the longest gap between LPA meetings inside the January 2025 – August 2026 coverage window, exceeding the 82-day September-to-December 2025 pause. It coincides with an Interim City Manager, an Interim Development Services Director, and a board that has transmitted no new annexation land use request since December 2025.

Raw Notes

• Sources: agenda PDF at https://mccmeetings.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/eustisfl-pubu/MEET-Agenda-21d07089611749a58b44d151c50885fd.pdf (1 p.) and the 111-page agenda packet at https://mccmeetings.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/eustisfl-pubu/MEET-Packet-21d07089611749a58b44d151c50885fd.pdf, both retrieved 2026-08-15. All development agreement terms above are quoted from the staff reports at packet Items 2.1 and 2.2, not from any record of the meeting itself.
• No minutes document exists for this meeting on the portal as of 2026-08-15. The Minutes column in the Municode Meetings listing is empty for the May 7, 2026 row; every other held LPA meeting in the window has one.
• The meeting was held: the video link https://youtube.com/live/OXwE-_d731Y is posted on the meeting detail page, and the April 16, 2026 minutes carry an approval stamp dated 5/7/2026.
• The staff reports for both agreements are addressed "TO: EUSTIS CITY COMMISSION" / "TO: Eustis City Commission" and describe the first hearing as being conducted "with the City Commission sitting as the Local Planning Agency" — although in Eustis the LPA is a separately constituted five-member board, not the Commission sitting in another capacity. This is a template artifact in the staff report, not a change in the board's composition.
• Actions taken at this meeting are unknown. Nothing in this document should be read as recording a disposition on Ordinances 2026-17, 2026-18, 2026-07 or 2026-10.