Lake County Planning and Zoning Board — May 6, 2026

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 voting members present) Duration: 86 minutes (9:00 AM – 10:26 AM)

Recommendations from this meeting were transmitted to the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) for its public hearing on Tuesday, June 9, 2026. The PZB is an advisory body; the BCC is the deciding authority.

Attendance

• Present: Judith Fike (District 1), Laura Jones Smith (Chairman, District 2), Addie Owens (District 3, arrived 9:03 AM), Dan Tatro (District 5), Sean Lahey (At-Large Representative), Mollie Cunningham (School Board Representative)
• Absent: Carroll Jaskulski (Vice Chairman, District 4), Mark McManus (Ex-Officio Non-Voting Military)
• Staff Present: Janie Barron, Planning Manager; Leslie Regan, Senior Planner; Corey DeVogel, Planner I; Eva Lora, Public Hearing Coordinator; Melanie Marsh, County Attorney; Stephanie Cash, Deputy Clerk, Board Support

Agenda Items

Minutes Approval: April 1, 2026

• Type: Other (procedural)
• Action: Approved as submitted
• Vote: 5-0 (MOTION by Sean Lahey, SECONDED by Mollie Cunningham; FOR: Fike, Jones Smith, Tatro, Lahey, Cunningham) — taken before Owens arrived at 9:03 AM

Consent Agenda (Tabs 4 and 5)

• Type: Other (consent block)
• Request: Approve the consent agenda as reduced to Tabs 4 and 5, pulling Tabs 1 through 3 to the regular agenda.
• Action: Approved
• Vote: 6-0 (MOTION by Mollie Cunningham, SECONDED by Addie Owens; FOR: Fike, Jones Smith, Owens, Tatro, Lahey, Cunningham; AGAINST: None)
• Notable Discussion: Barron reported that staff received opposition correspondence on Tabs 2 and 3, moving both to the regular agenda, and that a memo containing the correspondence was provided to the Board. Owens separately requested Tab 1 be pulled. Only two of six items survived on consent.

Tab 1 (Pulled to Regular): LDR Amendment — HOA Affidavit Requirement for Permits

• Type: Text Amendment (Land Development Regulations)

• Case Number: Ordinance #2026-XX (amending Section 14.14.02, Lake County Code, Appendix E, LDR, entitled Zoning Permits)

• Location: County-wide

• Applicant: Lake County (BCC-generated ordinance; County Attorney Melanie Marsh drafting)

• Request: Require a property owner to submit an affidavit with every zoning-permit application confirming compliance with any applicable architectural-review requirements of a mandatory homeowners' association or with any applicable restrictive covenants.

• Staff Recommendation: Approve

• Action: Approved with two amendments

• Vote: 6-0 (MOTION by Addie Owens, SECONDED by Judith Fike; FOR: Fike, Jones Smith, Owens, Tatro, Lahey, Cunningham; AGAINST: None)

• Conditions: (1) Change the affidavit language from "have complied" to "will comply"; (2) separate out the developer's language under Section F.1.

• Notable Discussion: Barron itemized the changes: removed the Section C provision voiding pre-effective-date zoning permits 90 calendar days from issuance; rephrased "building permit" to "zoning permit" under Section D.4; added estoppel-claim information under Section D.4.c; added the affidavit requirement under Section F.

  Barron explained the operational problem: the County must issue a permit that meets the LDR regardless of whether it meets HOA restrictions, and HOAs then question the County about permits issued against their covenants. Marsh characterized this as a BCC-generated ordinance responding to complaints from architectural review boards, noting that by the time a review board sees construction underway it is "oftentimes too late to stop it without going to court." Marsh was explicit that the affidavit does not stop permitting: if someone lies on the affidavit, the County cannot revoke the permit — it is a civil matter.

  Owens drove the substantive change. She flagged that the affidavit's "have complied" is materially different from "will comply," and warned that "ill-intended HOAs" could use executed affidavits as leverage in private civil suits — that the County "should not give them the leverage to do so." Marsh agreed to the wording change without objection and said she could carry the recommendation to the BCC. Jones Smith separately flagged that the Section F.1 sentence covering new subdivisions still under developer control read as if the developer's representative must submit the affidavit; Marsh clarified it does not, and agreed to separate the developer provision into its own bullet.

