City of Mount Dora Planning and Zoning Commission — February 19, 2025

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (7 of 7 members present — full board) Duration: 10:00 AM – 12:11 PM (2 hours 11 minutes) Location: City Hall Board Room, 510 North Baker Street

Attendance

• Present: Miles Beach, Adrian Coombes, Tom Dring, Barbara Tietmeyer, Harris Turner, Andrea Lother, Suzanne Scheck
• Absent: None
• Staff Present: Michele Janiszewski, Senior Planner; Ryan Winkler, Senior Planner; Whitney Scott, Administrative Coordinator; Andrew Hand, City Attorney

Presenters: Michele Janiszewski, Senior Planner; Brett Tobias, Halff; Austin Guenther, G3 Development; Robby Joshi, Metro Architecture.

Elections: Miles Beach nominated Chair 7-0 (moved Coombes, seconded Tietmeyer); Adrian Coombes nominated Vice-Chair 7-0 (moved Tietmeyer, seconded Beach). Both accepted.

Prior minutes: approved 7-0 (moved Coombes, seconded Tietmeyer). The minutes text records the approved set as "January 17, 2024"; the meeting actually preceding this one was January 15, 2025, and the January 15, 2025 minutes are the document carried in this meeting's agenda packet.

Agenda Items

Item 1: Waterman Village Expansion — PUD Amendment (PUD24-02)

• Type: PUD Amendment
• Case Number: PUD24-02 (amending PUD Ordinance 2018-08)
• Location: Waterman Village; Fiddler Road runs along the north side of the property; Grandview Road extension discussed
• Applicant: Lakeside at Waterman Village, LLC (owner and applicant); Halff Associates, Inc. (engineer)
• Request: Extend the expiration date of PUD Ordinance 2018-08 by an additional five years.
• Current Zoning: PUD (Ordinance 2018-08, expired one year after approval)
• Proposed Zoning: PUD, extended
• Acreage: [not available]
• Staff Recommendation: Approve — staff found the request consistent with the Land Development Code and Comprehensive Plan
• Action: Recommended for approval to City Council, for four years rather than the five requested
• Vote: [tally not recorded — moved Tietmeyer, seconded Coombes]
• Conditions: "Subject to a yet to be determined density of plantings within the existing buffer that's established in the PUD."
• Notable Discussion:
  • The applicant said the quiet part on the record. Tobias stated there is no construction schedule for phase two — "they are at the mercy of what the market is" — and that water is vested, the sewer isn't. He confirmed the site plan is contingent on the City having capacity, and that "another reason they are requesting the extension is due to no capacity."
  • Janiszewski confirmed the PUD is served by Wastewater Treatment Plant 2. Tobias said the Plant 2 expansion is "several years out" with a feasibility study ongoing.
  • The board's stated worry: "in four years, there will still be no capacity." Tobias replied they understand the City won't approve without capacity.
  • Traffic: the existing study is seven years old. Janiszewski confirmed a phase-two site plan would require an updated traffic study, and that if the traffic study doesn't support the density, the site plan couldn't be approved.
  • A site development permit was issued for phase one only, not phase two. Tobias said the original intent was to build phase two immediately but the pandemic halted it; the phase-two site permit was pulled but construction never commenced.
  • Fiddler Road on the north side was constructed with the project as a condition of the original PUD and has been deeded to the City of Mount Dora but is not open because it doesn't connect to anything. Janiszewski confirmed it must connect to another road before it can open.
  • Buffers: Tobias said the existing retention pond on the east side is part of the master system and cannot be reconfigured; widening the buffer "does jeopardize the ability to build those units" (four units). The board considered leaving buffer width alone and adding planting density instead. Tobias said most cities don't like granting variances after the fact in a PUD scenario, but the applicant would be open to planting extra shrubs and trees within the existing buffer width — which is what the motion condition became.
  • Janiszewski clarified Grandview Road will be a City road, and that the Yardly buffers were already approved through the county.
  • Janiszewski noted the typical extension is one year and is at the board's discretion, with the board recommending and Council deciding.

Item 2: Mount Dora Small Bay Warehouses — PUD Amendment (PUD24-01)

• Type: PUD Amendment
• Case Number: PUD24-01
• Location: 1649 Lincoln Avenue
• Applicant: Lincoln 1649, LLC (owner); Metro Architecture Partnership (applicant); Tawill Engineering, Inc. (engineer); Landscape Dynamics (landscape architect)
• Request: PUD amendment with a new master plan, extending the expiration from one year to four years. Returning after being tabled January 15, 2025 over inaccurate elevations.
• Current Zoning: PUD
• Proposed Zoning: PUD, amended
• Acreage: [not available]
• Staff Recommendation: Approve
• Action: Recommended for approval to City Council with conditions
• Vote: [tally not recorded — moved Beach, seconded Tietmeyer]
• Conditions: (1) change from a one-year to a four-year extension; (2) reject the current landscaping plan and revise the Master PUD Plan so landscaping "shall be consistent with the Land Development Code at the time of site plan approval"; (3) higher elevation standards; (4) elevations labeled correctly and re-labeled to clearly indicate Building One fronts Lincoln Avenue and that the façade will have no overhead doors facing Lincoln directly.
• Notable Discussion:
  • The wastewater workaround surfaced and was rejected. Janiszewski stated the applicant had proposed to use a wastewater treatment plant that didn't meet the City's criteria. Staff would allow a self-contained package plant on a property that meets requirements for sewer availability but can't connect because of capacity. The applicant instead revised the plan to request the four-year extension.
  • Hand's read on package plants, stated later in Other Business: "practically speaking, to his knowledge package plants have been prohibited." Staff comments from Josh Kramm on septic tank design were referenced.
  • Janiszewski made the definitional point that governs the whole city: "code defines availability, doesn't take into consideration for capacity." Sewer can be legally "available" at a parcel that cannot actually be connected.
  • Hand noted that if the applicant later asked for a package plant, they would have to come back to the board to amend the master plan; if viable it can be considered.
  • The board said a brand-new master plan should be submitted rather than an amendment. Janiszewski said a new master plan has been proposed, and that staff used the existing PUD as the vehicle — "essentially will be a new ordinance and is just processed as an amendment."
  • Janiszewski said the applicant's proposed landscaping buffers exceed code requirements; the board nonetheless rejected the landscaping plan in favor of code-at-time-of-site-plan.
  • Elevations: Joshi acknowledged the elevations were mislabeled and clarified there are three buildings, with the front façade hiding the two rear buildings. Guenther described the north elevation as what is visible driving down Lincoln, with roll-up doors at the back. The board said elevations must be corrected before a recommendation goes forward.
  • Janiszewski confirmed the item won't be placed on the City Council agenda until updated elevations are submitted and reviewed.

