City of Orlando Board of Zoning Adjustment — May 26, 2026

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (8 of 9 members present) Duration: 2:00 PM – 2:07 PM (7 minutes — the shortest meeting of either Orlando land-use board in the February–July window) Location: Orlando City Hall, City Council Chambers, 2nd Floor, One City Commons, 400 South Orange Avenue (hybrid — Zoom webinar 851 9808 8494)

Attendance

• Present: Robert Slavens (Chairperson), Jill Roberts (Vice Chairperson), Keith Haugdahl, Carol Hendren, Hannah Hollinger, Marc Ispass, Chad Linn, Shawn Straight
• Absent: Minesh Patel
• Staff Present: Tim McClendon, Karl Wielecki, Jim Burnett, Sean Elordi, Raquel Lozano (City Planning); John Groenendaal (Permitting Services); Stacy Fallon (City Attorney's Office). Mark Cechman, Executive Secretary; Ed Petersen, Recording Secretary.

Prior minutes: April 28, 2026 minutes approved as written (moved Straight, seconded Ispass), unanimous voice vote 8-0.

No conflicts declared. No speakers appeared.

Agenda Items

All three items moved on a single Consent Agenda motion. No item was pulled to the Regular Agenda.

Item 1: VAR2026-10016 — 1033 Montana St.

• Type: Variance (deferred)
• Case Number: VAR2026-10016
• Location: 1033 Montana St. (± 0.2 acres), District 3 (the source records the location line as "1103 Montana St." — see Raw Notes)
• Applicant: Stephen Wood, 102 Whitecaps Cir., Maitland
• Owner: KMC4 Capital LLC
• Request: (A) 16 ft. to allow a 4 ft. rear setback where 20 ft. is required; (B) 0.03 to allow a 0.53 FAR where 0.5 FAR is required.
• Staff Recommendation: Deferral to the June 23, 2026 BZA hearing
• Action: Deferred (to June 23, 2026)
• Vote: Included in the 8-0 consent motion
• Conditions: None
• Notable Discussion: None recorded. Project planner Raquel Lozano. The case returned on June 23 in reduced form — see Key Signals.

Item 2: VAR2026-10017 — 1906 Bluets Ct.

• Type: Variance
• Case Number: VAR2026-10017
• Location: 1906 Bluets Ct. (± 0.2 acres), District 1
• Applicant: Ximena Ortega
• Owner: Maria Murillo
• Request: (A) 2 ft. to allow a 0 ft. side setback from the north property line, where a minimum 2 ft. side setback for a driveway is required; (B) 47% to increase the front yard impervious surface ratio to 87%, where a maximum 40% front yard ISR is allowed.
• Current Zoning: R-3A
• Staff Recommendation: Approve with conditions
• Action: Approved
• Vote: Included in the 8-0 consent motion
• Conditions: Four — compliance with all other R-3A standards per FG.1A-LDC; a detailed site plan on a copy of the property survey depicting the new paver improvements in the southern and northern side yards with setbacks; updated ISR calculations accurately accounting for the concrete driveway and the rear-yard concrete pad; and installation of three trees on site plus front-yard landscaping between the southern walkway and the attached garage "where gravel is currently placed."
• Notable Discussion: None recorded. Project planner Raquel Lozano.

Item 3: VAR2026-10021 — 2028 Illinois St. & 815 Palm Dr.

• Type: Variance (two parcels, one case)
• Case Number: VAR2026-10021
• Location: 2028 Illinois St. and 815 Palm Dr. (± 0.5 acres combined), District 4
• Applicant/Owner: Tara & Bryce Frase
• Request: (A) At 815 Palm Dr., 20 ft. to allow a nonconforming lot depth of 90 ft. where a minimum 110 ft. is required in the R-1A/T/SP/AN district; (B) at 2028 Illinois St., 10 ft. to allow a nonconforming average lot depth of 100 ft. where 110 ft. is required.
• Current Zoning: R-1A/T/SP/AN
• Staff Recommendation: Approve with conditions
• Action: Approved
• Vote: Included in the 8-0 consent motion
• Conditions: Eleven, several of them forward-dated compliance obligations rather than immediate ones —
  • LDC Sec. 58.1153 nonconforming standards apply: 2-story / 30 ft. maximum height, total FAR not to exceed 0.45, new garages recessed at least 5 ft. behind the principal façade or in the rear yard, Appearance Review at permit submittal for any substantial improvement or addition.
  • ISR capped at 55% overall, 40% front yard, 35% rear-yard accessory-structure coverage.
  • Fence rules: 4 ft. maximum in front yards; 815 Palm Dr. is a reverse corner lot, so street-side-yard fences are capped at 4 ft. unless recessed 15 ft. (20 ft. for a driveway and accessory garage); sheds recessed at least 15 ft. from street side lot lines.
  • Replat required: 2028 Illinois St., as enlarged, must be replatted into one whole platted parcel; this becomes a condition of approval for any future addition or substantial improvement there. The addition of the remainder of Lot 16 triggers LDC Sec. 65.272 mandatory platting.
  • Prior to replat, an updated survey of 815 Palm Dr. must be provided including the pool, deck, and any previously unpermitted structures and fences.
  • Informational: existing street-side fence, gates in front of the driveway, and shed location at 815 Palm Dr. "may need future after-the-fact permits"; unused curb cuts on Palm Dr. and Illinois St. must be removed and curb restored at the time of substantial improvement or driveway work; gravel aprons are not allowed.
• Notable Discussion: None recorded. Project planner Jim Burnett.

