What were the most significant items on the Lake Wales Planning and Zoning Board agenda for March 2026?

Meeting Reading

Lake Wales Planning and Zoning Board

March 24, 2026

8 items on the agenda

**Grove-to-rooftops, said out loud by a Hunt.** Ellis Hunt — of the citrus family whose name is on Hunt Brothers Road — stood at the podium and explained why orange groves are transitioning out of agriculture, on the record, during a hearing that rezoned grove-adjacent land for 47+ acres of R-3 apartments. This is the agricultural-to-residential conversion engine of Polk's growth (Polk was the fastest-growing U.S. county in 2025, per Bud Colburn's own board application) narrated by the family selling the land. For anyone tracking the SR 60 corridor west of Lake Wales, this is the conversion thesis in its purest form.
**Chamber/EDC lobbied for incentives minutes before the incentive ordinance passed.** Skip Alford (Chamber/EDC) used the open communications period to advocate for development incentives, and the Board then recommended adoption of Ordinance 2026-03 — the Chapter 23 amendment carrying those incentives — 6-0. The choreography (advocate in public comment, then adopt) signals a coordinated economic-development posture. Lake Wales is building incentives INTO its land development code, not just its budget — a structural pro-growth move distinct from the defensive code-tightening seen in the Lake County resistance cities.
**A board member named water as the reason to rewrite the landscape code.** Commissioner Rio's directive to revisit landscape code 23-307 "based on what the city would like to see" — with the explicit note that "water is an issue" — is the regional water-constraint theme (the binding constraint across the corpus, ahead of traffic) surfacing as a board-initiated code action in Polk County. Watch for a landscape-code text amendment in coming months; it would be a Polk-side exhibit for the water-as-binding-constraint convergence.

On March 24, 2026, City of Lake Wales's Planning and Zoning Board considered 8 agenda items. **Grove-to-rooftops, said out loud by a Hunt.** Ellis Hunt — of the citrus family whose name is on Hunt Brothers Road — stood at the podium and explained why orange groves are transitioning out of agriculture, on the record, during a hearing that rezoned grove-adjacent land for 47+ acres of R-3 apartments. This is the agricultural-to-residential conversion engine of Polk's growth (Polk was the fastest-growing U.S. county in 2025, per Bud Colburn's own board application) narrated by the family selling the land. For anyone tracking the SR 60 corridor west of Lake Wales, this is the conversion thesis in its purest form. **Chamber/EDC lobbied for incentives minutes before the incentive ordinance passed.** Skip Alford (Chamber/EDC) used the open communications period to advocate for development incentives, and the Board then recommended adoption of Ordinance 2026-03 — the Chapter 23 amendment carrying those incentives — 6-0. The choreography (advocate in public comment, then adopt) signals a coordinated economic-development posture. Lake Wales is building incentives INTO its land development code, not just its budget — a structural pro-growth move distinct from the defensive code-tightening seen in the Lake County resistance cities. **A board member named water as the reason to rewrite the landscape code.** Commissioner Rio's directive to revisit landscape code 23-307 "based on what the city would like to see" — with the explicit note that "water is an issue" — is the regional water-constraint theme (the binding constraint across the corpus, ahead of traffic) surfacing as a board-initiated code action in Polk County. Watch for a landscape-code text amendment in coming months; it would be a Polk-side exhibit for the water-as-binding-constraint convergence.

CHANGE LENS

THE READINGmeeting record

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

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 members present) Duration: Approximately 1 hour 35 minutes (5:30 PM – 7:05 PM)

Note: These minutes were harvested as a DRAFT embedded in the May 26, 2026 agenda packet (item 3.I, "3.24.2026 DRAFT.PDF"). They are pending the Board's approval at the May 26, 2026 meeting. Treated as approved-pending here.

