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Meetings · Tavares

Tavares Planning and Zoning Advisory Board — March 20, 2025 minutes

City of Tavares Planning and Zoning Advisory Board — March 20, 2025

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 members present) Duration: 3:01 PM – 3:52 PM (51 minutes) Location: Tavares Council Chambers, 201 E. Main Street

Attendance

  • Present: Gary Santoro (Chairman), Deborah Murphy (Vice-Chairperson), Bruce Peterman, Brooke Matthews, James Sweezea, Dara Treadwell
  • Absent: Dian Joy
  • Staff Present: Antonio Fabre (Community Development Director), Anarquis Frias (City Planner), Amanda Boggus (City Attorney), Jillian Roberts (Deputy City Clerk), Mike Willis (Fire Division Chief); Fire Chief Richard Keith also addressed the Board

Prior minutes: February 20, 2025 minutes approved as amended (moved Treadwell, seconded Peterman), 6-0.

Note: Brooke Matthews left the meeting at 3:12 PM during the Life Safety Code presentation.

Agenda Items

Item 1: Approval of the February 20, 2025, Planning & Zoning Board Meeting Minutes

  • Type: Other (administrative)
  • Request: Approve the February 20, 2025 minutes
  • Action: Approved as amended
  • Vote: 6-0 (moved Treadwell, seconded Peterman)
  • Notable Discussion: Matthews corrected "Adjornment" to "Adjournment" in Section 8. Santoro corrected Section 6 so that members notify the Chairperson of absences rather than Mr. Fabre — moving the attendance-reporting duty from staff to the chair.

Item 2: Election of the Planning and Zoning Board Officers for 2025

  • Type: Other (board organization)
  • Request: Elect Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson for 2025
  • Action: Gary Santoro re-elected Chairman; Deborah Murphy re-elected Vice-Chairperson
  • Vote: Chairman — 6-0 (moved Murphy, seconded Treadwell). Vice-Chairperson — 6-0 (moved Treadwell, seconded Peterman).
  • Notable Discussion: Santoro stated the election of officers is held in January and noted there were no conflicts. The 2025 election was in fact held in March, two months late, because no January or February slot carried it. There were no competing nominations for either seat.

Item 3: Life Safety Code as it Pertains to New Developments

  • Type: Other (staff presentation — Fire Department)
  • Applicant: City of Tavares Fire Department
  • Request: Brief the Board on how the Florida Fire Prevention Code and Life Safety Code apply to new development review
  • Action: No action (presentation)
  • Notable Discussion:
    • Division Chief Willis covered the Florida Fire Prevention Code and Life Safety Code (NFPA 101), Florida Administrative Code Rule 69A, construction/protection/occupancy features, egress and life-safety plans, fire alarm and suppression systems, fire-resistant materials, and stricter standards for walls, ceilings, and fire-rated doors and windows.
    • Distributed Antenna System (DAS) requirements were presented as a key consideration for new developments, including public-safety DAS practice in Florida and the role of local fire officials.
    • Treadwell asked how sprinkler requirements are determined when a building has no dedicated use. Fabre: the intended use must be stated at construction or the building must later be retrofitted for sprinklers to meet building and fire codes.
    • Murphy asked about electric-vehicle regulations. Willis said it is a new portion of the code. Attorney Boggus said codes governing charging stations can be created in the Land Development Regulations — flagging an LDR gap the City had not yet filled.

Public Hearings Summary

No public hearings were scheduled. Attorney Boggus stated the hearing was informational only and no one needed to be sworn in. No members of the public spoke under Audience to be Heard.

Key Signals

  • The 2025 officer election happened in March, and the chair said it should have been in January. Santoro named the Board's own rule on the record and then held the vote anyway. Both incumbents were returned unopposed 6-0. A board that runs its constitutive vote two months late, unopposed, in a month with no applications, is a board whose calendar is driven by staff workload rather than by its own governing schedule.

  • The Fire Department got a full presentation slot before any project needed it — and the DAS requirement is the one that costs money. Distributed Antenna Systems are radio-signal infrastructure that developers must install so first responders can communicate inside a building. Willis put it in front of the Board in March 2025, four months before the same department returned with Ordinance 2025-06 to replace the City's gate-access system. Fire is the department driving Tavares LDR amendments in this period.

  • A staff answer created a permanent cost exposure for speculative buildings. Fabre told the Board that a building constructed without a declared use must be retrofitted for sprinklers when the use is established. For anyone buying or building shell industrial or flex space in Tavares — the Interlake Business Park and Gray Whale office/warehouse projects that appear later in this record — the sprinkler question is decided by what you declare at permit, not at lease-up.

  • The City Attorney identified an EV-charging code gap in March 2025 and no amendment followed within the coverage period. Boggus told the Board that charging-station standards could be written into the LDRs. Through August 2026 no such amendment reached this Board. The gap is still open.

  • A board member left 11 minutes into the meeting, and the attendance rule had just been rewritten to route absences through the chair. Matthews departed at 3:12 PM. Santoro had amended the February minutes that same afternoon to make members report absences to the Chairperson. One meeting later the Board voted a member off for absenteeism. The enforcement machinery was assembled in March and fired in April.

Raw Notes

  • Source provenance: the March 20, 2025 minutes were not published as a standalone file. They were extracted from the April 17, 2025 agenda packet (CivicClerk file ID 1500, event 448 / agendaId 366), where they appear as the Tab 1 attachment on PDF pages 2–5. The March 20 meeting itself is filed on the portal under event 444 (agendaId 362) in the "General" event category rather than "Planning and Zoning Board" — a portal categorization error that hides it from the P&Z category filter. Event 444 publishes only an Agenda (file ID 1462) and Agenda Packet (file ID 1469); no minutes file.
  • These minutes were approved without correction at the April 17, 2025 meeting ("There were none"), motion by Treadwell seconded by Sweezea, 5-0.
  • Source discrepancy: the adjournment motion is recorded as carrying "unanimously 5-0" while the three earlier motions carried 6-0. Matthews had left at 3:12 PM, which accounts for the drop.
  • City Attorney rotation: Lindsay Holt appeared in February 2025; Amanda Boggus appears in March and April 2025. Both are recurring counsel for this Board.
  • Fire Chief Richard Keith thanked the Board at the close of the Life Safety presentation and commended Division Chief Willis.
  • Minutes attested by Jillian Roberts, Deputy City Clerk.

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