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Meetings · Kissimmee

Kissimmee Planning Advisory Board — March 19, 2025 minutes

City of Kissimmee Planning Advisory Board — March 19, 2025

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (5 of 7 members present) Duration: 6:03 PM – 6:13 PM (10 minutes) Location: Kissimmee City Hall, Commission Chambers, 101 Church Street

Attendance

  • Present: Vice-Chairman Diana Marrero-Pinto (presiding), Board Member Robert Spalding, Board Member Aaron Sabino, Board Member Rebeca Marin, Board Member Yolanda Bernard
  • Absent: Chairman Robert Bussiere, Board Member Alex Alemi
  • Staff Present: Brenda Ryan (Planning Manager), Ryan Altizer (Planner II), Kalanit Oded (Deputy City Attorney), Kayla Smith (Administrative Assistant II)

Prior minutes approved: March 5, 2025 PAB minutes, 5-0 (moved Spalding, seconded Marin). Labeled "Workshop" on the agenda; the March 5 record is a regular meeting.

Agenda Items

Item 5.A: CU-24-0014 — 4307 W. Vine Street drive-thru restaurant and retail

  • Type: Conditional Use with Site Plan
  • Case Number: CU-24-0014
  • Location: 4307 W. Vine Street
  • Applicant: [not available — the minutes do not name the applicant or an applicant representative, and no applicant speaker is recorded]
  • Request: Demolish an existing vacant strip-center building and develop a drive-thru restaurant with additional retail establishments.
  • Current Zoning: Mixed-Use Urban Corridor (T5-U), Vine Street Overlay district; Future Land Use Mixed-Use Vine (MU-V), intensity up to 6.0 FAR
  • Proposed Zoning: No change
  • Acreage: approximately 1.41 acres
  • Staff Recommendation: Approve with 6 conditions
  • Action: Approved with conditions (recorded as "Motion to Approve w/Conditions Passed"). The PAB is the City's final decision-making body on Conditional Use Permits with Site Plans — see Raw Notes.
  • Vote: 5-0 (moved Spalding, seconded Marin)
  • Conditions: (1) Final Landscape Plan and Final Construction Documents to comply with LDC § 14-8-23 Table 8-1 minimum separation requirements between landscaping and features; (2) finished floor elevation and ceiling height across all building areas, including the drive-thru window, to meet § 14-5-6 Table 5-2; (3) specifications for the proposed bicycle lockers to be included in construction plans — the lockers are what qualifies the project for the allowed 10 percent parking reduction and must be maintained over time so the parking calculation continues to hold; (4) signage per LDC § 14-11, noting the Vine Street Overlay carries different regulations under § 14-11-6; (5) all mechanical equipment screened per § 14-5-7; (6) irrigation system plan for all pervious areas showing location, type, connections, meter, rain sensor and backflow preventer, submitted with preliminary site development plans and approved before final construction plan approval per § 14-8-24.
  • Notable Discussion: Altizer's presentation traced the site's history — built 1973 as a retail strip center, occupied most recently by Sound Loco Inc. from 2016 to 2022, currently vacant; previously zoned B-3 General Commercial and reclassified to T5-U with Mixed-Use Vine future land use. He stated the project "supports the Vine Street CRA Master Plan and is encouraged by City staff as a compatible and beneficial addition to the area." No board questions or public comment are recorded.

Public Hearings Summary

  • Number of speakers: 0 — the item was a noticed public hearing, but the minutes record no applicant presentation and no public speakers.
  • General sentiment: No opposition recorded.
  • Key concerns: None raised.

Key Signals

  • A drive-thru restaurant clears the Vine Street CRA on a 10-minute meeting with no applicant in the room. The board recommended approval of CU-24-0014 at 4307 W. Vine Street 5-0 with no recorded questions, no applicant presentation, and no public comment. Staff called the drive-thru "compatible and beneficial" to a corridor whose adopted future land use policy exists specifically to "transform existing strip-style, highway commercial development into a connected series of mixed-use, urban scale neighborhoods." The stated policy and the approved form point in opposite directions, and nothing in the record reconciles them.

  • Bicycle lockers are load-bearing for the parking math. Condition 3 is the sharpest detail in the file: the project qualifies for a 10 percent parking reduction because it provides bicycle lockers, and the City wrote a maintenance obligation into the approval so the parking calculation does not silently fail when the lockers disappear. This is how form-based codes actually get enforced — through a condition that survives the ribbon-cutting. Whether anyone audits it in year five is the open question.

  • A 1973 strip center gets demolished, not adapted. The site sat vacant from 2022. In a corridor with a CRA master plan built around infill and walkability, the market's answer to a vacant 1.41-acre strip center on W. Vine was a teardown for a drive-thru. Anyone forecasting Vine Street's redevelopment trajectory should weight this over the plan language.

  • Kissimmee's board is now three consecutive meetings without its chairman. Bussiere was absent on March 5 and March 19; Marrero-Pinto presided as Vice-Chair both times. Alemi and Bussiere alternate absences across the spring. On a seven-member board that cancelled three of its five scheduled meetings between December 18 and February 19, the working membership is effectively four to five people.

Raw Notes

  • Source provenance: minutes PDF published to CivicClerk as file 8265 ("03.19.2025 PAB Meeting Minutes") under agenda 1925, event 2258.
  • The minutes are headed "MEETING MINTUES" (sic) in the source document.
  • The meeting ran 10 minutes end to end — call to order 6:03 PM, adjournment 6:13 PM — including the minutes approval, one conditional-use public hearing with a six-condition staff report, and the adjournment vote.
  • The Vine Street Overlay's separate signage regime under LDC § 14-11-6 is called out explicitly in the conditions; it is a distinct regulatory layer over the base T5-U district.
  • Board authority note: the Deputy City Attorney's June 4, 2025 board training states the PAB "is the final decision-making body for the City of Kissimmee on applications including Conditional Use Permits with Site Plans and True Works of Art," notwithstanding the board's name. CU-24-0014 is a Conditional Use with Site Plan; the recorded motion is "Approve w/Conditions," not a recommendation.
  • No public comment, no discussion items, and nothing under "Hear Chairman and Board Members."
  • Signed by the Board Chairman and Board Secretary.

Connected records

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