Attendance

Present: Chairperson Kyra Love, Vice Chair Bud Colburn, Casey McKibben, Eric Rio, Scott Blackburn, Mark Bennett
Absent: Roy Wilkinson (notified secretary in advance; quorum maintained)
Staff Present: Autumn Cochella (Growth Management Director), Shannon Hancock (Recording Secretary)

Agenda Items

Item 3: Approval of Minutes — February 24, 2026

Type: Procedural (minutes approval)
Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous (Rio moved, Blackburn seconded)
Notable Discussion: None.

Item 4: Communications and Petitions — EDC Incentives Remarks

Type: Other (public comment / informational)
Applicant: Skip Alford, President/CEO, Lake Wales Chamber of Commerce and EDC
Request: Not a formal application — Alford addressed the Board on the importance of economic-development incentives, what they are, why they are requested, the different types, and how they help bring jobs to the community.
Action: No action (informational)
Notable Discussion: This appearance reads as advance lobbying tied to Item 6's incentive-bearing Chapter 23 text amendment. The Chamber/EDC publicly framing incentives in the open-comment period directly ahead of the incentive ordinance is a coordinated economic-development push.

Item 6: Ordinance 2026-03 — Amendments to Chapter 23 (Zoning, Land Use, and Development Regulations)

Type: Text Amendment
Case Number: Ordinance 2026-03
Location: Citywide (LDC chapter)
Applicant: City of Lake Wales (city-initiated; presented by Sara Irvine, Special Projects Administrator)
Request: Amend Chapter 23 to add/establish economic-development incentives within the zoning, land use, and development regulations.
Staff Recommendation: Recommend adoption
Action: Recommended to City Commission for adoption
Vote: Passed by roll call — Yes votes recorded for Love, Colburn, McKibben, Rio, Blackburn, Bennett (Wilkinson absent). Effectively 6-0.
Conditions: None
Notable Discussion: Sara Irvine presented and fielded Board discussion alongside Cochella. This is the continuation of the multi-year Chapter 23 amendment workstream — the incentive provisions are the substance the Chamber/EDC publicly endorsed earlier in the meeting.

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

Type: SEUP (automotive sales)
Case Number: Not stated in minutes
Location: Not stated in minutes
Applicant: Ivory Wilson, owner
Request: Special Exception Use Permit to allow automotive sales.
Staff Recommendation: Approve with waivers of strict compliance and conditions of approval
Action: Approved
Vote: Passed by roll call — Yes votes for Love, Colburn, McKibben, Rio, Blackburn, Bennett (Wilkinson absent). Effectively 6-0.
Conditions: Waivers of strict compliance and conditions of approval, accepted as part of the motion ("accept the project as is with the waivers of strict compliance and conditions of approval").
Notable Discussion: Cochella explained changes made to the project; Hancock presented the staff report and location. No public spoke. This is at least the third automotive/outdoor-commercial SEUP in the recent Lake Wales cycle — the board continues to process commercial-corridor specialty uses through the SEUP gate.

Item 8: Hunt Club Grove — Major Modification to SEUP for Residential PDP

Type: PUD / PDP (major modification to a Special Exception Use Permit for a Residential Planned Development Project)
Applicant: Dave Schmitt, P.E.
Request: Major modification of an approved SEUP for a Residential Planned Development Project.
Action: Pulled from agenda (not heard)
Vote: None
Notable Discussion: Item was pulled from the agenda; no hearing occurred. Forward signal — expect this to return on a future docket.

Item 9: HB Mixed-Use — FLUM Amendment, Zoning Map Amendment & SEUP for Residential PDP

