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Meetings · Kissimmee

Kissimmee Planning Advisory Board — December 3, 2025 minutes

City of Kissimmee Planning Advisory Board — December 3, 2025

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 members present) Duration: 6:00 PM – 7:17 PM (1 hour 17 minutes) Location: Kissimmee City Hall, Commission Chambers, 101 Church Street

Attendance

  • Present: Chairman Robert Bussiere, Vice Chair Alex Alemi, Board Member Thomas Kapp, Board Member Lynda Roth, Board Member Jon Arguello (first attendance in the harvested record), Board Member Javin Lopez
  • Absent: Board Member Raymond Sanchez
  • Staff Present: Craig Holland (Director), Doug Etheredge (Assistant Director), John Hambley (Planning Manager), Brenda Ryan (Planning Manager), Ashley Cornelison (Senior Planner), Cristian Arias (Senior Planner), Ryan Altizer (Senior Planner), Kalanit Oded (Deputy City Attorney), Kayla Smith (Planning Technician), Junellyx Cartagena (Administrative Assistant II)

Ten staff attended — the largest staff contingent of the coverage period. No prior minutes were presented for approval.

Agenda Items

Item 5.A: Proposed Ordinance #25-21 — Land Development Code sign code rewrite (Chapters 14-2 and 14-11)

  • Type: Text Amendment (Land Development Code)
  • Case Number: Proposed Ordinance #25-21
  • Location: Citywide
  • Applicant: City of Kissimmee (staff-initiated)
  • Request: Reorganize and update LDC Chapter 14-11 (Signs) and update signage definitions in Chapter 14-2, repealing conflicting ordinances.
  • Current Zoning: N/A (citywide code amendment)
  • Proposed Zoning: N/A
  • Acreage: N/A
  • Staff Recommendation: Approve
  • Action: Approved as amended from the dais — the yard-sign duration restriction was struck before the ordinance was recommended forward
  • Vote: Three motions. (1) Alemi moved to remove the first two paragraphs of the sign code on page 14.11.24, seconded Arguello — FAILED 0-6, with every member including the mover and seconder voting no. (2) Alemi moved to remove only the 4-to-12-month restriction on yard signs on page 14.11.24, seconded Roth — PASSED 6-0. (3) Alemi moved to approve the sign code with the 4-to-12-month strike, seconded Arguello — PASSED 6-0.
  • Conditions: The recommendation carries the single amendment striking the 4-to-12-month yard sign restriction.
  • Notable Discussion: Cornelison explained the rewrite was "largely triggered by a Supreme Court determination (Reed v. Town of Gilbert) that signage cannot be treated differently based on content," and was also necessary to update signage standards after the 2020 Land Development Code update that established the Form-Based Code Area and replaced the development guidelines in the Vine Overlay and the Downtown Community Redevelopment Area Overlay (DCRAO) Design Manual. She said that after consulting professionals including the City Commission and the Planning Advisory Board, the need for more transparency was obvious, and the proposed regulations were streamlined and given imagery to be clearer for developers, business owners and the general public. Alemi said the sign code "may be more complicated than it needs to be as a whole" and raised scenarios for staff to use in improving the code for citizens; Arguello agreed. The board then focused its discussion on restrictions on yard signs.

Item 7: Discussion — combining the RC-1 and RC-2 zoning districts

  • Type: Other (policy discussion)
  • Case Number: N/A
  • Location: Citywide
  • Applicant: Board-initiated
  • Request: Discussion of combining the RC-1 and RC-2 multi-family medium density residential districts.
  • Staff Recommendation: N/A
  • Action: Discussion only, no motion
  • Vote: No vote
  • Notable Discussion: The minutes record only that "Board discussed combining RC-1 and RC-2 zoning districts." The discussion follows two weeks after the board rezoned 52.59 acres at 2200 Fortune Road from RC-1 to RC-2 on a 5-1 vote.

Public Hearings Summary

  • Number of speakers: 0 — Item 5.A was a noticed public hearing on a citywide sign code rewrite. No members of the public are recorded as speaking.
  • General sentiment: No public participation recorded.
  • Key concerns: None raised by the public. All amendments came from the dais.

Key Signals

  • Kissimmee is rewriting its entire sign code, and the trigger is a decade-old First Amendment ruling. Staff told the board the amendment to LDC Chapters 14-2 and 14-11 was "largely triggered by a Supreme Court determination (Reed v. Town of Gilbert) that signage cannot be treated differently based on content." Every content-based distinction in the old code — temporary versus permanent, political versus commercial, real-estate versus other — becomes a legal exposure. Business owners and developers should expect the new chapter to regulate size, placement, illumination and duration instead of message, and to be enforced more uniformly as a result.

  • The board struck the 4-to-12-month yard sign duration limit, 6-0. That is the one substantive change the PAB made to a citywide code rewrite, and it is precisely the kind of duration restriction most vulnerable after Reed. Residents who put up signs — for candidates, for causes, for a house for sale — got the time limit removed by their planning board before the ordinance reached the Commission.

  • A motion by the Vice Chair failed 0-6, with the mover and the seconder both voting against it. Alemi moved to strike the first two paragraphs on page 14.11.24, Arguello seconded, and every member voted no — including Alemi and Arguello. Two motions later the narrower version passed unanimously. The record reads as a board workshopping language in real time on the floor rather than voting positions, which is what happens when a code rewrite arrives without a prior workshop.

  • The board is already reconsidering the district pair it just used two weeks earlier. Under Discussion, members took up combining RC-1 and RC-2 — fourteen days after voting 5-1 to move 52.59 acres at 2200 Fortune Road from one to the other. If the districts merge, the distinction that justified that rezoning disappears. Anyone holding RC-1 land in Kissimmee should watch this item.

  • Ten staff members attended, including two Planning Managers and the Director. John Hambley appears as Planning Manager alongside Brenda Ryan, and Junellyx Cartagena appears as Administrative Assistant II. Kissimmee's Development Services department is visibly staffing up around the same board that could not seat four members in September.

Raw Notes

  • Source provenance: minutes PDF published to CivicClerk as file 9856 ("PAB Minutes") under agenda 1942, event 2255. Scanned document with no text layer; content recovered by OCR. A same-day Action Summary is published as file 8610; the Action Summary's vote records match the Minutes exactly on all three motions.
  • The first motion's roll is recorded as "AYE: None / NAY:" listing all six members, with the caption "Motion to Approve w/Conditions Failed 0 - 6." The caption "Motion to Approve w/Conditions" is the clerk's standard label rather than a description of the motion on the floor; all three sign-code motions carry it.
  • Page reference "14.11.24" is the sign code page cited in both the Minutes and Action Summary; it is a page reference in the draft ordinance, not an LDC section number.
  • DCRAO = Downtown Community Redevelopment Area Overlay. The 2020 LDC update established the Form-Based Code Area and superseded both the Vine Overlay and DCRAO design manuals; the sign chapter had not been updated to match until this ordinance.
  • Ashley Cornelison's title moves from "Long Range Senior Planner" (May 2025) to "Senior Planner."
  • The minutes number the adjournment paragraph as item 10 on a nine-item agenda.
  • Adjournment 7:17 PM. Signed by the Board Chairman and attested by the Board Secretary.

Connected records

1 connected record

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