Item 3: Sunshine Law Presentation — City Attorney Andrew Hand

• Type: Other (board training)
• Case Number: N/A
• Location: N/A
• Applicant: City of Mount Dora
• Request: Sunshine Law presentation, carried over from January.
• Staff Recommendation: N/A
• Action: Presented
• Vote: [none]
• Conditions: None
• Notable Discussion: Hand presented and took questions. Topics: disclosing communications among board members and staff, disclosing ex parte communications, and disclosing site visits.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 3 non-staff presenters, all appearing for applicants (Tobias, Guenther, Joshi). No members of the public are recorded as speaking.
• General sentiment: No public opposition recorded.
• Key concerns: All substantive objections came from the dais — wastewater capacity four years out, a seven-year-old traffic study, mislabeled elevations, and buffer adequacy.

Key Signals

• Two PUD extensions in one meeting, both driven by the same missing utility. Waterman Village asked for five years and got a four-year recommendation; Small Bay Warehouses got four. Both applicants stated on the record that the reason is no wastewater capacity. Mount Dora's development pipeline in early 2025 was not stalling on demand, financing, or zoning — it was stalling on Plant 2, and the market's response was to hold entitlements open until the plant is mirrored.

• "Code defines availability, doesn't take into consideration for capacity." Janiszewski's sentence is the single most consequential line in the Mount Dora record for anyone evaluating a parcel. A property can satisfy the code's sewer-availability test and still be unbuildable because the plant is overcommitted. Availability and capacity are different words in this city, and only one of them is in the code.

• The board discussed a development moratorium and then chose to gather facts first. Under Other Business the commission debated recommending a moratorium to City Council. Janiszewski offered to draft a letter conveying the recommendation; Hand cautioned that "moratoriums really have to be addressed properly." The board agreed to have Public Works answer its questions before proceeding — which is exactly what happened at the March 19, 2025 meeting. A moratorium was on Mount Dora's table in February 2025 and was deferred, not dismissed.

• Package plants are the pressure valve, and in February 2025 it was welded shut. Small Bay Warehouses proposed a private wastewater plant, staff found it non-compliant, and the City Attorney said package plants have practically been prohibited. Watch this: by September 2025 the same project returns with an "OnSyte" advanced-treatment onsite system and gets approved. February is where the workaround was refused; the question of what changed is the through-line.

• The board refused to let a PUD lock in today's landscaping rules. Even though staff said the applicant's buffers exceeded current code, the commission rejected the submitted landscaping plan and required consistency with the LDC at the time of site plan approval. That is the board deliberately un-vesting a project from a code it is in the middle of rewriting — the counter-move to the four-year extension it granted in the same motion.

• A full seven-member board produced two conditional recommendations and no denials. Mount Dora's P&Z does not reject applications; it attaches conditions and pushes the instrument to Council. The leverage is in the conditions — correctly labeled elevations, no overhead doors facing Lincoln Avenue, planting density in an existing buffer — not in the vote.

Raw Notes

• Source provenance: No standalone minutes file was published to CivicClerk for the February 19, 2025 meeting. These minutes were recovered as native text from pages 2–8 of the March 19, 2025 agenda packet (CivicClerk file ID 5865, event ID 2027, agendaId 1205). Approval of the February 19 minutes is recorded in the March 19, 2025 minutes, 6-0.
• The minutes record motions and movers but omit vote tallies on both PUD items. Tallies appear for the two elections (7-0 each) and for approval of prior minutes (7-0).
• Other Business, in addition to the moratorium discussion: staff is still working on the Land Development Code, with additional requested additions and a tree removal section staff must revisit. The board suggested moving a meeting to a later date to help staff prepare. Janiszewski said the objective is to get it to City Council as soon as possible and that staff could break the ordinance into sections, and would send draft ordinances to the board for review.
• The board asked whether someone from Public Works could attend and address coverage areas, vested projects, and capacity percentages. Janiszewski said staff would arrange it for the next meeting — which produced the March 19, 2025 wastewater presentation.
• On extending the one-year PUD limit to four years generally, the board said the Land Development Code "shouldn't be crafted around specific timely circumstances," while Janiszewski said staff would be receptive to a lengthier time for PUDs and would look at other jurisdictions. The board's position: outside of no capacity, they don't want to extend if it's not necessary.
• Janiszewski said she doesn't believe the City has many PUDs expiring, and deferred capacity questions to Public Works.
• Discussion of review fees covering staff costs; discussion of PUD processing time frames.
• Tietmeyer announced she would not attend the March 19 meeting.
• Adjournment 12:11 PM, moved Turner, seconded Scheck. Attested by Whitney Scott, Administrative Coordinator; signed by Chair Miles Beach.