Type: Comp Plan Amendment (Future Land Use Map) + Rezoning (Zoning Map) + PUD/PDP (SEUP for a Residential Planned Development Project)
Case Number: Not stated in minutes
Location: Near State Road 60 / Hunt Brothers Road; adjacent to Taylor Groves; contingent on a separate annexation ordinance
Applicant: David Holden, Landmark Engineering Manager (authorized agent for the developer)
Request: FLUM amendment to MDR (Medium Density Residential), zoning map amendment to R-3 Residential, and SEUP for a Residential PDP — contingent upon adoption of the annexation ordinance.
Proposed Zoning: R-3 Residential
Staff Recommendation: Approve (Cochella presented staff report; expressed confidence the developer would achieve concurrency and coordinate with FDOT on the SR 60 / Hunt Brothers Road intersection)
Action: Recommended to City Commission for approval
Vote: Passed by roll call — Yes votes for Love, Colburn, McKibben, Rio, Blackburn, Bennett (Wilkinson absent). Effectively 6-0.
Conditions: FLUM of MDR and zoning of R-3 contingent on adoption of the annexation ordinance; waivers of strict compliance for R-3 Residential and R-3 single-family-attached standards; conditions of approval to include adjusting the configuration of the apartments facing Hunt Brothers Road.
Notable Discussion: Two new residents spoke. Moises Cid (recently moved here) raised difficulty finding a school for his son and the need for more schools. LaSharon Matthews (recently moved to Taylor Groves) asked for clarification on the development phases and voiced concerns about schools, traffic on State Road 60, jobs, and upcoming development. Ellis Hunt (Hunt family / citrus) spoke at length about the citrus industry and why many orange groves are transitioning out of agriculture — a candid local statement on the grove-to-rooftops conversion driving Polk's growth. Cochella addressed concurrency and the FDOT coordination expectation for the SR 60 intersection.

Item 10: Hickory Ridge — FLUM Amendment and Zoning Map Amendment

Type: Comp Plan Amendment (Future Land Use Map) + Rezoning (Zoning Map)
Case Number: Not stated in March minutes (returns May 26 as Ord 2026-15 FLUM / Ord 2026-16 Zoning)
Location: West of Capps Road, north of SR 60 (~47 acres; Hickory Ridge Estates, a 73-lot single-family subdivision designed/approved/platted under County LDRs)
Applicant: City Planning Staff (city-initiated, to assign City designations to recently annexed land)
Request: Assign FLUM and zoning designations to land annexed in 2025 under a binding annexation agreement (Garden Street Communities petitioned 2021 in exchange for municipal water; became contiguous and was annexed 2025).
Staff Recommendation: Approve
Action: Approved (recommended for approval)
Vote: Passed by roll call — Yes votes for Love, Colburn, McKibben, Rio, Blackburn, Bennett (Wilkinson absent). Effectively 6-0.
Conditions: None added
Notable Discussion: Mr. Bennett raised a notice-defect concern — the parcel IDs on the legal advertisement did not include the subdivision number. The Board discussed it with Cochella but proceeded to recommend approval anyway. (See Key Signals — this re-advertisement issue likely explains why Hickory Ridge returns to the May 26 agenda as Ord 2026-15/16.)

Item (New Business): Rio Landscape-Code / Water Directive

Type: Text Amendment (board-initiated study directive)
Applicant: Commissioner Eric Rio (board member)
Request: Direct the planning department to confer with the City's horticulturist and review landscape code Section 23-307 for adjustments aligned with what the city wants to see, explicitly noting that "water is an issue."
Action: Approved (directive to staff)
Vote: Unanimous voice vote ("All in favor")
Notable Discussion: Cochella moved that staff get with the horticulturist and review the landscape code for adjustments; Rio accepted the motion; McKibben seconded. A board member explicitly naming water scarcity as the driver of a landscape-code rewrite is the regional water-constraint theme surfacing at the Polk/Lake Wales board level.

