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

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 members present; one seat vacant) Duration: 10:01 AM – [adjournment time not recorded] Location: City Hall Board Room, 510 North Baker Street

Attendance

• Present: Chairman Miles Beach, Tom Dring, Harris Turner, Suzanne Scheck, Adrian Coombes, Andrea Lother
• Absent: None. The minutes record: "Open seat will be filled in January 2026" — the vacancy left by Barbara Tietmeyer's departure.
• Staff Present: Michele Janiszewski, Deputy Planning Director; Whitney Scott, Associate Planner; Alexandra Stevens, Administrative Coordinator; Andrew Hand, City Attorney (via Zoom)

Prior minutes: not approved. A correction was requested to add the "ask the staff" item to the agenda; Beach recommended tabling approval of minutes until corrections were made at the next meeting.

This was the first convened meeting since September 17 — October 15, 2025 was canceled.

Agenda Items

Item 1: Round Lake Charter K-8 — Future Land Use Map Amendment (FLUM25-03)

• Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (Future Land Use Map)
• Case Number: FLUM25-03
• Location: 31333 Round Lake Rd.
• Applicant: Lake County Schools (applicant and owner)
• Request: Future Land Use Map amendment for the Round Lake Charter K-8 site.
• Current Zoning: [not stated]
• Proposed Zoning: N/A (land use item)
• Acreage: [not available]
• Staff Recommendation: [not stated in the minutes]
• Action: Tabled
• Vote: 5-0 (moved Turner, seconded Lother)
• Conditions: Tabled "until further information is given and a representative can be available."
• Notable Discussion:
  • The board questioned whether the school being policed by Mount Dora is the only reason for the annexation, or whether there is more.
  • The property is served by a well and an onsite wastewater treatment center — not city utilities.
  • Janiszewski explained annexations do not come through the P&Z Commission.
  • Discussion of cost to the City and of pros and cons for the City.
  • Discussion about a dedicated road on the south side of the area.
  • The board wanted a representative present to answer more in-depth questions.
  • Hand stated the annexation was going to City Council on December 2nd, and the board discussed what would happen if Council approved it.

Item 2: Round Lake Charter K-8 — Rezoning (Z25-03)

• Type: Rezoning
• Case Number: Z25-03
• Location: 31333 Round Lake Rd.
• Applicant: Lake County Schools (applicant and owner)
• Request: Rezoning for the Round Lake Charter K-8 site.
• Current Zoning: [not stated]
• Proposed Zoning: [not stated]
• Acreage: [not available]
• Staff Recommendation: [not stated]
• Action: Tabled
• Vote: 5-0 (moved Coombes, seconded Dring)
• Conditions: Tabled "until further information is gathered."
• Notable Discussion: Taken with Item 1.

Item 3: FDOT Surplus Property — Future Land Use Map Amendment (FLUM25-04)

• Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (Future Land Use Map)
• Case Number: FLUM25-04
• Location: 21619 SR 46
• Applicant: City of Mount Dora (applicant and owner)
• Request: Future Land Use Map amendment for surplus FDOT property acquired by the City.
• Current Zoning: CP
• Proposed Zoning: N/A (land use item; see Item 4 for the zoning change)
• Acreage: [not available]
• Staff Recommendation: [not stated]
• Action: Approved (recommended)
• Vote: 5-0 (moved Coombes, seconded Lother)
• Conditions: None recorded
• Notable Discussion: Janiszewski summarized the project. The property is zoned PLI and there are no development plans for it currently.

Item 4: FDOT Surplus Property — Rezoning (Z25-04)

• Type: Rezoning
• Case Number: Z25-04
• Location: 21619 SR 46
• Applicant: City of Mount Dora (applicant and owner)
• Request: Rezone the FDOT surplus parcel.
• Current Zoning: CP
• Proposed Zoning: PLI (Public Lands and Institutional)
• Acreage: [not available]
• Staff Recommendation: [not stated]
• Action: Approved (recommended)
• Vote: 5-0 (moved Beach, seconded Coombes)
• Conditions: None recorded
• Notable Discussion: None beyond the motion.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 0. Public participation on non-agenda items is recorded as "None," and no applicant representative appeared for the Round Lake Charter items — which is precisely why those two items were tabled.
• General sentiment: N/A
• Key concerns: N/A from the public. The board's concern was the absence of an applicant representative.

