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

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 members present) Duration: 10:02 AM – 11:08 AM (1 hour 6 minutes) Location: City Hall Board Room, 510 North Baker Street

Attendance

• Present: Chairman Miles Beach, Adrian Coombes, Tom Dring, Harris Turner, Andrea Lother, Suzanne Scheck
• Absent: Barbara Tietmeyer
• Staff Present: Michele Janiszewski, Senior Planner; Ryan Winkler, Senior Planner; Whitney Scott, Administrative Coordinator; Andrew Hand, City Attorney

Presenters: Michele Janiszewski, Senior Planner; Andrew Marsian, Utilities Director

Prior minutes: February 19, 2025 minutes approved 6-0 (moved Scheck, seconded Coombes).

Agenda Items

Item 1: Presentation — Public Works Wastewater Capacity

• Type: Other (staff presentation; no application)
• Case Number: N/A
• Location: Citywide; Wastewater Treatment Plants 1 and 2
• Applicant: City of Mount Dora Public Works (requested by the commission at the February 19, 2025 meeting)
• Request: Utilities Director Andrew Marsian to answer the board's questions on plant service areas, vested projects, and capacity percentages.
• Current Zoning: N/A
• Proposed Zoning: N/A
• Acreage: N/A
• Staff Recommendation: N/A
• Action: Presented; no motion
• Vote: [none]
• Conditions: None
• Notable Discussion: This is the most load-bearing item in Mount Dora's 2025 record. Figures below are as stated by Marsian and Janiszewski.
  • Marsian confirmed WW2 is at capacity. There is already a committed list of almost a million gallons a day currently.
  • The paper-versus-plant distinction: "We still have capacity at WW2 on paper. However, the actual plant is only operating at about fifty-five percent. Available capacity is only for the vested/committed properties." Later restated: "we do have capacity but it's reserved."
  • The regulatory trigger: wastewater facilities can't run at 100%; they generally operate at 70–80%, and "once the facility reaches seventy, designs must be in place to upgrade."
  • The RIBS project. Marsian said the contract had just come back for a "RIBS" (rapid infiltration basin) project on the adjacent property on the west side of US-441, where the City owns forty acres further south. It adds a quarter million gallons a day to WW2 on a ten-to-twelve-month time frame, with the possibility of re-rating for an additional quarter million depending on the clarifiers — to assist with the committed list.
  • The mirroring project. Public Works will mirror WW2, taking it from 1.25 million to about 3.5 million gallons per day. Marsian stated the City is looking at four to five years to have the mirroring project done.
  • Funding. Marsian said there are a lot of options; they are applying for a twenty million dollar grant and hoping to obtain thirty to forty million dollars in grants. Impact fees will help once collected. Janiszewski: "we cannot collect impact fees until they are connected to our system."
  • WW1. Utilization running at sixty-two to sixty-five percent. Constructed in the seventies; in the capital plan to rehab at about fifteen million dollars, with money already set aside. Footprint stays the same, replacing necessities. Marsian said they don't anticipate a lot of growth on WW1 and doesn't anticipate adding capacity there. WW2 was constructed in 2004.
  • Geography of the problem: "The majority of the projects coming in are related to WW2. Most of the development is east of 441." Cross-over between plants is possible but limited — "it would be a very critical situation."
  • Service outside city limits. Janiszewski: the utility service boundary mirrors the joint planning area boundary with Lake County, plus a small section served in Orange County. If a project seeks to connect and is contiguous, the City asks it to annex in and obtain entitlements through the City; if not eligible for annexation, service is contingent on a recorded covenant to annex. Marsian confirmed properties not annexed and without a pre-annexation agreement pay roughly a twenty-five percent surcharge on impact fees and usage.
  • Named projects on the capacity ledger. Janiszewski: Mount Dora Groves (North & South) signed a pre-annexation agreement and is on the committed capacity list. Mount Dora North/South (Richland) is not currently; staff asked the applicant for a phasing plan and had not received it. Marsian said the majority of WW2's capacity is consumed by the larger developments.
  • Reclaimed water. Janiszewski said Public Works is mapping all water lines. Code requires new development to connect to reclaimed where available; where not, provisions must be made. Water utilities sits on the Development Review Committee. Reclaimed is billed at a lower rate than potable. Most irrigation is reclaimed supplemented by an augmentation well; downtown uses some reclaimed but less, because the infrastructure wasn't there and retrofitting is very expensive.

Item 2: Capital Improvement Plan Ordinance Update

• Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (Capital Improvements Element)
• Case Number: Ordinance 2025-07
• Location: Citywide
• Applicant: City of Mount Dora (Development Review Committee; Michele Janiszewski, AICP)
• Request: Amend the 2045 Comprehensive Plan to update the Capital Improvement Plan and update the gallons of water/wastewater associated with Equivalent Residential Units (ERUs), per the annual review requirement of Chapter 163.3177, Florida Statutes, on a rolling five-year planning period.
• Current Zoning: N/A
• Proposed Zoning: N/A
• Acreage: N/A
• Staff Recommendation: Approve
• Action: Recommended for approval to City Council
• Vote: 6-0 (moved Turner, seconded Scheck)
• Conditions: None. The motion recommended approval "for the lowering of gpd for ERUs" as consistent with the comprehensive plan.
• Notable Discussion:
  • The board reviewed the level-of-service table. Adopted standards in the packet: water 350 GPD per ERU; sewer 300 GPD per ERU; solid waste 7.1 pounds per capita per day; stormwater designed to the 25-year/24-hour storm event; parks within a 10-minute walk; transportation LOS D north and east of (and including) US-441, LOS E south and west of US-441 for City roads and City collectors, and LOS D for State principal arterials and for minor arterials and collectors.
  • Janiszewski said the numbers are based on what was published and approved in the budget, that this "is just to mirror what was already approved by City Council," and that it applies only to the ones that add capacity. She was unaware of the status of plans listed for prior years but knew they aren't on the current upcoming list.
  • The board asked for what the document doesn't show: which projects have been completed or removed for lack of funding.
  • Discussion of the roundabout at SR-19 and US-441 — Janiszewski said it's a county project and she was unaware of its status.