Public Hearings Summary

Number of speakers: 4 (Skip Alford — Chamber/EDC on incentives, in communications; Moises Cid — schools; LaSharon Matthews — schools/traffic/phasing on HB Mixed-Use; Ellis Hunt — citrus/grove conversion on HB Mixed-Use)
General sentiment: No formal opposition voted against any item; resident speakers on HB Mixed-Use were concerned but not oppositional (infrastructure/school capacity questions, not "deny this")
Key concerns:
- School capacity for a fast-growing residential corridor (raised by two new-resident speakers)
- Traffic on State Road 60 and the SR 60 / Hunt Brothers Road intersection (concurrency / FDOT)
- Legal-advertisement notice defect on Hickory Ridge (parcel IDs missing subdivision number) — raised by a board member, not the public

Key Signals

Grove-to-rooftops, said out loud by a Hunt. Ellis Hunt — of the citrus family whose name is on Hunt Brothers Road — stood at the podium and explained why orange groves are transitioning out of agriculture, on the record, during a hearing that rezoned grove-adjacent land for 47+ acres of R-3 apartments. This is the agricultural-to-residential conversion engine of Polk's growth (Polk was the fastest-growing U.S. county in 2025, per Bud Colburn's own board application) narrated by the family selling the land. For anyone tracking the SR 60 corridor west of Lake Wales, this is the conversion thesis in its purest form.
Chamber/EDC lobbied for incentives minutes before the incentive ordinance passed. Skip Alford (Chamber/EDC) used the open communications period to advocate for development incentives, and the Board then recommended adoption of Ordinance 2026-03 — the Chapter 23 amendment carrying those incentives — 6-0. The choreography (advocate in public comment, then adopt) signals a coordinated economic-development posture. Lake Wales is building incentives INTO its land development code, not just its budget — a structural pro-growth move distinct from the defensive code-tightening seen in the Lake County resistance cities.
A board member named water as the reason to rewrite the landscape code. Commissioner Rio's directive to revisit landscape code 23-307 "based on what the city would like to see" — with the explicit note that "water is an issue" — is the regional water-constraint theme (the binding constraint across the corpus, ahead of traffic) surfacing as a board-initiated code action in Polk County. Watch for a landscape-code text amendment in coming months; it would be a Polk-side exhibit for the water-as-binding-constraint convergence.
HB Mixed-Use approval is conditioned on annexation — the comp-plan-plus-rezoning-plus-PDP-plus-annexation bundle. The Board recommended MDR/R-3 plus a residential PDP SEUP, all contingent on a separate annexation ordinance, with a design condition (reconfigure apartments facing Hunt Brothers Road). This is the full annexation-into-entitlement stack that Polk's edge cities run to convert county grove land into city apartments — and the contingency on annexation is the jurisdictional lever.
Hunt Club Grove got pulled; Hickory Ridge had a notice defect — two PDP/annexation items wobbling. Hunt Club Grove (a major PDP modification) was pulled from the agenda entirely, and Hickory Ridge advanced despite a board-flagged legal-advertisement defect (parcel IDs lacking the subdivision number). Hickory Ridge then reappears on the May 26 agenda as fresh ordinances (2026-15/16) — strong evidence the March action was re-noticed/re-run to cure the advertising defect. Procedural friction is accumulating on the residential-PDP pipeline.

Raw Notes

Roll-call votes in the source are presented as a 7-name grid; "Yes" cells appear under the present members and Wilkinson's column is blank (absent). All recorded substantive votes passed with the six present members voting yes — recorded here as effectively 6-0. Exact per-name tallies for Item 6/7/9/10 are not individually broken out beyond "Yes" cells in the grid.
The minutes are an embedded DRAFT (item 3.I in the May 26 packet) and were up for approval at the May 26, 2026 meeting.
Meeting adjourned 7:05 PM. Attested by Recording Secretary Shannon Hancock; signed by Chairperson (Love).
Bud Colburn's reappointment application (in the same packet) notes he has served on the P&Z Board since July 2023 and on the Code Enforcement Board July 2022–July 2023; resident of Lake Ashton; describes Polk County as "the fastest growing county in the United States (2025)."
Hickory Ridge background (from the May 26 staff report in the same packet): Garden Street Communities petitioned for annexation in August 2021 in exchange for municipal water; the 73-lot subdivision was designed/approved/platted under County LDRs; became contiguous and was annexed in 2025; lots served by City water but septic tanks (no City sewer yet available). Proposed City designations: LDR Low Density Residential (FLUM) / R-1B Residential (zoning).