City of Eustis Local Planning Agency — September 18, 2025

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (5 of 5 members present) Duration: 5:51 PM – 6:20 PM (29 minutes) Location: Eustis City Hall

Attendance

• Present: Chair Willie L. Hawkins, Vice Chair Gary Ashcraft, Mr. Michael Holland, Ms. Emily Lee, Mr. George Asbate
• Absent: None
• Staff Present: Kyle Wilkes, Senior Planner; Tom Carrino, City Manager; Sasha Garcia, City Attorney; Christine Halloran, City Clerk

Prior minutes: September 4, 2025 minutes approved (moved Holland, seconded Ashcraft), 5-0.

Agenda Items

Item 1: Approval of Minutes — September 4, 2025

• Type: Other (procedural)
• Request: Approve the September 4, 2025 LPA minutes.
• Action: Approved
• Vote: 5-0 (moved Holland, seconded Ashcraft)

Item 2.1: Ordinance Number 25-29 — Future Land Use assignment for annexation of a duplex parcel

• Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (Future Land Use assignment on annexation)
• Case Number: Ordinance Number 25-29 (companion ordinances 25-28 and 25-30)
• Location: Parcel contiguous to City limits on its west side (Alternate Key Number 1734231); the property currently houses a duplex structure
• Applicant: Ben Champion, Modern New Home Construction, Inc.
• Request: Change 0.45 acres from Urban Medium in Lake County to Residential Office Transition in the City, with a Suburban Neighborhood design district.
• Current Zoning: Urban Medium (Lake County)
• Proposed Zoning: Residential Office Transition (RT)
• Acreage: 0.45 acres
• Staff Recommendation: Do not transmit — staff determined the request is not consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and may hinder future infill development of single family development
• Action: Failed for lack of a motion. No member moved to transmit; the item died on the floor.
• Vote: No vote taken
• Conditions: N/A
• Notable Discussion:
  • Wilkes cited the governing limitation: the Comprehensive Plan allows Residential Office Transition only along major thoroughfares. No comments were received from neighbors.
  • Garcia announced for the record that because the LPA did not vote to transmit, all three related ordinances — 25-28, 25-29 and 25-30 — would not be heard by the City Commission.
  • The applicant was not present.
  • The board asked whether a vote to deny would change the timing for a future application. Garcia: failure to transmit does not restrict the LPA, but at the Commission level a denial requires nine months before the request can return.

Item 2.2: Ordinance Number 25-32 — Future Land Use assignment for annexation on County Road 44 east of Sparrow Lane (Grand Island Crossings)

• Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (Future Land Use assignment on annexation)
• Case Number: Ordinance Number 25-32
• Location: County Road 44, east of Sparrow Lane, bounded on the north by County Road 452 (Alternate Key Numbers 1743320 and 1407940)
• Applicant: Bret Jones, MAS Development LLC; property owners John E. and Betty A. Drawdy
• Request: Change 20 +/- acres from Urban Low in Lake County to Suburban Residential in the City, with a Suburban Neighborhood design district.
• Current Zoning: Urban Low (Lake County)
• Proposed Zoning: Suburban Residential (up to five units per acre)
• Acreage: 20 +/- acres
• Staff Recommendation: Transmit to City Commission — consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and land use regulations
• Action: Recommended for transmittal to the City Commission
• Vote: 5-0 (moved Holland, seconded Lee)
• Conditions: None imposed by the board; the applicant volunteered a development agreement
• Notable Discussion:
  • Carrino on density: the Suburban Residential designation allows "up to" five units per acre; once infrastructure and open space requirements are met, the project will not reach five. On roads: both are County roads, the City may require developer improvements, but widening is the County's responsibility. On wetlands: the developer must handle all stormwater so that no more leaves the property than currently does, and has no obligation for property across the street.
  • Jones's central statement: the project was designed "based on the City's proposed standards that were stopped by SB 180," and is planned in accordance with the City's "aspirational code." He presented the range of architectural styles that code would have allowed.
  • Four voluntary commitments Jones put on the record: (1) no access to Sparrow Lane — Grand Crossings will have independent access points; (2) no backyards facing Sparrow Lane; (3) no homes directly abutting existing residences to the north; (4) an enhanced buffer along the adjoining industrial use to the east. No fence is planned; a landscape perimeter is. A community building was confirmed.
  • Jones said the project has not been site-planned or engineered, that the figures discussed are legal maximums, that the final home count will be lower, and that he would request no variances.
  • The mechanism: Jones said he had discussed with the City Attorney a developer's agreement under which the project voluntarily adheres to the higher standard, to be submitted before second reading or second reading would be voluntarily continued.
  • The board asked why this developer's agreement could be considered when a previous one could not. Garcia's answer is the distinction the Eustis record turns on: here the agreement is not a condition of annexation. The lot sizes requested are not allowed under the current code but could be requested under the aspirational code; the applicant may voluntarily hold community meetings; worst case, the property carries the SR designation and the developer loses four to six homes by complying with current lot sizes and still builds. The only reason for the agreement is to obtain varied lot sizes.
  • Ashcraft asked why Mr. Sawchuk could not have entered a development agreement limiting what goes on his property. Garcia: the City could not condition annexation on an agreement, and it could not be done during a meeting. She noted Jones came to staff with the suggestion.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 1 (Item 2.1 drew none; Item 2.2 hearing opened 6:02 PM)
• General sentiment: Questioning rather than opposed
• Key concerns: Brenda Kane asked five questions: why five homes on one acre; whether single-family or multi-family is planned; the concern for the wetlands across the street; whether there is any intention to widen the highway from two lanes to four; and whether the City plans to annex the rest of Grand Island into Eustis.