Tab 2 (Pulled to Regular): Wiggins CR 439, LLC — Conditional Use Permit

• Type: CUP

• Case Number: Ordinance #2026-XX

• Location: East of County Road 439 and south of CR 44A, in unincorporated Lake County

• Applicant: Wiggins CR 439, LLC; Greg Wiggins, President, Wiggins Brothers Well Drilling. Representatives: Dan Langley (attorney) and Sherie Lindh, LPG Urban and Regional Planners, LLC

• Request: CUP on approximately 20.06 acres to allow a utility service use associated with a well drilling and repair facility, with associated uses, within the Agriculture (A) District.

• Current Zoning: Agriculture (A) District

• Acreage: 20.06 acres

• Staff Recommendation: Consistent with the LDR and Comprehensive Plan

• Action: Approved with one amendment

• Vote: 6-0 (MOTION by Addie Owens, SECONDED by Mollie Cunningham; FOR: Fike, Jones Smith, Owens, Tatro, Lahey, Cunningham; AGAINST: None)

• Conditions: Section 2.B.4 amended to read general hours of operation 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday, excluding necessary emergency operations.

• Notable Discussion: Rural FLUC; located within the Wekiva-Ocala Rural Protection Area and the Wekiva Study Area. Two-phase development: Phase 1 is a 9,399 sq ft warehouse/office plus an existing 3,978 sq ft barn for vehicle and equipment storage; Phase 2 is 9,815 sq ft of flex space for storage and agricultural support services including sale and repair of electrical power equipment for storm/hurricane emergencies. Maximum building height 35 feet. Approximately five employees on site (Wiggins indicated possibly up to 10 later), hours 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

  The definitional question. Jones Smith pressed repeatedly on how a well drilling and repair business qualifies as a "utility service" conditional use in Agriculture zoning. Regan explained the use falls within the LDR definition of a major utility — activities providing essential or important public services — because it is directly tied to water supply infrastructure, and that the Wekiva Study Area strategy of protecting natural resource functions is served by the use. Lindh cited LDR Section 3.01.02(E)(15) and reported that Lake County's 2025 population was 445,881 with approximately 200,867 residents in unincorporated Lake County, many on private wells.

  Jones Smith's dissent-in-substance. She accepted well drilling as a utility use but objected to the bundled generator sales/repair and electrical-plumbing services: "this was a slippery slope, as they were doing retail sales of generators and local repairs." Her core concern was succession, not the current operator — that the CUP runs with the land, and a future owner could expand into equipment rental, retail, or wholesale. Marsh responded that these are ancillary uses policed by Code Enforcement, that exceeding the CUP's scope would trigger enforcement or bring the CUP back, that the County relies on an applicant's recorded statement of intent when interpreting old CUPs after a sale, but that "they could not guarantee that someone's actions in the future would not exceed what was written." Jones Smith pushed for express language prohibiting onsite retail sales; Owens and Tatro declined to include it, Owens arguing that in an emergency retail sales might be necessary. Jones Smith stated her position on the record — that without express prohibition the County would face more aggressive future enforcement — and then voted for the motion anyway. The approved amendment addressed hours of operation only.

  Site design. Lindh reported the concept plan exceeds Wekiva Study Area and Wekiva-Ocala RPA minimums: 70 percent open space preserved against a 35 percent minimum; setbacks of 51 feet minimum from the southern boundary and 63 feet from the northern against a 25-foot minimum, placing the facility over 100 feet from adjacent property boundaries. Environmental assessment found no natural communities, protected species, wetlands, or water bodies on site, and the property is outside the 100-year flood area. Traffic analysis showed minimal impact. Semi-impervious surfaces (asphalt millings) proposed for parking. Existing cattle remain and graze outside the improved area.

  Public opposition — one speaker. Alex Macevicius, who lives across from the site and owns a light industrial business, characterized the proposed use as light industrial in a residential area with horses and other animals, and raised concerns about constant employee traffic, after-hours emergency work, and semi-truck deliveries. Wiggins rebutted that deliveries arrive on box trucks, with semi-truck deliveries roughly three times per year, and that employees leave in the morning for service calls rather than cycling in and out. Wiggins also stated he had spoken with all adjacent neighbors, who supported the project and were glad the land would not become a subdivision.

