City of Tavares Planning and Zoning Advisory Board — August 14, 2025

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 members present) Duration: 3:00 PM – 3:53 PM (53 minutes) Location: Tavares City Hall Council Chambers, 201 E. Main Street

Attendance

• Present: Gary Santoro (Chairman), Deborah Murphy (Vice-Chairperson), Bruce Peterman, Brooke Matthews, James Sweezea, Dara Treadwell
• Absent: Jay Cunningham
• Staff Present: Anarquis Frias (City Planner), Lindsay Holt (City Attorney), Michelle Winegard (Deputy City Clerk)

Prior minutes: July 17, 2025 minutes approved without correction (moved Murphy, seconded Treadwell), 6-0.

Note: This meeting was held on the second Thursday of August, not the third — the only deviation from the third-Thursday schedule in the coverage period. Community Development Director Antonio Fabre did not attend; City Planner Anarquis Frias carried both staff reports.

Agenda Items

Item 1: Approval of the July 17, 2025, Planning and Zoning Board Meeting Minutes

• Type: Other (administrative)
• Request: Approve the July 17, 2025 minutes
• Action: Approved
• Vote: 6-0 (moved Murphy, seconded Treadwell)
• Notable Discussion: No corrections offered.

Item 2: Ordinance 2025-08 — Administrative Plat Approval under Chapter 2025-164, Laws of Florida

• Type: Text Amendment (Land Development Regulations)
• Case Number: Ordinance 2025-08
• Location: Citywide
• Applicant: City of Tavares Community Development
• Request: Amend LDR Chapter 4 "Application Procedures and Permitting" Table 4-B and § 4-22 (Procedure for Consideration of a Final Plat), amend Chapter 16 "Subdivision Regulations" § 16-31 (Forms), and repeal and replace Form 16-13 in its entirety, so that certain plat and replat submittals are approved administratively
• Current Zoning: N/A (citywide code)
• Proposed Zoning: N/A
• Staff Recommendation: Approve
• Action: Recommended for approval as amended
• Vote: 6-0 (moved Sweezea, seconded Peterman)
• Conditions: Board amendment replacing "administrative authority" with "City Administrator or designee" in Chapter 4, § 4-22, subsections E and F
• Notable Discussion:
  • Frias read the compelled basis into the record: "On July 1, 2025, the State of Florida has amended s. 177.071, F.S. (see attached 2025-164 Laws of Florida); requiring that certain plat or replat submittals be administratively approved with no further action by City Council authority." The ordinance conforms the City's process to that requirement.
  • Murphy said the proposal was reasonable and appreciated that it would not slow approvals, but raised the substantive concern: once a development is approved by this Board, no major changes can be made before final sign-off. Frias answered that by the final-plat stage, just before Council approval, the project is essentially complete with only final documentation remaining.
  • Santoro asked who the "administrative authority" is. Holt: for final plat approval as proposed, it would include the Community Development Director and the City Administrator, and revising the term to "City Administrator or designee" for consistency would not be a substantial change. Sweezea moved that amendment.
  • Santoro questioned the Certificate of Approval language on Form 16-13, arguing it should name an individual rather than the city as a whole. Holt said the language replaces the former "Certificate of Approval of the Tavares City Council" and matches all City contracts and agreements, and recommended no change. Santoro accepted.

Item 3: Ordinance 2025-09 — Palm Gardens Rezoning, 20.83 Acres at US 441 and Dead River

