City of Lake Wales Planning and Zoning Board — February 24, 2026

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 members present — quorum confirmed at roll call) Duration: Approximately 1 hour 30 minutes (5:30 PM – 7:00 PM)

Attendance

• Present: Chairperson Kyra Love, Vice Chair Bud Colburn, Casey McKibben, Eric Rio, Scott Blackburn, Mark Bennett
• Absent: Roy Wilkinson (notice of absence given to Secretary prior to the meeting)
• Staff Present: Autumn Cochella (Growth Management Director); Shannon Hancock (Recording Secretary)

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Agenda Items

Item 6: Capo SEUP — Special Exception Use Permit for Outdoor Display and Sales

• Type: Special Exception Use Permit (SEUP) — outdoor display and sales
• Case Number: Not stated in minutes ("Capo SEUP")
• Location: Not specified in minutes; adjacent to an alleyway near Tillman Ave. (per public testimony)
• Applicant: Melinda Kalogridis, authorized agent for the owner
• Request: SEUP to allow outdoor display and sales, with associated signage and outdoor seating
• Current Zoning: Not stated in minutes
• Proposed Zoning: No change (use permit)
• Staff Recommendation: Not explicitly stated; staff report presented by Ms. Hancock with discussion led by Ms. Cochella
• Action: Approved (recommended for approval to City Commission, with conditions)
• Vote: 4–2 (motion passed) — per-member roll-call mapping is OCR-garbled; see ocr caveat
• Conditions: Conditions of approval including a 3-month trial period after which the SEUP returns to the board for review
• Notable Discussion: Ms. Kalogridis spoke to the need for signage and outdoor seating. The only public speaker, Thomas Coatney (resident on Tillman Ave.), raised concerns about the adjacent alleyway — customers damaging the area and running over water meters. The board (McKibben moved, Colburn seconded) attached the 3-month trial as a check on operational impact before granting a longer-term permit.

Item 7: Easy Access SEUP — Special Exception Use Permit for Automotive Sales

• Type: Special Exception Use Permit (SEUP) — automotive sales
• Case Number: Not stated in minutes ("Easy Access")
• Location: Not specified in minutes (existing site with handicap parking and site-circulation constraints)
• Applicant: Ivory Wilson, owner (tenant/operator: Xavier Menckeberg)
• Request: SEUP to allow automotive sales on the site
• Current Zoning: Not stated in minutes (surrounding uses noted as residential)
• Proposed Zoning: No change (use permit)
• Staff Recommendation: Not explicitly stated; staff presented site history (Ms. Cochella) and report (Ms. Hancock)
• Action: Continued (deferred ~2 months for revised site plan) — an initial motion to DENY first failed on a tie
• Vote:
  • Denial motion (Bennett moved, Rio seconded) — based on finding of fact that the use is not compatible with surrounding residential uses: 3–3 tie, motion FAILED
  • Continuance motion (Bennett moved, Rio seconded) — continue ~2 months to review a revised site plan addressing board concerns: 5–1, motion PASSED
• Conditions: None final (item continued); applicant to return with a revised site plan
• Notable Discussion: Owner Ivory Wilson and tenant Xavier Menckeberg discussed automotive-sales operations, access to the handicap parking spot, vehicle storage on site, and site circulation. The board's core concern was compatibility with the surrounding residential neighborhood. After the denial motion deadlocked 3–3, Wilson outlined site-plan amendments that could accommodate the board's concerns; the board chose to continue rather than deny, giving the applicant a path to revise.

Item 8: McKenna Property — Small-Scale Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment and Zoning Map Amendment

• Type: Comp Plan Amendment (small-scale, Future Land Use Map) + Zoning Map Amendment
• Case Number: Not stated in minutes ("McKenna Property")
• Location: Not specified in minutes
• Applicant: McKenna Brothers Inc. and McKenna Family Partnership, owners
• Request: Small-Scale Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment (FLUM) together with a Zoning Map Amendment for the McKenna property
• Current Zoning: Not stated in minutes
• Proposed Zoning: Not stated in minutes (zoning map amendment requested)
• Staff Recommendation: Not explicitly stated; staff report presented by Ms. Cochella
• Action: Approved (recommended for approval to City Commission)
• Vote: Unanimous, 6–0 (all present members voted Yes)
• Conditions: None added at the board level
• Notable Discussion: Ms. Cochella explained the location and presented the staff report; the board discussed with staff. No members of the public spoke. Mr. Rio moved to accept, Mr. Bennett seconded; the motion passed with all present voting in favor.

Item 9: Amendments to Chapter 23 — Zoning, Land Use, and Development Regulations

• Type: Text Amendment (Land Development Regulations — city-initiated)
• Case Number: Not stated in minutes
• Location: Citywide (LDR text amendment)
• Applicant: City of Lake Wales (city-initiated)
• Request: Amendments to Chapter 23 (Zoning, Land Use, and Development Regulations), as amended and shown in the staff presentation
• Current Zoning: N/A (regulatory text)
• Proposed Zoning: N/A
• Staff Recommendation: Approve (staff report presented by Ms. Cochella)
• Action: Approved (recommended for approval to City Commission as amended)
• Vote: Unanimous, 6–0 (all present members voted Yes)
• Conditions: None
• Notable Discussion: Ms. Cochella presented the staff report; the board discussed the proposed changes. No public spoke. Mr. Bennett moved to recommend approval to City Commission for the proposed changes as amended and shown in the presentation; Mr. McKibben seconded. The motion passed unanimously among present members.