  Relocation driver. Wiggins testified the business — family-owned since 1939, now in its third and fourth generations — is currently at SR 46 and Round Lake Road in Sorrento, and that the City of Mount Dora is moving toward that area with high-intensity development. The CR 439 site is centrally located to the rural customer base.

Tab 3 (Pulled to Regular): Jones Property — Whitney Road, Rezoning

• Type: Rezoning

• Case Number: Ordinance #2026-XX

• Location: 32600 Whitney Road, in the unincorporated Leesburg area

• Applicant: Randy Jones (owner)

• Request: Rezone approximately 18.76 gross acres from Agriculture (A) to Rural Residential (R-1) to facilitate a minor lot split for a single-family residential dwelling.

• Current Zoning: Agriculture (A) District

• Proposed Zoning: Rural Residential (R-1)

• Acreage: 18.76 gross acres

• Staff Recommendation: Consistent with the LDR and Comprehensive Plan

• Action: Approved as submitted

• Vote: 6-0 (MOTION by Addie Owens, SECONDED by Dan Tatro; FOR: Fike, Jones Smith, Owens, Tatro, Lahey, Cunningham; AGAINST: None)

• Notable Discussion: Urban Low Density FLUC; within the City of Leesburg Interlocal Service Boundary Agreement (ISBA). The request was provided to Leesburg, which raised no objections. Concept plan depicts the rezoning with a minor lot split producing a one-acre parcel.

  The Board knowingly approved a rezoning whose stated purpose cannot be executed as of right. DeVogel confirmed the lot split requires 100 feet of road frontage per parcel, and the property has 180 feet total on Whitney Road — "no matter how they shifted it around it was not mathematically possible." A variance is therefore required. Asked whether the hardship would be self-imposed, DeVogel said staff would perform that analysis and "opined that they would likely deem that it was," while noting the Board of Adjustment decides and "the variance was not even guaranteed to be approved." Jones Smith objected on principle: "they would be rezoning a piece of property for the purpose of a lot split knowing that it would not comply to create a lot split." Owens took the position that the variance was not the PZB's issue to address, and DeVogel agreed.

  DeVogel clarified the downside case: if the variance is denied the property remains R-1 but nothing further can be built, because it already carries a single-family home and an accessory dwelling unit. Parker Point Place cannot serve as frontage — it is effectively the side yard of another property, not public right-of-way — so access must come from Whitney Road on the west. Randy Jones confirmed on the record that he understood a variance was required, that approval was not guaranteed, and that he accepted R-1 zoning even if he could build nothing; he added that he does not take an agricultural property-tax exemption.

Tab 4 (Consent): Development Agreement — Sorrento Avenue, Elkridge

• Type: Development Agreement
• Request: Approve a development agreement for Sorrento Avenue — Elkridge.
• Action: Approved on Consent Agenda
• Vote: 6-0
• Notable Discussion: None — passed on consent without discussion. No staff-report detail available in the minutes record.

Tab 5 (Consent): Development Agreement — Mountain Lake Drive

• Type: Development Agreement
• Request: Approve a development agreement for Mountain Lake Drive.
• Action: Approved on Consent Agenda
• Vote: 6-0
• Notable Discussion: None — passed on consent without discussion. No staff-report detail available in the minutes record.

Tab 6 (Regular): Haines Creek Estates PUD Amendment — Rezoning

• Type: PUD Amendment / Rezoning

• Case Number: Ordinance #2026-XX (amending and restating PUD Ordinance #2023-36)

• Location: South of Goose Creek Road and north of Eagle Point Court, in unincorporated Lake County

• Applicant: Logan Opsahl (applicant's representative)

• Request: Amend and restate PUD Ordinance #2023-36 for the Haines Creek subdivision to amend Section D, Architectural Design Standards.