• Type: Rezoning
• Case Number: Ordinance 2025-09
• Location: Northwest intersection of U.S. Highway 441 and Dead River — commonly known as Palm Gardens, a.k.a. Florida Lakefront RV Park. Bounded by the Dead River and associated wetlands east, US 441 south, jurisdictional wetlands north, and a shed sales and storage facility west.
• Applicant: Capital Group (Troy Vick, Chief Executive Officer); Chuck Hiott, P.E., of Halff, 902 N. Sinclair Ave., representing
• Request: Rezone from expired City of Tavares Planned Development (PD Ordinance 2007-24) to Mixed Use (MU), to align the parcel with its Future Land Use Map designation of Mixed Use under the 2040 "Taking Flight" Comprehensive Plan
• Current Zoning: None. The 2007 Planned Development expired and carried no reverter clause, leaving the parcel with no zoning classification.
• Proposed Zoning: Mixed Use (MU)
• Acreage: 20.83 +/-
• Staff Recommendation: Approve
• Action: DENIED — motion to recommend approval failed
• Vote: Failed 4-2. Yes: Brooke Matthews, Dara Treadwell. No: Bruce Peterman, Gary Santoro, Deborah Murphy, James Sweezea. (Moved Matthews, seconded Treadwell.)
• Conditions: N/A
• Notable Discussion:
  • Frias's report: demolition of the former manufactured home park was completed in early 2024; the property is vacant though a former restaurant, associated structures, and a boat dock remain on site. A traffic study was conducted by the applicant and accepted by the City's traffic consultant; environmental and wetlands assessments were provided to the City. "At this time, the applicant does not have a specific proposed use or project for the site. Therefore, the applicant elects to defer concurrency determination until such time as a final development order."
  • Hiott stated there was no end user identified, that the applicant was seeking zoning approval first before pursuing potential users, and that the property currently had no zoning because the former PUD had expired.
  • Peterman said the request felt vague and wished for more detail on future plans.
  • Sweezea asked about the approval process; Frias explained that because the applicant was requesting straight zoning, the process would proceed through Community Development without additional public hearings. Sweezea later stated his concern directly — approving the rezoning would mean the matter would not return to the Board.
  • Matthews asked what it means that the property has no zoning. Frias: the expired planned development left the parcel without zoning, and the City typically does not proactively rezone property without applicant interest.
  • Peterman asked whether new development would fall under the recently adopted impact fees; Frias confirmed it would.
  • Santoro's objection was procedural and public-facing: most rezoning requests are tied to specific development proposals, and he was concerned about removing opportunities for public input — he "did not want the public to feel the Board was attempting to 'slip something by them.'" Holt responded that public comment was available at the present meeting and that the Board's role was to determine consistency with the Comprehensive Plan. Santoro agreed but reiterated that the public could not comment on a specific development plan because none had been submitted.
  • Vick clarified that approval would not permit unrestricted development — any project must comply with MU regulations — and said his intent was to align with the Comprehensive Plan by including both residential and commercial components. Asked by Treadwell how he could proceed without a defined plan, Vick explained that securing the zoning designation first was necessary before investing in detailed design. He later added that he understood he would need variances for anything outside code, and that he was ready to invest in the property but could not proceed without knowing what the zoning would be.
  • Treadwell asked how the Board would learn of future plans; Frias said submitted plans become public records available through a public records request to the City Clerk's office — not through any notice to the Board.
  • Holt supplied the decisive technical fact: properties in this position normally carry a "reverter" clause restoring the prior zoning. Palm Gardens had none. Had it reverted, the parcel would have returned to a mobile home park designation inconsistent with the 2040 Comprehensive Plan.
  • Asked for her opinion, Holt declined to give judgment but stated the request was legally consistent with the 2040 Comprehensive Plan and, if approved, would give the applicant the zoning "rulebook" needed to move forward.

Item 4: Community Development Director Report

• Type: Other (staff report)
• Applicant: City of Tavares Community Development
• Action: No action
• Notable Discussion: Frias stated there was nothing to report. Santoro thanked the Building Department staff for their efforts.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 2, both for the applicant — Chuck Hiott, P.E. (Halff) and Troy Vick (CEO, Capital Group). Attorney Holt identified Ordinance 2025-09 as the meeting's one quasi-judicial item and administered the oath; no ex parte communications were disclosed.
• General sentiment: No member of the public spoke on either item. Santoro called for public comment on both and there was none.
• Key concerns: The concerns that defeated the rezoning came entirely from the dais — that no development plan accompanied the request, that straight zoning would remove the item from the Board's and the public's reach, and that approving without plans would look to residents like something being slipped past them.

