City of Winter Garden Planning and Zoning Board — June 2, 2025

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (5 of 7 members present) Duration: 62 minutes (6:30 p.m. – 7:32 p.m.)

Attendance

Present: Chairman Will Hawthorne, Myron Brown, Jimmy Dunn, Jeff Ewing, Mark Hide
Absent: Co-Chairman Steve Ambielli (excused), Linda Bennett (excused)
Staff Present: City Attorney Kurt Ardaman; Planning Director Kelly Carson; Planning Supervisor Shane Friedman; Senior Planner Yvonne Conatser; Recording Secretary Ellen King
Other Attendees (public sign-in): Kev Thornton (145 N Highland Ave); Allison Painter (393 N Lakeview Ave); Carl & Linda Weirich (541 Teacup Springs Ct); Jeffrey Oakman (260 Donald Dr); Rod Reynolds (1308 Vic Kay Ct); Jeff Kirkpatrick (1425 Markel Dr); Jamie Zimmermann (549 Teacup Springs Ct); Roland Zimmermann (1406 Coluso Dr); Jim & Jeanie Rahman (153 Apopka St); Rhonda Dexter (Winter Garden); Richard Lemley (Fiesta Contracting); Eric Veit (216 N Lakeview Ave); M. Whitehead (210 Grand Royal Cir); Priscilla Melendez (501 Millwood Pl); Sara Farese (361 N Boyd St)

Agenda Items

Item 2: Approval of Minutes — May 5, 2025

Type: Other (procedural)
Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous 5-0 (motion by Hide, second by Brown)

Item 3.A: 522 S Woodland Street (522 Woodland Rezoning) — Rezoning

Type: Rezoning (public hearing) — Ordinance 25-16
Location: 522 S Woodland Street (Parcel ID 23-22-27-8576-02-050)
Applicant: [not named in minutes]
Request: Rezone to R-NC (Residential Neighborhood Commercial) to allow office use
Current Zoning: [not stated in minutes]
Proposed Zoning: R-NC
Staff Recommendation: Approve Ordinance 25-16 (presented by Planning Supervisor Friedman)
Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous 5-0 (motion by Hide, second by Dunn)
Conditions: Subject to staff conditions
Notable Discussion: Staff noted a Special Exception permit process and site plan review will still be required before the office use can operate. Neither the board nor the public raised questions.

Item 4.A: 716 Garden West Terrace (Castro Residence) — Variance

Type: Variance (public hearing)
Location: 716 Garden West Terrace (Parcel ID 22-22-27-2950-00-080)
Request: 5 ft rear-yard setback to build a single-family home with attached garage
Staff Recommendation: Approve subject to staff conditions (presented by Planning Supervisor Friedman)
Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous 5-0 (motion by Dunn, second by Brown)
Conditions: Staff conditions include arborist-report recommendations for maintaining the health of the existing tree
Notable Discussion: The board asked about the health of the tree; staff confirmed an arborist report was supplied with maintenance recommendations folded into the conditions. Jeffrey Oakman (260 Donald Dr) asked whether the front setback could be pushed further back to save trees; staff answered that the original setback is 10 ft from the right-of-way line but the proposed setback will be roughly 20–30 ft.

