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Meetings · Kissimmee

Kissimmee Planning Advisory Board — April 1, 2026 minutes

City of Kissimmee Planning Advisory Board — April 1, 2026

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (5 of 7 members present) Duration: 6:00 PM – 6:32 PM, including a recess from 6:20 PM to 6:31 PM Location: Kissimmee City Hall, Commission Chambers, 101 Church Street

Attendance

  • Present: Chairman Robert Bussiere, Vice Chair Alex Alemi, Board Member Jon Arguello, Board Member Javin Lopez, Board Member Raymond Sanchez
  • Absent: Board Member Lynda Roth, Board Member Thomas Kapp
  • Staff Present: Craig Holland (Director), Brenda Ryan (Planning Manager), John Hambley (Planning Manager), Curtis McGehee (Assistant City Attorney), Ashley Cornelison (Senior Planner), Junellyx Cartagena (Administrative Assistant II)

No prior minutes were presented for approval.

Agenda Items

Procedural: recess to observe the Artemis II launch

  • Type: Other (procedural motion)
  • Action: Recess approved from 6:20 PM to 6:30 PM to observe the Artemis II launch
  • Vote: 4-1 — AYE: Alemi, Bussiere, Arguello, Lopez. NAY: Sanchez. (moved Alemi, seconded Lopez)
  • Notable Discussion: The meeting recessed at 6:20 PM and reconvened at 6:31 PM.

Item 5.A: Proposed Ordinance #26-10 — Broadway first-floor office uses (LDC §§ 14-5-3 and 14-5-6) — FAILED

  • Type: Text Amendment (Land Development Code)
  • Case Number: Proposed Ordinance #26-10
  • Location: Downtown Kissimmee — units fronting Broadway and certain side streets
  • Applicant: City of Kissimmee (staff-initiated); a letter from the DKC (Downtown Kissimmee Committee) is listed among the supporting materials
  • Request: Amend LDC § 14-5-3 (Special Requirements Plan) and § 14-5-6 Table 5-1 to permit finance, insurance and real estate offices on the first floor of units fronting Broadway and side streets, and restore a portion of Figure 5-25 (the Special Requirements map) that was omitted in the last Land Development Code update.
  • Current Zoning: Downtown Form-Based Code area; the Special Requirements Plan currently prohibits any office use on the first floor of units fronting Broadway and several side streets
  • Proposed Zoning: No district change — a use-table amendment
  • Acreage: N/A
  • Staff Recommendation: Approve
  • Action: FAILED — no recommendation forwarded
  • Vote: 2-3 — AYE: Bussiere, Lopez. NAY: Alemi, Arguello, Sanchez. (moved Alemi, seconded Lopez — the mover voted against his own motion)
  • Conditions: N/A
  • Notable Discussion: Cornelison explained the amendment would "remove that restriction and will allow not complete office use on the first floor, but finance, real estate, and insurance offices," and separately restore the missing portion of Figure 5-25. The supporting materials listed on the record are the strikethrough and clean versions of Ordinance 26-10, the B-1 Zoning District Map, a letter from the DKC, a Business Impact Estimate, and the advertisement. "The Board Had a discussion regarding the Office Use establishment on the first floor." No public speakers are recorded.

Item 5.B: Proposed Ordinance #26-11 — City Commission as final reviewing authority for conditional uses (LDC §§ 14-3-16 and 14-3-29) — CONTINUED

  • Type: Text Amendment (Land Development Code — level of review and conditional use procedure)
  • Case Number: Proposed Ordinance #26-11
  • Location: Citywide
  • Applicant: City of Kissimmee (staff-initiated)
  • Request: Amend LDC § 14-3-29 and § 14-3-16 Table 3-1 to add the City Commission as the final reviewing authority for conditional uses; amend § 14-3-29 to add standards for site plan waivers and provisions for time frames on conditional use approvals.
  • Current Zoning: N/A (citywide procedure amendment)
  • Proposed Zoning: N/A
  • Acreage: N/A
  • Staff Recommendation: [not recorded — the item was continued before staff presentation]
  • Action: Continued
  • Vote: 5-0 (moved Sanchez, seconded Alemi)
  • Conditions: N/A
  • Notable Discussion: No discussion is recorded. The motion to continue was made immediately on the item being reached, after the board reconvened from recess.

Item 8: Hear Chairman and Board Members — notice of a forthcoming motion

  • Type: Other (board procedure)
  • Action: Notice given; no motion made
  • Vote: No vote
  • Notable Discussion: Vice Chair Alemi gave notice that he would move to adopt procedures for board-initiated recommendations — the fourth advance public notice he has entered on the record since August 2025.