Key Signals

• The Eustis LPA killed a land use change by saying nothing. No member moved on Ordinance 25-29, and the city attorney announced on the record that the silence removed all three related ordinances from the City Commission's agenda. Staff had recommended against it, the applicant did not appear, and the board declined even to deny. Failure to transmit is the LPA's quietest and most complete veto — and Garcia noted it carries no nine-month bar, unlike a Commission denial, so the applicant may refile immediately.

• Residential Office Transition is confined to major thoroughfares by the Comprehensive Plan, and staff will enforce that against a duplex conversion. Wilkes's second reason is the more consequential one: RT on an interior 0.45-acre parcel "may hinder future infill development of single family development." Eustis is protecting its small-lot residential fabric from office conversion, and a buyer looking to place a professional use on a residential enclave parcel should expect the same answer.

• A developer told the LPA he designed his subdivision to a code the state stopped Eustis from adopting, and offered to be bound to it by contract. Jones named SB 180 as the reason the "aspirational code" is unavailable, then proposed a developer's agreement to comply with it voluntarily. This is the workaround that defines the next year of Eustis planning: the standards live in a private covenant because they cannot live in the code.

• Garcia drew the line that governs every Eustis development agreement: voluntary, applicant-initiated, and never a condition of annexation. The board asked directly why Jones gets an agreement and Sawchuk did not. The answer was not favouritism but sequence — Jones came to staff with the proposal, and the agreement buys him varied lot sizes rather than buying the City an approval. Read against February 2026, when the LPA denies Sawchuk 1-4 for lacking exactly this instrument, the rule has a hard edge: the applicant who arrives with the agreement already drafted wins; the applicant who describes one in testimony loses.

• The consideration is measurable: four to six homes. Garcia stated that without the agreement, complying with current lot standards costs the developer four to six units on 20 acres. That is the entire price of the City's design guidelines on this project — small enough that the developer volunteered, which is precisely why the voluntary route works here and would not work on a larger yield gap.

Raw Notes

• Source: minutes PDF at https://mccmeetings.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/eustisfl-pubu/MEET-Minutes-ef13f578c53b45f588d1681b044c47b8.pdf (3 pp.), retrieved 2026-08-15.
• Minutes stamped "APPROVED 12/09/2025".
• The minutes name the project "Grand Crossings" in Jones's access commitments; the January 22, 2026 development agreement ordinance names the developer Grand Island Crossing, LLC and the project Grand Island Crossings.
• The minutes reference a "community building"; from context this is a community meeting commitment, though the text reads "holding a community building."
• Applicant Ben Champion, Modern New Home Construction, Inc. returns to this board on April 16, 2026 as the applicant on Ordinance 2026-22, which he withdraws mid-hearing.
• Brenda Kane's question about annexing the rest of Grand Island received no recorded answer.
• Minutes pages headed "Eustis City Commission" (clerk template artifact); the signature block reads "Mayor/Commissioner" rather than Chair.