Item 4.B: 549 Teacup Springs Court (Zimmermann RV-Carport) — Variance

Type: Variance (public hearing)
Location: 549 Teacup Springs Court (Parcel ID 11-22-27-5452-02-210)
Applicant: Jamie Zimmermann (owner)
Request: 5 ft corner-side-lot setback, 12 ft wall height and 15 ft roof-peak height for an accessory structure (RV carport) alongside the existing house
Current Zoning: R-1 (corrected on the record — the staff-report cover sheet had the wrong applicant and zoning)
Staff Recommendation: Approve subject to staff conditions (presented by Senior Planner Conatser)
Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous 5-0 (motion by Hawthorne, second by Ewing)
Conditions: Staff conditions as written, with condition #3 revised mid-motion to read "… trees, plants and shrubs to substantially screen the carport up to the roof eaves at maturity of the greenery"
Notable Discussion: The applicant supplied several neighbor letters of support; one neighbor objected. Rod Reynolds (1308 Vic Kay Ct) raised size, height, nearness to the street and visual interference from a solid fence, asking instead for new fencing and tall landscaping. Jeff Kirkpatrick (1425 Markel Dr) welcomed the property's rehabilitation but wanted fencing and landscaping. Carl Weirich (541 Teacup Springs Ct) had no objection. The applicant agreed to added plantings and a fence. Staff confirmed the driveway is proposed, not existing, and the east-side driveway is currently open.

Item 4.C: 216 N Lakeview Avenue (Veit Detached Garage) — Variance

Type: Variance (public hearing) — re-approval of an expired 2018 variance
Location: 216 N Lakeview Avenue (Parcel ID 14-22-27-1728-01-040)
Applicant: Eric Veit (owner)
Request: 10 ft rear setback, 10 ft 8 in wall height and 16 ft 6 in roof-peak height for a detached garage
Staff Recommendation: Approve subject to staff conditions (presented by Senior Planner Conatser)
Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous 5-0 (motion by Hide, second by Ewing)
Notable Discussion: Staff corrected the staff report on the record — the stated 2,691 sq ft is substantially overstated. The identical variance was granted by this board on July 25, 2018 to the previous owner; the concrete-slab permit was pulled inside the window but the garage permit missed the deadline, expiring the approval. Allison Painter (393 N Lakeview Ave) asked whether this was the same 2018 request; staff confirmed. The board confirmed the garage height is less than the house.

Item 4.D: 704 Summer Street (Summer Street Duplex) — Variance

Type: Variance (public hearing)
Location: 704 Summer Street (Parcel ID 23-22-27-6504-08-040)
Request: Construct a duplex on a lot 81.43 ft wide at the building front setback line
Current Zoning: R-2
Staff Recommendation: Approve subject to staff conditions (presented by Planning Supervisor Friedman)
Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous 5-0 (motion by Hide, second by Brown)
Conditions: Staff conditions plus an added condition that the lot cannot be split in the future
Notable Discussion: Board member Dunn stated for the record he was not in favor of a duplex on a lot under 100 ft wide, said R-2 calls for 100 ft, did not want to encourage multi-unit variances below that width, and referenced a recent duplex variance on Agness Street on the north side of town. Staff answered that this site is twice the depth needed, that 82 ft versus 100 ft is not significant given the depth, and — the decisive point — that the applicant could subdivide the lot and build two houses by right without any variance, because R-2 requires only a 75 ft front lot width. Staff offered to add a no-split condition at the board's direction; Dunn said that given the information he could vote in favor. M. Whitehead (210 Grand Royal Cir) asked where the site adjoins Regal Point subdivision and raised traffic; staff located Regal Point to the south and compared the duplex's traffic to two single-family homes. Sara Farese (361 N Boyd St) asked for the Agness Street address. Staff described access from Summer Street looping to center-located garages, all setbacks met in excess, a front elevation reading as a single-family home, and bedrooms over the garage accessible only from the residential units.

Item 5.A: Ordinance 25-15 — Expedited Residential Building Permits Before Final Plat

Type: Text Amendment (public hearing) — City Code Section 110-60
Applicant: City of Winter Garden
Request: Amend Section 110-60 to permit residential building permit applications before the final plat is recorded, in accordance with Section 177.073, Florida Statutes
Staff Recommendation: Approve Ordinance 25-15 (presented by Planning Director Carson)
Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous 5-0 (motion by Hawthorne, second by Ewing)
Notable Discussion: The board asked whether the ordinance permits submittal before final plat approval without guaranteeing approval ahead of it. Staff explained that after pre-plat approval an applicant may submit up to 75% of the lots approved in that pre-plat submittal, subject to conditions. Staff framed the purpose as aligning city code with Florida Statutes.

