City of Tavares Planning and Zoning Advisory Board — January 15, 2026

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (5 of 7 members present) Duration: 3:00 PM – 3:31 PM (31 minutes) Location: Tavares City Hall Council Chambers, 201 E. Main Street

Attendance

• Present: Deborah Murphy (Vice-Chairperson, presiding), Bruce Peterman, Jay Cunningham, Brooke Matthews, James Sweezea
• Absent: Gary Santoro (Chairman), Dara Treadwell
• Staff Present: Antonio Fabre (Community Development Director), Lindsay Holt (City Attorney), Michelle Winegard (Deputy City Clerk); James Frye, the City's new Planner, introduced himself

Prior minutes: November 20, 2025 minutes approved with no objections (moved Peterman, seconded Sweezea); no vote tally recorded.

Note: The chairman was absent from the meeting at which he was re-elected chairman.

Agenda Items

Item 1: Approval of the November 20, 2025, Planning and Zoning Board Meeting Minutes

• Type: Other (administrative)
• Request: Approve the November 20, 2025 minutes
• Action: Approved
• Vote: No tally recorded — "With no objections, the minutes were approved" (moved Peterman, seconded Sweezea)
• Notable Discussion: No corrections offered. The minutes refer to the meeting as "November 19, 2025"; the correct date is November 20, 2025.

Item 2: Election of the Planning and Zoning Board Officers

• Type: Other (board organization)
• Request: Elect Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson for 2026
• Action: Gary Santoro re-elected Chairman in absentia; Deborah Murphy re-elected Vice-Chairperson
• Vote: Chairperson — 5-0 (nominated Sweezea, seconded Peterman). Vice-Chairperson — 5-0 (nominated Peterman, seconded Matthews).
• Notable Discussion: No competing nominations for either seat. Peterman asked Murphy directly whether she would consider staying on as Vice-Chairperson; she agreed. Santoro thanked the Board for their trust at the following meeting.

Item 3: City Attorney Presentation — Board Orientation, Quasi-Judicial Procedure, and Sunshine Law

• Type: Other (legal orientation)
• Applicant: City of Tavares Legal Department (Attorney Lindsay Holt)
• Request: Provide a general orientation and legal refresher for the Board, including newly appointed member Jay Cunningham
• Action: No action (presentation)
• Notable Discussion:
  • Board responsibilities under the City Charter, including attendance requirements and the categories the Board reviews: rezoning applications, variances, special use permits, amendments to the Land Development Regulations and the Comprehensive Plan, and historic preservation matters. The Board reviews these items and makes recommendations to the City Council.
  • Conflicts of interest under Florida law — disclose personal, financial, or familial interests and abstain from voting where required.
  • The legislative / quasi-judicial distinction: quasi-judicial items require sworn testimony and must be decided on competent, substantial evidence contained in the record, with all parties given a fair opportunity to be heard, and decisions based on the City's adopted codes and Comprehensive Plan rather than personal preference or public pressure.
  • Common legal errors named: reliance on information outside the public hearing, inconsistent application of standards, and private discussions related to City business. Holt addressed ex parte communications and emphasized disclosing any outside communications before deliberation.
  • Sunshine Law and Public Records Law — City business must be conducted in publicly noticed meetings; communications related to City business may be subject to public records requirements; citizen records requests should be directed to the City Clerk's Office.
  • Ethics — prohibition on accepting gifts or favors from applicants or interested parties.
  • Murphy asked whether Board members may contact City staff for clarification on items. Holt advised that such communication is permitted and recommended that any such contact be disclosed on the record.

Item 4: Community Development Director Report

• Type: Other (staff report)
• Applicant: City of Tavares Community Development
• Action: No action
• Notable Discussion:
  • Fabre advised that the next meeting is anticipated to include a Land Development Regulations amendment required by the State, and potentially a variance request and a right-of-way vacation — "making it a more substantial agenda."
  • Construction had begun on an approximately 11,000-square-foot office/warehouse building on the west side of County Road 561, north of the State Road 448 intersection — site work started, pre-construction meeting recently completed. The tenant is a custom closet business.
  • The City's residential and commercial future land use maps have been updated and are available for public viewing on the City's website.
  • Murphy asked about land-clearing activity along State Route 19 across from Dollar General. Fabre said the property was being cleared of excess brush, which was permitted. Sweezea noted crews appeared to be working full-time. Fabre stated no pre-application or pre-construction meetings had been held for the property and said Code Enforcement could review the activity for unpermitted work.
  • Sweezea asked for a Code Enforcement update on the property with multiple uninhabited trailers on Mansfield; Fabre said Code Enforcement was aware.
  • Murphy asked whether there had been further progress on "the rush rezoning request for the former marina property on Dead River Road." Fabre confirmed the property had received mixed-use zoning; however, no pre-application meetings had occurred to date.