Key Signals

• The Board denied a staff-recommended, Comprehensive-Plan-consistent rezoning 4-2, and the City Council granted it anyway. Palm Gardens is the clearest board-override event in the Tavares record. Staff recommended approval, the City Attorney confirmed legal consistency with the 2040 Plan, the applicant's traffic study was accepted by the City's own consultant — and Santoro, Murphy, Peterman, and Sweezea voted no because no project accompanied the request. At the January 15, 2026 meeting, Fabre confirmed to Vice-Chairperson Murphy that "the property had received mixed-use zoning." An advisory board's denial cost the applicant five months and nothing else.

• The parcel had no zoning at all, because a 2007 Planned Development expired without a reverter clause. Holt's explanation is the most transferable fact in this record: expired PDs in Tavares do not automatically revert, and had this one reverted it would have returned to a mobile home park designation now inconsistent with the 2040 Plan. Any Lake County parcel carrying a dormant 2000s-era PD is potentially in the same condition — legally unzoned, and rezonable only on the owner's initiative, since Frias confirmed the City does not proactively rezone property without applicant interest.

• Straight zoning is a one-shot review in Tavares, and the Board learned it in the room. Frias told Sweezea that because this was straight zoning rather than a PD, the process would proceed through Community Development "without additional public hearings," and Treadwell was told the Board would learn of future site plans only by making a public records request to the City Clerk. For residents near US 441 and Dead River, August 14, 2025 was the only noticed hearing this 20.83-acre riverfront parcel will get before a development order.

• The applicant deferred concurrency to the final development order. With no proposed use, Capital Group elected to defer the concurrency determination — the test of whether roads, water, and sewer can actually carry the project — until a final development order. The traffic study is accepted, the environmental work is filed, and the capacity question is unresolved and now sits outside this Board's review.

• State law removed the City Council from plat approval as of July 1, 2025. Ordinance 2025-08 was not a policy choice: Chapter 2025-164, Laws of Florida amended § 177.071, F.S. to require that certain plats and replats be approved administratively "with no further action by City Council authority." Murphy named the consequence — after this Board's recommendation, no major changes can be made before sign-off. Subdivision platting in Tavares is now a staff function, and the Board amended the ordinance to at least fix accountability on "City Administrator or designee."

• Four of seven members and no Community Development Director in the room for the one contested item of 2025. Fabre was absent; Frias presented alone; Cunningham, the newest member, was absent for the vote that would have gone 4-3 had he attended and voted yes. Tavares outcomes in this period are attendance-sensitive, and the denial that Council later reversed was decided by a six-member board.

Raw Notes

• Source: August 14, 2025 minutes PDF, CivicClerk file ID 1684, published on event 468 (agendaId 385). Agenda is file ID 1618; web agenda packet is file ID 1620.
• The minutes PDF is a scanned document run through OCR. Header lines render imperfectly ("Hl. APPROVAL OF MINUTES", letterhead as "WARF'S / America's Seaplane City~"). Body text is clean; quotations are verbatim from the extracted text. "Palm Gardens" appears once as "Paim Gardens" and "Brooke" once as "Brook" in the roll-call of the failed vote.
• The vote as recorded is unusual in form: the minutes state "The motion failed 4-2" and then list six named votes — two yes, four no. The tally in the sentence reports the prevailing side first.
• Meeting date anomaly: August 14, 2025 is the second Thursday. Every other Tavares P&Z meeting in the coverage period falls on the third Thursday. No explanation appears in the record.
• Adjournment: "Bruce Peterman moved to adjourn the meeting. There was no second. The motion passed unanimously, and the meeting was adjourned at 3:53 p.m." — recorded as written.
• Downstream references to this parcel: January 15, 2026 — Murphy asks about "the rush rezoning request for the former marina property on Dead River Road"; Fabre confirms it received mixed-use zoning, with no pre-application meetings held. March 19, 2026 — Murphy asks the status of "the property formerly known as Palm Gardens"; Frias reports no updates, and Santoro raises concern about the site's condition and debris accumulating near the canal.
• Minutes attested by Michelle Winegard, Deputy City Clerk. Page count: 8.