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Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 2 public speakers across the docket
  • Item 6 (Capo): Thomas Coatney (Tillman Ave. resident) — concerns about the alleyway, customer damage, and water meters being run over
  • Item 7 (Easy Access): Ivory Wilson (owner) and Xavier Menckeberg (tenant) spoke as applicant/operator; no opposition speakers recorded
  • Items 8 and 9: public hearings opened; no speakers came forward
• General sentiment: Mixed — one neighbor concern on Capo (operational/alleyway impact); the Easy Access automotive SEUP drew a compatibility-driven denial motion from the board itself rather than from the public
• Key concerns:
  • Alleyway damage, signage, and outdoor seating impacts (Capo outdoor display/sales)
  • Compatibility of automotive sales with surrounding residential uses; handicap parking access and on-site vehicle storage (Easy Access)

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Key Signals

• The board is treating SEUPs as conditional bargains, not rubber stamps. Capo's outdoor-display/sales permit passed only 4–2 and only with a built-in 3-month trial period that forces the use back to the board for review. For a homebuyer or commercial tenant in Lake Wales, this signals that even routine retail-activation permits now carry operational probation — approvals come with leashes.
• An automotive-sales SEUP nearly died on compatibility grounds — the board, not the public, drove the opposition. The Easy Access denial motion (use "not compatible with surrounding residential uses") deadlocked 3–3 before the board pivoted to a 2-month continuance for a revised site plan. This is a live compatibility fight on the automotive-corridor docket and a textbook example of the "finding of fact / compatibility" denial logic that House Bill 399-style state preemption is designed to constrain. Investors eyeing auto-sales conversions near residential edges in Lake Wales should expect friction.
• Lake Wales advanced structural regulatory motion inside the SB 180 window. Both the McKenna small-scale comp plan + zoning map amendment (Item 8) and the city-initiated Chapter 23 LDR text amendment (Item 9) cleared the board unanimously and now head to City Commission. These are exactly the post-August-2024 comp-plan and code actions exposed to SB 180 challenge — and Lake Wales is processing them in the closing months before SB 180's June 2026 self-expiration. Watch the Commission adoption ordinance numbers and effective dates.
• A near-split board with a stable swing dynamic. Two of four substantive votes were unanimous (the comp plan and LDR items); two were contested (Capo 4–2; Easy Access denial 3–3). The pattern: structural/regulatory items sail through, but discretionary use permits split the board roughly along a compatibility-vs-property-rights axis. With Wilkinson absent, a 6-member board makes ties (3–3) live possibilities — quorum composition can swing outcomes.

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Raw Notes

• Source: scanned PDF recovered via OCR (tools/ocr-pdf.py); minor OCR artifacts possible.
• Meeting called to order by Chairperson Kyra Love at 5:30 PM; adjourned at 7:00 PM.
• Roll call: Roy Wilkinson absent (notified Secretary in advance); quorum present.
• Consent / minutes approvals at top of meeting:
  • Special Board Meeting minutes of January 13, 2026 — Rio moved, Bennett seconded; passed unanimously.
  • Regular Board Meeting minutes of January 27, 2026 — Colburn moved (with a minor correction), Blackburn seconded; passed unanimously.
• Communications and Petitions: opened by Chair Love; no one came forward; closed.
• Agenda numbering in the source minutes is irregular (New Business is labeled "5." but the first substantive item is numbered "6. Capo SEUP," followed by 7/8/9). Item numbers here follow the source document's labels (6–9).
• OCR caveat — roll-call vote tables: the per-member vote grids were heavily degraded in the scan. The summary tallies stated in prose are treated as authoritative: Capo SEUP = "4 yay / 2 nay" (passed); Easy Access denial = "3 yay / 3 nay" (failed); Easy Access continuance = "5 yay / 1 nay" (passed); McKenna and Chapter 23 = all present voting in favor (recorded here as 6–0). Individual member yes/no mapping within the Capo and Easy Access grids is NOT reliably reconstructable from the OCR and is intentionally omitted rather than guessed.
• OCR caveat — names: "Roy Wilkinson" appears in one vote grid as "Wilkinsen" (single OCR misspelling); standardized to Wilkinson. Member roster cross-checked against the recurring Lake Wales PZB directory: Kyra Love (Chair), Bud Colburn (Vice Chair), Roy Wilkinson, Casey McKibben, Eric Rio, Scott Blackburn, Mark Bennett.
• Attest block at end of minutes signed by Recording Secretary (Shannon Hancock) and Chairperson (Kyra Love); signature lines partly illegible in scan.