What were the most significant items on the Winter Garden Planning and Zoning Board agenda for February 2026?

Meeting Reading

Winter Garden Planning and Zoning Board

February 2, 2026

3 items on the agenda

**The Resurrection Catholic Church grass-parking site plan is the corpus's first explicit case of stormwater-rule-driven impervious-area reduction.** Staff explicitly tied the grass-parking allowance to "the new stormwater rule to balance the impervious areas." This is the regulatory mechanism by which Winter Garden's impervious-surface budget shapes site planning. Combined with the November 2025 Ordinance 25-36 water/wastewater impact fee escalation, the city's environmental-compliance architecture (stormwater + water fees) is creating multi-layered compliance friction that is shaping site plans at the parcel level. The mechanism is structurally similar to the SJRWMD Consumptive Use Permit conditions in South Lake — corridor-wide environmental constraints reaching individual project plans.
**Cross-school parking agreements as a procedural innovation.** The Resurrection Catholic Church site plan involves a parking-sharing agreement with Daniels Office Park "another school down the street." This is the corpus's first instance of a parking-sharing agreement explicitly supporting a religious-and-school site plan. The arrangement is structurally adaptive — turning private-side coordination into the substitute for additional paved capacity required by code. Watch whether this pattern propagates as a Winter Garden mechanism for handling parking constraints in built-out zones where new pavement is environmentally costly.
**The Bright Abilities Academy special exception introduces a private school operation into a commercial complex with restricted ten-space shared-parking footprint.** The school's special exception is explicitly limited to this suite and this use — preventing future tenants from inheriting school-permission rights. The procedural pattern (suite-and-use-bound special exception) is the sharper version of the typical "this lot, this use" framing. Watch for whether the SR 535 traffic-stacking concern converts into a follow-on staff condition if school operations exceed projected parent-pickup volumes.

On February 2, 2026, City of Winter Garden's Planning and Zoning Board considered 3 agenda items. **The Resurrection Catholic Church grass-parking site plan is the corpus's first explicit case of stormwater-rule-driven impervious-area reduction.** Staff explicitly tied the grass-parking allowance to "the new stormwater rule to balance the impervious areas." This is the regulatory mechanism by which Winter Garden's impervious-surface budget shapes site planning. Combined with the November 2025 Ordinance 25-36 water/wastewater impact fee escalation, the city's environmental-compliance architecture (stormwater + water fees) is creating multi-layered compliance friction that is shaping site plans at the parcel level. The mechanism is structurally similar to the SJRWMD Consumptive Use Permit conditions in South Lake — corridor-wide environmental constraints reaching individual project plans. **Cross-school parking agreements as a procedural innovation.** The Resurrection Catholic Church site plan involves a parking-sharing agreement with Daniels Office Park "another school down the street." This is the corpus's first instance of a parking-sharing agreement explicitly supporting a religious-and-school site plan. The arrangement is structurally adaptive — turning private-side coordination into the substitute for additional paved capacity required by code. Watch whether this pattern propagates as a Winter Garden mechanism for handling parking constraints in built-out zones where new pavement is environmentally costly. **The Bright Abilities Academy special exception introduces a private school operation into a commercial complex with restricted ten-space shared-parking footprint.** The school's special exception is explicitly limited to this suite and this use — preventing future tenants from inheriting school-permission rights. The procedural pattern (suite-and-use-bound special exception) is the sharper version of the typical "this lot, this use" framing. Watch for whether the SR 535 traffic-stacking concern converts into a follow-on staff condition if school operations exceed projected parent-pickup volumes.