Item 5: Audience to be Heard — Vance Jochim on state preemption of local growth authority

• Type: Other (public comment)
• Location: Lake County (unincorporated) / regional
• Action: No action
• Notable Discussion:
  • Vance Jochim, of unincorporated Lake County, addressed Lake County's ongoing Comprehensive Plan update hearings, saying he had attended multiple public meetings and observed significant public concern and frustration, particularly related to traffic impacts associated with continued development. He questioned the methodology and results of a public survey used in the County's presentation, stating that conservation ranked low compared to traffic concerns, which he believed did not accurately reflect public sentiment.
  • Jochim discussed limitations on local government authority to manage growth and referenced recent state legislation, including laws affecting development rights and housing, that he stated restrict cities' and counties' ability to slow or pause development. He referenced a guidance document prepared by Lake County staff outlining constraints on local government authority and suggested similar research could benefit municipalities.
  • He questioned how development rights should be balanced against the broader public interest and said citizen groups are actively researching these issues and engaging state representatives to seek legislative changes.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 1 — Vance Jochim, unincorporated Lake County, under Audience to be Heard.
• General sentiment: Critical of growth management outcomes and of the survey methodology underpinning Lake County's Comprehensive Plan update; not directed at any Tavares application.
• Key concerns: Traffic impacts of continued development; survey methodology understating traffic concern relative to conservation; state preemption of local authority to slow or pause development; the balance between development rights and public interest.

No public hearings were scheduled. Attorney Holt stated there were no quasi-judicial matters on the agenda.

Key Signals

• The Palm Gardens override is confirmed on the record, in one sentence. Murphy asked about "the rush rezoning request for the former marina property on Dead River Road"; Fabre confirmed the property had received mixed-use zoning. This Board voted 4-2 against recommending that rezoning on August 14, 2025. City Council granted it. Five months later the parcel has mixed-use zoning and no pre-application meetings have occurred — the applicant secured the entitlement and has not returned. Every concern the Board raised in denying it (no plan, no return trip, deferred concurrency) is now the operative condition.

• A citizen brought the state-preemption argument into a Tavares P&Z meeting, sourced to a Lake County staff guidance document. Jochim told the Board that recent state legislation restricts cities' and counties' ability to slow or pause development, and that Lake County staff had prepared a written guidance document outlining those constraints, which he suggested municipalities replicate. That document is a named, retrievable artifact describing the legal ceiling on local growth control in this county — and it is being circulated by residents, not by staff.

• The Board received a full quasi-judicial and Sunshine Law orientation two months after its most contested vote and two months before its next one. Holt's presentation names the standard that would have governed Palm Gardens: quasi-judicial decisions must rest on competent, substantial evidence in the record and on adopted codes and the Comprehensive Plan "rather than personal preference or public pressure." The Board's stated reasons for denying Palm Gardens — no plan submitted, public perception — sit awkwardly against that standard. The orientation reads as remediation.

• Staff pre-announced the February agenda as "more substantial": a state-required LDR amendment, a possible variance, and a right-of-way vacation. Two of the three arrived — Ordinance 2026-01 (Certified Recovery Residences under SB 954) and Resolution 2026-03 (the Ridge Place right-of-way vacation). This is the second time in the record that Fabre's forward-look at a director's report accurately previewed the next agenda; the Community Development Director's report is the reliable leading indicator for Tavares.

• Clearing crews were working full-time on an SR 19 parcel with no pre-application or pre-construction meeting on file. Murphy and Sweezea both flagged the activity across from Dollar General; Fabre said brush clearing was permitted and Code Enforcement could review. By March 2026 the answer had firmed: Code Enforcement determined the removed trees were already down or dead and the clearing was routine maintenance, with no recent activity on the property. The parcel remains unentitled and visibly worked.

• The county seat's planning department finally has a planner again, hired from Lake County. James Frye introduced himself, having formerly been employed by Lake County. The City Planner seat had been vacant since Frias's October promotion. Frye presents the March 2026 laundromat special use permit — the department's institutional knowledge of county review practice now sits inside the City.

Raw Notes

• Source: January 15, 2026 minutes PDF, CivicClerk file ID 1788, published on event 484 (agendaId 400). Agenda is file ID 1742; web agenda packet is file ID 1744.
• The minutes PDF is a scanned document run through OCR; headers render imperfectly ("Hil. APPROVAL OF MINUTES", page footer once as "Page 2 of §"). Body text is clean.
• Date error in the source: the minutes refer three times to the "November 19, 2025" Planning & Zoning meeting. The meeting was held Thursday, November 20, 2025, per its agenda, its minutes header, and the CivicClerk event record.
• The minutes-approval motion records no vote tally — "With no objections, the minutes were approved." The two officer elections record 5-0.
• Officer elections were held in January 2026, correcting the 2025 practice, when the election slipped to March.
• Roster at this meeting: seven seats, all filled — Santoro, Murphy, Peterman, Cunningham, Matthews, Treadwell, Sweezea.
• Minutes attested by Michelle Winegard, Deputy City Clerk. Page count: 5.