Key Signals

• Mount Dora tabled a school district's land use request because nobody came to answer questions — twelve days before Council was scheduled to annex it. Hand told the board the annexation was going to City Council on December 2, and the board tabled both the FLUM and the rezoning anyway. Council annexed it; the board approved the land use and zoning at its next meeting in December. The sequence shows the actual order of operations in Mount Dora: annexation is a Council decision that can outrun the planning board's review of what will be built there.

• The Round Lake Charter site runs on a well and its own wastewater treatment — and that is why it can proceed. A K-8 school on Round Lake Road, in the fastest-growing corner of the Mount Dora / Wekiva Parkway approach, is not competing for Plant 2 capacity. In a city where staff told developers there is no sewer, the projects that move are the ones that bring their own utilities: the Small Bay Warehouses on OnSyte in September, a charter school on a well and onsite treatment in November.

• The board asked out loud whether the annexation is really about policing. "Questions if school being policed by Mount Dora is the only reason or if there is more" is an unusual line to find in minutes. It reads as a board testing whether a jurisdictional transfer with real service costs — police, roads, eventual utilities — is being justified by a single benefit. The cost-to-the-City discussion that followed is the same instinct that produced the ten-point JPA demand in July.

• The City is quietly zoning its own land to PLI on SR-46. Mount Dora took FDOT surplus property at 21619 SR 46 from CP to Public Lands and Institutional with "no development plans currently." Municipal land banking on the SR-46 corridor — the Wekiva Parkway approach — is worth tracking; PLI is the designation a city uses before it decides what a site is for.

• The board is now watching septic systems as a category. Turner asked staff to flag any application seeking to connect to septic tanks and to bring a representative of the septic tank company to the meeting. Two months after approving the OnSyte project, the commission is institutionalizing scrutiny of the mechanism it just permitted. Applicants planning onsite treatment in Mount Dora should expect to bring their vendor.

• A six-member board with a vacancy recorded 5-0 on every motion. The seat left by Tietmeyer stayed open from October through December and was filled in January 2026 — the board that finally took up the Round Lake items and the 2026 landscaping rewrite is a substantially reconstituted body.

Raw Notes

• Source provenance: Standalone minutes retrieved as CivicClerk file ID 6423, published as "11.19.25 Signed Minutes" (event ID 2035, agendaId 1217). The published PDF is a scanned image of the signed original, three pages, and required OCR.
• These minutes were approved at the December 17, 2025 meeting together with the September 17, 2025 minutes, 5-0.
• The roll lists six members present and all four motions carry a 5-0 tally. The minutes do not reconcile the discrepancy; no recusal or abstention is recorded.
• The project numbers appear in the minutes as "FLUM2503" and "FLUM2504"; the agenda renders them FLUM25-03 and FLUM25-04, which is the form used above. Rezoning numbers are Z25-03 and Z25-04.
• Under announcements and board updates:
  • Turner asked staff to identify applications seeking septic tank connections and to bring a septic tank company representative to a meeting.
  • Coombes asked whether a staff member could speak about stormwater management — delivered at the December 17 meeting by Stormwater Director George Marek.
  • Discussion about Live Local (low-income housing) from Senate Bill 180, as recorded in the minutes.
  • Dring asked about single-family housing on Highland Street.
  • Turner asked about cargo containers on Grandview; the minutes record that containers are being used as storage for project materials on the property.
  • Coombes reported residents complaining that "the Cottages" are watering every day and watering 11th Avenue.
• Adjournment moved by Turner, seconded by Coombes, 5-0; adjournment time not recorded. Attested by Alexandra Stevens, Administrative Coordinator; signed by Chairman Miles Beach.