Consent motion: Board member Hendren moved approval of the Consent Agenda; Vice Chairperson Roberts seconded; passed by unanimous voice vote (8-0).

Regular Agenda: No items.

Old/New Business & Announcements: No items.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 0 — "No speakers spoke at the meeting."
• General sentiment: No public participation recorded.
• Key concerns: None raised. An 87% front-yard impervious surface ratio — more than double the code maximum — was approved without comment.

Key Signals

• Orlando approved an 87% front-yard impervious surface ratio where 40% is the limit. The 1906 Bluets Ct. variance more than doubles the permitted front-yard paving on an R-3A lot, and it moved on a consent calendar in a seven-minute meeting. The mitigation is four conditions, of which the substantive one is three trees and landscaping placed "where gravel is currently placed." Orlando's front-yard ISR standard exists to manage stormwater in neighborhoods the City's own engineering conditions describe as flood-prone; at this scale of departure, the standard is functioning as a starting position rather than a limit.

• The variance calendar keeps surfacing work that was already built. The Bluets Court conditions require the applicant to update the ISR calculation to accurately account for existing concrete, and to landscape ground currently under gravel. The Illinois/Palm conditions require a survey capturing "any previously unpermitted structures and fences," warn that existing fences, gates and a shed "may need future after-the-fact permits," and require unused curb cuts to be removed at the next substantial improvement. Across three cases in seven minutes, the recurring subject is retroactive legalization. In Orlando the variance hearing is where unpermitted improvements get inventoried.

• A lot-depth variance bought a replat obligation that will govern the property for years. The Frase case at 2028 Illinois St. and 815 Palm Dr. drew eleven conditions, most of which do not attach today: a mandatory replat under LDC Sec. 65.272 before any future addition, Appearance Review at permit submittal for any substantial improvement, curb-cut restoration at the next driveway work. The variance is granted now; the compliance obligations mature at the owner's next project, and they run with the land. Buyers of Orlando properties with recent variances should read the condition list as a schedule of future costs, not a closed file.

• A deferral to June narrowed the ask. The 1033 Montana St. request was deferred at staff's recommendation seeking a 4 ft. rear setback (16 ft. of relief) plus an FAR variance. It returned on June 23 as a single request for a 7.5 ft. rear setback — 12.5 ft. of relief — with the FAR component gone, and passed on consent. That is the opposite trajectory from the Hyperbolic Brewing deferral two months earlier, where a February deferral produced a larger March request. Orlando deferrals resolve in the direction the technical review pushes, not in a fixed direction.

• Seven minutes is the floor, and it is where most Orlando land-use decisions are made. Three cases, no speakers, no conflicts, no regular agenda, adjourned at 2:07 PM. The split is clean across the whole February–July window: the three meetings at which nobody asked to speak (February, March, May) ran 9, 9 and 7 minutes and disposed of nineteen cases between them; the three at which someone did (April, June, July) ran 68, 47 and 45 minutes. Public participation, not caseload, is the variable that produces deliberation on this board — and a request to speak is the only thing that moves a case off the consent calendar.

Raw Notes

• Access provenance: Laserfiche Cloud public portal, City Clerk repository r-b158fc8c. Direct PDF: https://portal.laserfiche.com/Portal/ElectronicFile.aspx?docid=1097461&repo=r-b158fc8c (5 pages, born-digital text layer, no OCR required).
• Address discrepancy in the source, recorded as printed: Item 1's case heading and owner address both read "1033 Montana St."; the Location line in the same block reads "1103 Montana St." The June 23 minutes, where the case returns, use 1033 Montana St. throughout.
• Item 3's conditions contain several bracketed editorial insertions by staff — e.g. "If the [2028 Illinois] property will contain two driveways," "The [potential new] curb cut" — reproduced here as written.
• The same five standing conditions apply to all approved cases (site-plan conformance; all permits before commencing; the Fla. Stat. § 166.033(6) state/federal permit disclaimer; one-year variance expiration; discretionary six-month administrative extension).
• Bracketed attendance counters as of May: Slavens [8/0] and Linn [8/0]; Roberts, Haugdahl, Hendren, Hollinger, Ispass, Straight and Patel all [7/1].
• Staff attendance is the thinnest of the window — seven names, against thirteen in February and twelve in April.
• The ADJOURNMENT heading falls at the foot of page 4 with the adjournment time on page 5; no content is missing.
• Adjournment 2:07 PM. Attested by Mark Cechman, Executive Secretary, and Ed Petersen, Recording Secretary.