• Current Zoning: Planned Unit Development (PUD)

• Acreage: 46.43 acres

• Staff Recommendation: Consistent with the LDR and Comprehensive Plan

• Action: Approved as submitted

• Vote: 6-0 (MOTION by Dan Tatro, SECONDED by Addie Owens; FOR: Fike, Jones Smith, Owens, Tatro, Lahey, Cunningham; AGAINST: None)

• Notable Discussion: Previously postponed at the applicant's request at the March 2026 PZB meeting. Urban Low Density FLUC. Requested changes:

  • Remove the roof pitch minimum requirement
  • Remove the specific building material and color requirements for home exteriors
  • Remove language requiring Architectural Design Standards be placed in the HOA's declarations
  • Update transportation improvements: developer to provide pavement resurfacing for the entire length of Goose Creek Road from CR 44 to the development entrance, stabilized shoulders, and updated pavement markings
  • Reduce minimum single-family living area from 1,500 sq ft to 1,200 sq ft

  Opsahl framed the square-footage change as a cleanup — the approved PUD plan reflected 1,200 sq ft while the ordinance text said 1,500 sq ft — and framed the architectural-standards removals as reflecting changes the Florida Legislature made removing the ability of counties and cities to impose those requirements. Marsh supplied the decisive clarification: this PUD was approved about a month before that statute took effect, so the existing ordinance language "was legal as it met the code and statute at the time that it was approved," and the applicant was asking to bring the ordinance under the new statutory provisions — "which was subject to Board approval." Opsahl also asked that the right-turn-lane language for eastbound CR 44 onto Goose Creek Road and Shelly Drive read "as allowed by existing right of way," consistent with the previously approved PUD.

  Jones Smith questioned removing the requirement that Architectural Design Standards be incorporated into HOA declarations; Opsahl said the standards would still appear in the HOA documents. Owens asked who controls the HOA; Marsh said the subdivision is not developed. Owens noted her understanding that an HOA was not required; Marsh stated that per Florida law they are required to have an HOA.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 1 in person (Alex Macevicius, on Tab 2). Written opposition correspondence was received on Tabs 2 and 3 and distributed to the Board by memo.
• General sentiment: Isolated opposition; no organized turnout
• Key concerns:
  • Industrial-character intrusion into a rural-residential area with livestock (Tab 2)
  • After-hours operations, employee traffic, and truck deliveries (Tab 2)
  • Written opposition on Tabs 2 and 3 — content not reproduced in the minutes

Key Signals

• The County wrote a private-covenant notice into the public permitting process, then softened it on the record to avoid arming HOA litigation. The HOA affidavit ordinance requires every zoning-permit applicant to attest to HOA architectural-review or restrictive-covenant compliance — but Marsh stated plainly that the County cannot revoke a permit obtained on a false affidavit, cannot enforce covenants, and treats the matter as civil. The interesting move is Owens's amendment: changing "have complied" to "will comply" specifically so that executed affidavits cannot be used as evidentiary leverage by "ill-intended HOAs" in private suits. A county is being asked to become the notification layer for private governance, and its board is calibrating exactly how much evidentiary weight to hand that private governance. For homeowners in unincorporated Lake County, the practical effect: a new form at the permit counter, and an acknowledgment that your HOA's rules exist — not county enforcement of them.

• A 2023-approved PUD was reopened to import a Florida preemption the developer missed by roughly one month. Haines Creek Estates was approved under Ordinance #2023-36 about a month before the state statute stripping local authority over architectural design standards took effect. Marsh confirmed the existing conditions were lawfully imposed at the time. The applicant returned to strip roof-pitch minimums, exterior material and color requirements, and the HOA-declaration requirement — and to cut minimum home size from 1,500 to 1,200 sq ft — by voluntarily re-opening the ordinance to come under the newer statutory regime. This is the retroactive harvest of preemption: entitlements approved under the old rules do not automatically get the new benefits, so developers come back and ask. Expect this as a repeatable move across every PUD in the county approved in the window before the statute landed. The county extracted Goose Creek Road resurfacing in the trade.