Public Hearings Summary

Number of speakers: 5 (Oakman; Reynolds; Kirkpatrick; Weirich; Painter — plus Whitehead and Farese on the duplex item)
General sentiment: Mixed on the RV-carport item, otherwise neutral to supportive
Key concerns: Tree preservation and where a house sits on its lot (716 Garden West Terrace); the visual bulk and street proximity of a 15 ft RV carport, with neighbors asking for landscaping and fencing rather than denial (549 Teacup Springs Ct); traffic and adjacency to Regal Point subdivision (704 Summer Street).

Key Signals

Ordinance 25-15 is Winter Garden's first state-alignment code move of the 2025 cycle — three months before the SB 180 machinery. Section 110-60 was rewritten to let builders submit permits for up to 75% of pre-plat-approved lots before the final plat records, tracking Section 177.073, Florida Statutes. Three meetings later, on September 8, 2025, the same board adopts Ordinance 25-23 creating LDC Section 98-1, the city-side SB 180 reversion process. The pattern is not defensiveness in isolation: Winter Garden reads the statute book continuously and codes to it, sometimes to accelerate development (25-15) and sometimes to defend against preemption (25-23). By August 2026 the city formalizes this posture into a statutes matrix attached to the Winter Garden 2050 comprehensive plan.
Staff's most effective argument is the by-right alternative — and it converts the board's only dissent. Dunn opened the 704 Summer Street item stating on the record he opposed duplexes on sub-100-ft lots. Staff's answer was that the owner could split the lot and build two houses by right, because R-2 needs only 75 ft of frontage. Dunn moved to support. The board then bought the outcome with a no-future-split condition. For applicants in Winter Garden, framing a request against what could be built without any approval at all is the highest-leverage move available.
Tree preservation has entered the variance conditions themselves, not just the discussion. The 716 Garden West Terrace approval carries arborist-report maintenance requirements inside the staff conditions, and the 549 Teacup Springs Court motion was amended live to require screening "up to the roof eaves at maturity of the greenery." This is the earliest instance in the Winter Garden record of vegetation being written into the operative motion; it recurs at 617 S Boyd Street and hardens by May 2026 into the live-oak fight at 111 N Central. Canopy is becoming Winter Garden's substantive negotiating currency the way stormwater is elsewhere in the corpus.
Expiring variances are becoming a recurring docket category, and 216 N Lakeview is the first clean case. An identical detached-garage variance was granted July 25, 2018; the slab permit landed in time but the garage permit did not, so the entitlement lapsed and the new owner had to re-run the full hearing. The same shape returns at 115 Agnes Street (April 6, 2026) and at 165 E Tilden Street (July 6, 2026). Buyers of Winter Garden properties advertised as "variance approved" should confirm the permit clock, not the approval date.
Two R-NC conversions bracket the year, and both need a second approval to become real. The 522 S Woodland rezoning grants R-NC for office use but staff flagged that a Special Exception and site plan review still stand between the map change and any tenant. The same two-step reappears at 244 W Story Road on August 4, 2025, where the applicant runs the Special Exception and the variance on one night. R-NC in Winter Garden is a permission to apply, not a permission to build.

Raw Notes

Fifteen members of the public signed in — the largest public turnout in the May–August 2025 stretch — driven almost entirely by the 549 Teacup Springs Court RV-carport item and the 704 Summer Street duplex.

Staff corrected its own report on the record twice in one meeting: the applicant name and current zoning on the Zimmermann cover sheet, and the square footage on the Veit report. Both corrections were stated before the motions.

Board member Mark Hide moved four of the six items. Ambielli and Bennett were both excused, leaving a five-member board that voted unanimously on everything.

Source: standalone Minutes PDF (fileId 373), CivicClerk tenant wintergardenfl, agendaId 77 / event 65. Text extracted cleanly; no OCR required.

Winter Garden Planning and Zoning Board — June 2, 2025 minutes