Public Hearings Summary

  • Number of speakers: 0 — both items were noticed public hearings. No members of the public and no applicant representatives are recorded as speaking, including on a downtown Broadway use amendment supported by a letter from the Downtown Kissimmee Committee.
  • General sentiment: No public participation recorded.
  • Key concerns: None raised by the public. Both outcomes were determined on the dais.

Key Signals

  • The City moved to take final conditional-use authority away from the Planning Advisory Board, and the board continued the item without discussion. Ordinance #26-11 would amend LDC § 14-3-16 Table 3-1 to add the City Commission as the final reviewing authority for conditional uses. Since June 2025 the City Attorney's own board training has stated the PAB "is the final decision-making body for the City of Kissimmee on applications including Conditional Use Permits with Site Plans." This ordinance ends that. Every conditional use in this corpus — the charter school, the drive-thru, the food-truck market, the motorcycle dealership, the Caliber Collision storage yard, the Oak Street office — would become a recommendation instead of a decision. The board continued it 5-0 with no recorded discussion.

  • The same ordinance would add expiration dates to conditional use approvals. Ordinance #26-11 adds "provisions for time frames on conditional use approvals" alongside standards for site plan waivers. Kissimmee currently issues conditional uses that run indefinitely — the 2017 Caliber Collision approval was still governing in 2026, and the 1968 Industrial Park PUD still routes uses to this board. Time-limiting them changes the asset value of every conditionally approved property in the city.

  • A proposal to let banks, insurance agencies and real-estate offices occupy Broadway storefronts failed 2-3 — and the member who moved it voted no. Kissimmee's downtown form-based code bans first-floor office on Broadway to protect the retail street wall. Staff, with a supporting letter from the Downtown Kissimmee Committee, asked to carve out finance, insurance and real estate. Alemi moved it, then voted against with Arguello and Sanchez. For downtown property owners with vacant ground-floor space — in a CRA with more than 120 vacant acres — the retail-only restriction on Broadway stands.

  • A portion of the Special Requirements map has been missing from the code since the last LDC update. Cornelison told the board Figure 5-25 lost a map section in the last Land Development Code update and staff were asking to put it back. That correction rode with the failed ordinance, so it did not pass either. A downtown regulating plan with a hole in the map is an enforcement problem for whichever parcels fall in the gap.

  • The board recessed a public hearing for eleven minutes to watch the Artemis II launch, 4-1. Sanchez voted no. It is a small thing, and it is also the second-shortest meeting in the record — 32 minutes gavel to gavel with an 11-minute recess inside it — on a night when the City proposed to remove the board's decision-making authority.

  • The legal seat turned over again. Curtis McGehee appears as Assistant City Attorney; Kalanit Oded, who staffed every meeting from February 2025 through March 2026 and served as Interim City Attorney two weeks earlier, does not appear. The City Attorney's office is being rebuilt in the same period it is proposing to restructure the board's authority.

Raw Notes

  • Source provenance: minutes PDF published to CivicClerk as file 9859 ("meeting minutes") under agenda 2073, event 2443. Scanned document with no text layer; content recovered by OCR. A same-day Action Summary published as file 9771 has a native text layer and agrees with the Minutes on every mover, seconder, vote roll and time stamp. The Minutes document is headed "MEETING ACTIONS."
  • The Minutes number the agenda items one lower than the Action Summary (Moment of Silence as 1 rather than 2, and so on) — a numbering slip in the Minutes; the Action Summary follows the published agenda.
  • The staff report's "Reasons" section on Item 5.A is a transcription of the exhibit list rather than substantive findings: "1. Proposed Ordinance 26-10 — strikethrough 2. Proposed Ordinance 26-10 - clean 3. B-1 Zoning District Map 4. Letter from DKC 5. Business Impact Estimate 6. Advertisement."
  • DKC is not expanded in the record; in context it is the Downtown Kissimmee Committee or its equivalent downtown business organization.
  • A Business Impact Estimate is listed among the exhibits — the analysis Florida law requires municipalities to prepare for certain ordinances before adoption.
  • Ordinance #26-11's caption is the substantive record for this item; no staff presentation occurred before the continuance.
  • Alemi's notice under Hear Chairman and Board Members concerns "procedures for board-initiated recommendations" — a mechanism for the board to originate code amendments rather than only react to staff proposals. It follows his January 21 notice of three citywide code motions.
  • Adjournment 6:32 PM. Signed by the Board Chairman and attested by the Board Secretary.

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