• A rezoning was recommended for a lot split that is mathematically impossible without a variance staff expects to deem self-imposed — and that variance now lands in a board that no longer exists. DeVogel confirmed 180 feet of frontage against a 200-foot requirement, said staff would "likely deem" the hardship self-imposed, and noted approval was not guaranteed. The Board approved 6-0 anyway, with Owens framing the variance as outside PZB's remit and Jones Smith objecting that they were entitling a purpose that cannot be executed. The follow-on matters: Lake County's Board of Adjustment dissolves July 1, 2026, transferring all variances to the elected BCC. The Jones Property variance is a concrete early test of whether the elected body treats a staff-flagged self-imposed hardship the way the appointed criteria-bound board would have.

• Chairman Jones Smith lost the argument on CUP scope creep and put her reasoning on the record anyway. Her position — that a CUP runs with the land, that "essential support services" is vague enough to admit generator retail and electrical/plumbing work, and that a future owner could ride the ambiguity into equipment rental or wholesale — was met by Marsh's answer that Code Enforcement and the Special Magistrate handle it after the fact, and by Owens and Tatro declining to add an express prohibition on onsite retail sales. Only the hours-of-operation language changed. Marsh's own testimony is the tell: the County relies on the original applicant's recorded statement of intent when interpreting old CUPs after a property sells. That makes these minutes the enforcement document. Watch whether the corpus sees Lake County CUPs return for scope disputes on Agriculture-zoned parcels.

• Mount Dora's growth is pushing established rural businesses outward, and the county is absorbing them via CUP. Wiggins Brothers Well Drilling — on the same site since well before this cycle — is relocating from SR 46 and Round Lake Road in Sorrento explicitly because "the City of Mount Dora was moving towards this area with high intensity development." The receiving site is 20.06 acres inside the Wekiva-Ocala Rural Protection Area and Wekiva Study Area, and the applicant bought entry with 70 percent open space against a 35 percent minimum and setbacks roughly double code. This is displacement, not expansion: municipal intensification at the edge converts rural-serving businesses into county CUP applicants, and the environmental overlays set the price of admission. The 200,867 residents of unincorporated Lake County on private wells are the constituency on the other end of that transaction.

Raw Notes

• Source PDF (approved-pzb-minutes-5-6-2026.pdf, 18 pages, 945 KB) yielded clean extractable text via pdfplumber — no OCR required. Minor extraction artifacts from the source scan: "constrnction"/"trncks"/"strnggling" for construction/trucks/struggling; "ofl8" for "of 18"; "und_er" for "under"; "infonnation" for "information"; "rnral" for "rural"; "Ms. Opsahl" appears once where "Mr. Opsahl" is meant.
• The agenda for this meeting was harvested separately on 2026-06-04 and now lives at 2026-05-agenda-PZB.md (renamed from 2026-05-meeting-PZB.md during this harvest to match corpus convention, since it is an agenda-derived document). That agenda document carries deeper staff-report detail on Tab 1 (HOA affidavit ordinance text) and Tab 6 (Haines Creek) than the minutes do.
• Tabs 4 and 5 (Development Agreements for Sorrento Avenue — Elkridge and Mountain Lake Drive) passed on consent with no discussion recorded. The minutes carry no location, applicant, acreage, or terms for either. Staff reports for development agreements do not appear in the PlanningZoningStaffReports FTP directory for this date. Detail must be backfilled from the BCC June 9, 2026 packet if needed.
• Agenda updates: Barron confirmed cases were duly noticed; opposition correspondence received on Tabs 2 and 3 moved both to the regular agenda, with a memo provided to the Board. The correspondence itself is not reproduced in the minutes.
• Public Comment (general): no one wished to address the Board.
• Other Business: Barron announced the next meeting for June 3, 2026.
• Owens's aside to Wiggins — asking whether they planned "on being in the wedding venue business any time soon" — is a callback to the April 1, 2026 Blueberry Farms CUP (wedding venue in an existing packing house, approved on consent).
• Lindh cited Bureau of Economic and Business Research figures: Lake County population 445,881 as of 2025, approximately 200,867 in unincorporated Lake County.
• Wiggins Brothers Well Drilling founded 1939 by Greg Wiggins's grandfather and great uncle; Greg Wiggins is third generation with three sons in the business as the fourth.
• Marsh noted the ordinance's 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM Monday–Friday hours could itself create a Code Enforcement violation given testimony about after-hours emergency response, which prompted the amendment.