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Meetings · Montverde

Montverde Planning and Zoning Board — June 10, 2026 agenda

Town of Montverde Planning and Zoning Board — June 10, 2026 (Agenda; Minutes Pending)

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting — held; minutes not yet published as of 2026-08-15 Quorum: Unknown — attendance is recorded only in the unpublished minutes Duration: Unknown Location: Town Hall, 17404 Sixth Street, Montverde, FL 34756

Attendance

  • Present: [not available — minutes pending]
  • Absent: [not available — minutes pending]
  • Staff Present: [not available — minutes pending]

Rostered on the agenda: Karin Arellano, Chairwoman; Aaron Wadsworth, Vice-Chair; Josie Weiss; Holly Broecker; Michael Whidden. Staff: Paul Larino, Town Manager; Anita Geraci-Carver, Town Attorney; Sean Parks, Town Planner; Lisa Busto, Associate Town Planner; Caroline Trepanier, Town Clerk; Iman Rashid, Administrative Assistant.

Status of the record

The Town's per-meeting record page for this meeting publishes the agenda packet and a South Lake TV video link, and lists the Minutes slot as "Pending Documents." The meeting is not marked cancelled — the Town labels cancelled meetings explicitly, as it did for September 23, 2025. The meeting was held; the written minutes had not been published 66 days later.

Consequence: the votes taken on June 10, 2026 are not in the written public record at the time of this harvest. This document reports what was noticed and what the staff report recommended. It does not report an outcome, because no outcome is published.

Agenda Items

Item 1: Approval of Minutes — March 11, 2026

  • Type: Other (procedural)
  • Case Number: N/A
  • Location: N/A
  • Applicant: Town of Montverde
  • Request: Approve the minutes of the March 11, 2026 Planning & Zoning Board meeting.
  • Action: Approved — the signed, attested March 11, 2026 minutes are carried in this meeting's own agenda packet at PDF pages 3–5.

Item 2: Ordinance No. 2026-03 — Maximum Slope / Lot Grading (LDC § 4-52(c))

  • Type: Text Amendment (Land Development Code)
  • Case Number: Ordinance No. 2026-03 (draft V1, dated 5/19/2026; staff report V1, dated 6/2/26)
  • Location: Townwide — all construction within the Town of Montverde
  • Applicant: Town of Montverde (Town-initiated ordinance)
  • Request: Amend Sec. 4-52(c), Article III, Chapter 4 of the Land Development Code to prohibit construction with slopes exceeding a 45 percent grade and to encourage a maximum slope of 5:1 or flatter. The redline strikes the existing prohibition on slopes steeper than 4:1 and substitutes "Slopes shall not exceed a 45% grade. A maximum slope of 5:1 or flatter is encouraged."
  • Current Zoning: N/A (townwide standard)
  • Proposed Zoning: N/A
  • Acreage: N/A
  • Staff Recommendation: Approve — staff recommended the board forward Ordinance 2026-03 to Town Council with a recommendation of approval, on the finding that the amendment "improves grading and drainage standards and is consistent with the Town's responsibility to protect public health, safety, and welfare."
  • Action: [not available — minutes pending]
  • Vote: [not available — minutes pending]
  • Conditions: [not available — minutes pending]
  • Notable Discussion: [not available — minutes pending]

What the staff report states, verbatim in substance:

  • The ordinance would establish an absolute maximum allowable slope of 45% grade and encourage a preferred grading standard of 5:1 or flatter where feasible.
  • It maintains requirements for certified topographic surveys and lot grading plans, and continues to require grading plans depicting finished elevations, drainage transitions, driveway slopes, pools, concrete areas, and runoff control.
  • It retains provisions governing retaining walls, environmental drainage swales, and compaction verification where fill is used, and continues to prohibit stormwater runoff onto adjacent properties except into approved common lot swales.
  • The stated reason for the change is that existing development could not comply. Verbatim from the staff report background: "Montverde's topography has proven to be a challenge for homebuilders and developers and some of the existing development in the Town was not able to meet the current 25% maximum slope requirement. While it is important to continue limiting grading conditions for the reasons above, it has been determined that a maximum slope of 45% is more achievable and acceptable for hillside development, while still meeting the requirements for safety, functionality, and stability."
  • Scheduled path: Planning & Zoning June 10, 2026; Town Council 1st hearing July 14, 2026; Town Council 2nd/adoption hearing August 11, 2026.
  • Business Impact Estimate filed under § 166.041(4) Fla. Stat.: no economic impact, no compliance costs, no new charge or fee, no regulatory costs, no businesses impacted.
  • Surviving standards preserved in the redline: retaining walls over 60 inches are not allowed; walls 36 inches and over require a decorative aluminum handrail per the Florida Building Code; walls over 36 inches require design certification by a state-registered engineer; wood retaining walls are prohibited; stem walls are stated as more desirable than retaining walls in difficult grading conditions.
  • Lots triggering the grading-plan requirement: infill lots and new/existing subdivision lots with any slope exceeding four percent, and all lots in the Lake Florence and Lake Apopka storm drainage basins, which the code deems "of special concern."
  • Owner pays the Town engineer's review costs as approved by Town Council. Variances to Sec. 4-52 are submitted to the Planning and Zoning Board.

Public Hearings Summary

[not available — minutes pending]

Ordinance 2026-03 was noticed as a public hearing item. Whether anyone spoke, and what they said, is recorded only in the unpublished minutes and in the South Lake TV video record.