Item 3: Land Development Code Ordinance Update

• Type: Text Amendment (Land Development Code)
• Case Number: [not assigned in the record]
• Location: Citywide
• Applicant: City of Mount Dora (staff-initiated)
• Request: Continued review of the Land Development Code rewrite.
• Staff Recommendation: Staff requested additional time to review
• Action: Deferred — no motion
• Vote: [none]
• Conditions: None
• Notable Discussion:
  • Janiszewski flagged a conflict with a pending bill in the legislature regarding accessory dwellings, which staff is monitoring. Hand stated that if the pending bill becomes law it would be effective July 1, 2025, unless amended.
  • Beach proposed a change to the accessory dwelling unit section, specifically that the architectural standard/style language for the principal dwelling unit and front porch should coincide, "since they are both additions to a primary residence." Janiszewski noted the change.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 0. The minutes record "None" for public participation on non-agenda items, and no public comment on any item.
• General sentiment: N/A
• Key concerns: N/A — the meeting's substance was staff-to-board.

Key Signals

• Mount Dora put hard numbers on its growth ceiling: WW2 is a 1.25 MGD plant with roughly a million gallons a day already committed, and the fix is four to five years out. Marsian's mirroring project takes the plant to about 3.5 MGD; the interim RIBS infiltration-basin project adds a quarter MGD in ten to twelve months, with a possible re-rate for another quarter. Until then, "we do have capacity but it's reserved." For anyone reading Mount Dora's development pipeline, the arithmetic is now public: the queue is roughly 80% of the plant's rated capacity, and the relief valve is a decade-scale capital project competing for a $20M grant.

• The plant is running at 55% and is still full. This is the distinction most observers get wrong. Physical utilization and legal commitment are different ledgers, and in Mount Dora only the second one is binding. A resident looking at a half-idle treatment plant and a stalled subdivision is not looking at a contradiction — they are looking at vested capacity held by projects that haven't broken ground.

• Utility service is Mount Dora's annexation engine, and its boundary is the JPA boundary. Janiszewski confirmed the utility service area mirrors the joint planning area with Lake County; contiguous applicants seeking a connection are asked to annex, and non-annexable ones must record a covenant to annex. Non-annexed users pay a ~25% surcharge. This is why the JPA fight that consumes the board in June and July 2025 is not a procedural argument — the JPA line is the line inside which Mount Dora can convert water and sewer into city limits.

• Impact fees can't be collected until connection, so the capacity crunch is also a funding crunch. The revenue that would help pay for the plant expansion is legally unavailable until the developments connect to the plant that hasn't been expanded. Mount Dora is trying to break that loop with grants — $20M applied for, $30–40M hoped for — while separately carrying a $15M rehab of a 1970s plant. Watch the grant awards; they gate the schedule.

• Mount Dora reduced its per-unit demand assumptions in the same meeting it learned it was out of capacity. Ordinance 2025-07 lowers the gallons-per-day figure attached to an Equivalent Residential Unit (adopted standards: 350 GPD water, 300 GPD sewer). Lowering the ERU factor is a legitimate engineering update — and it is also the one lever that makes the same plant serve more rooftops on paper. The board forwarded it 6-0 without recorded debate on that consequence.

• The board asked the question its own capital plan can't answer. Members wanted to know which previously listed capital projects were completed and which were dropped for lack of funding; staff didn't know. Mount Dora's CIP is a forward list that doesn't carry its own history, which makes the level-of-service commitments hard to audit from the outside.

Raw Notes

• Source provenance: Standalone minutes retrieved as CivicClerk file ID 6079 (event ID 2027, agendaId 1205). The published PDF is a scanned image of the signed original and required OCR. Level-of-service figures and the Ordinance 2025-07 framing were cross-checked against the staff memo on page 9 of the March 19, 2025 agenda packet (file ID 5865), which extracts as native text.
• Numeric figures throughout the wastewater presentation are recorded in the minutes as spelled-out words ("one in a quarter million," "three in a half million") and are rendered above as 1.25 MGD and 3.5 MGD respectively.
• Other Business:
  • Northeast CRA boundary. Discussion of attorney opposition at a Lake County meeting to a boundary change to the Northeast CRA development area regarding the Simpson Groves South project. Janiszewski clarified the property is already annexed, and that the Northeast CRA is trying to adjust its own boundary to incorporate Mount Dora Groves South, which "would significantly increase their funding" — not a city boundary change. Hand provided clarification on the TIF (tax increment funds) reduction agreement.
  • Coombes said he would attend a stormwater management workshop and report back.
  • Status of the new Resource and Recreation Center on Lincoln Avenue: the applicant resubmitted and staff issued a comment letter; timelines for approval or construction unknown.
• Coombes announced he would not attend the next regularly scheduled meeting (April 16, 2025). That meeting was subsequently canceled.
• Adjournment 11:08 AM, moved Coombes, seconded Scheck. Attested by Whitney Scott, Administrative Coordinator; signed by Chair Miles Beach.