Key Signals

  • Montverde is proposing to loosen its maximum construction slope from 25% to 45%, and the stated reason is that existing houses do not comply. The staff report says so directly: "some of the existing development in the Town was not able to meet the current 25% maximum slope requirement." This is a code being conformed to the built condition rather than the built condition to the code. On the hills above Lake Apopka, a 45% grade is roughly a 24-degree slope — nearly double the steepness previously permitted. Every hillside lot in town gains buildable area on the day this passes.

  • The Business Impact Estimate claims the change has no economic impact, which cannot be reconciled with its purpose. The Town filed the § 166.041(4) estimate declaring no economic impact, no compliance costs, no fees, and no businesses affected. The staff report's own background says the amendment exists because "Montverde's topography has proven to be a challenge for homebuilders and developers." An amendment that unlocks hillside lots for homebuilders is not economically neutral. The estimate is a compliance filing, not an analysis, and should be read as such.

  • Ordinance 2026-03 is missing from both Council hearings it was scheduled for. The staff report set Council first reading for July 14, 2026 and adoption for August 11, 2026. Ordinance 2026-03 appears on neither published Council agenda. Meanwhile Ordinance 2026-04 — the HB 803 building-permit compliance amendment — has been adopted and published on the Town's ordinances index, so the number series moved past 2026-03 without it. Something happened to this ordinance between the P&Z hearing and Council, and the June 10 minutes that would explain it are unpublished.

  • The minutes for a held meeting are 66 days overdue, and this board has a documented backlog habit. The Town's own notice page marks the June 10 minutes "Pending Documents." That is not unusual here: the November 2025, December 2025 and January 2026 minutes were all approved in one sitting on March 11, 2026, and the March 11, 2026 minutes were never published standalone — they surfaced only inside this June 10 packet. The reliable way to obtain Montverde P&Z minutes is to read the next meeting's agenda packet, not the minutes index. Whenever the board next meets, the June 10 minutes should appear at pages 3-onward of that packet.

  • Slope variances stay with this board even as final plats leave it. Sec. 4-52(g) preserves the rule that variances to the grading standards "will be submitted for review to the planning and zoning board." Set against the July 2025 disclosure that final plat approval moved to administrative review, the board's remaining jurisdiction is concentrating in discretionary relief — variances, CUPs, PUD conditions — rather than plan-stage sign-off. This is the shape the board's docket is taking.

  • The two Lake basins are named in code as "of special concern." Every lot in the Lake Florence and Lake Apopka storm drainage basins triggers the certified-survey and lot-grading-plan requirement regardless of slope. For a buyer or builder, basin membership — not lot size or zoning — is what determines whether a Montverde parcel carries the engineering burden.

Raw Notes

  • Source provenance: The June 10, 2026 agenda packet is a 16-page PDF, mostly scanned; pages 15–16 (the Business Impact Estimate) carry an embedded text layer, and pages 1–14 were recovered by OCR (tools/ocr-pdf.py, 300 DPI, PSM 1). Packet contents: agenda (pp. 1–2), approved March 11, 2026 minutes (pp. 3–5), Ordinance 2026-03 staff report (pp. 6–7), draft Ordinance 2026-03 with redline (pp. 8–14), Business Impact Estimate (pp. 15–16).
  • Verification that the meeting was held, not cancelled: the Town's per-meeting record page at https://mymontverde.com/town-meetings/planning-zoning-board-meeting-wednesday-june-10-2026-at-630-pm-at-town-hall/ presents the agenda packet for download, offers a "Watch Recording — Full meeting video on South Lake TV" link, and shows the Minutes slot as "Pending Documents." No cancellation label appears anywhere — contrast the September 23, 2025 entry, which the Town labels "– Cancelled" in both the filename and the document index.
  • Ordinance 2026-03 absence from Council agendas, verified: the July 14, 2026 Council agenda packet (00-TC-Regular-Meeting-07-14-2026-Agenda-Packet-Rev-1.pdf, 206 pp.) lists under Public Hearings only Resolutions 2026-22 and 2026-23. The August 11, 2026 Council agenda lists only Resolutions 2026-24, 2026-25, 2026-26, 2026-27, 2026-28 and 2026-29. The Town's Ordinances & Resolutions index publishes adopted Ordinances 2026-01, 2026-02 and 2026-04 but no 2026-03. This establishes non-appearance, not the reason for it.
  • The OCR of the agenda page renders the ordinance title's ratio as "5:4" where the ordinance body, the staff report and the Business Impact Estimate all read 5:1. 5:1 is correct.
  • Ordinance 2026-03's recitals contain a drafting inconsistency worth noting: the WHEREAS clause states "lot grading with slopes steeper than 4:1 is not allowed within the Town of Montverde," while the staff report describes the existing standard as a 25% maximum slope. A 4:1 slope is 25%, so the two are consistent — the recital states the ratio and the staff report the percentage.
  • Related Council activity in the same period, relevant to Montverde's land-use trajectory: Resolution 2026-05 adopting a Joint Planning Agreement with Lake County; Resolution 2026-03 proposing extension of the Town's water utility by constructing a Lower Floridan well; Ordinance 2026-01 and Ordinance 2026-02 bringing the Hills of Montverde and Montverde Estates wastewater systems into the Town code; and on the August 11, 2026 Council agenda, Resolution 2026-26 supporting Lake County acquisition and permanent conservation of property in the Ferndale Special Area, Resolution 2026-27 asking the County to impose commercial vehicle weight limits on county-maintained roads inside town limits, and a Town Manager Search Schedule Discussion.
  • Canonical per-meeting record page: https://mymontverde.com/town-meetings/planning-zoning-board-meeting-wednesday-june-10-2026-at-630-pm-at-town-hall/

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