CHANGE LENS

THE READINGmeeting record

City of Winter Garden Planning and Zoning Board — February 2, 2026

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (5 of 7 members present) Duration: 20 minutes (called 6:30 PM, adjourned 6:50 PM)

Attendance

Present: Chairman Will Hawthorne, Linda Bennett, Myron Brown, Jimmy Dunn, Jeff Ewing
Absent: Co-Chairman Steve Ambielli (excused), TJ Ryan (excused)
Staff Present: City Attorney Kurt Ardaman; Planning Director Kelly Carson; Planning Supervisor Shane Friedman; Senior Planner Yvonne Conatser; Planner II Amber McDonald; Recording Secretary Ellen King

Agenda Items

Item 2: Approval of Minutes — January 5, 2026

Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous 5-0

Item 3.A: Bright Abilities Academy — Special Exception (1220 Winter Garden Vineland Road, Suite 100)

Type: Special Exception
Location: 1220 Winter Garden Vineland Road, Suite 100 (Parcel ID 26-22-27-3981-00-010)
Applicant: Bright Abilities Academy (Valneida Arrais, Anna Karine Cruz; with Cerrud Law representing)
Request: Operation of a school in a commercial complex
Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous 5-0 (motion by Bennett, second by Brown)
Notable Discussion: Board pressed on shared-parking specifics (10 spaces shown in white on the Circulation Plan), property-owner authorization (confirmed), other schools at the complex (none), staggered drop-off effectiveness, traffic stacking onto SR 535. Special Exception explicitly limited to this suite and this use.

Item 4.A: Resurrection Catholic Church Renovations — Site Plan / Parking Area (1211 Winter Garden Vineland Road)

Type: Site Plan (parking area reduction)
Location: 1211 Winter Garden Vineland Road (Parcel ID 12-22-27-6496-29-010)
Applicant: Bill Hockensmith (Florida Engineering Group, Inc.) for Diocese of Orlando (Debbie Whalen)
Request: Reduction of required paved parking spaces; allow grass parking to accommodate required space counts for the church expansion
Action: Approved
Vote: Unanimous 5-0 (motion by Hawthorne, second by Dunn)
Notable Discussion: Demolition of parking will proceed half a parking lot at a time. The site is working with another school down the street on a parking agreement with Daniels Office Park. 43 paved spaces serve daily uses (school, church office); grass area used for Sunday/expansion-event parking. Site plan is related to the new stormwater rule to balance impervious areas — the grass-parking choice is driven by stormwater compliance. Wheel stops planned for grass spaces.

Public Hearings Summary

Number of speakers: 0 (board substantive questions answered by staff and applicant teams)
General sentiment: No public concern
Key concerns: Traffic stacking on SR 535 (school case); parking-grass viability (church case)

Key Signals

The Resurrection Catholic Church grass-parking site plan is the corpus's first explicit case of stormwater-rule-driven impervious-area reduction. Staff explicitly tied the grass-parking allowance to "the new stormwater rule to balance the impervious areas." This is the regulatory mechanism by which Winter Garden's impervious-surface budget shapes site planning. Combined with the November 2025 Ordinance 25-36 water/wastewater impact fee escalation, the city's environmental-compliance architecture (stormwater + water fees) is creating multi-layered compliance friction that is shaping site plans at the parcel level. The mechanism is structurally similar to the SJRWMD Consumptive Use Permit conditions in South Lake — corridor-wide environmental constraints reaching individual project plans.
Cross-school parking agreements as a procedural innovation. The Resurrection Catholic Church site plan involves a parking-sharing agreement with Daniels Office Park "another school down the street." This is the corpus's first instance of a parking-sharing agreement explicitly supporting a religious-and-school site plan. The arrangement is structurally adaptive — turning private-side coordination into the substitute for additional paved capacity required by code. Watch whether this pattern propagates as a Winter Garden mechanism for handling parking constraints in built-out zones where new pavement is environmentally costly.
The Bright Abilities Academy special exception introduces a private school operation into a commercial complex with restricted ten-space shared-parking footprint. The school's special exception is explicitly limited to this suite and this use — preventing future tenants from inheriting school-permission rights. The procedural pattern (suite-and-use-bound special exception) is the sharper version of the typical "this lot, this use" framing. Watch for whether the SR 535 traffic-stacking concern converts into a follow-on staff condition if school operations exceed projected parent-pickup volumes.

Raw Notes

Source: Winter Garden CivicClerk tenant wintergardenfl, agenda ID 159 (event 457). Minutes file is text-extractable (112 lines). Brief docket. The 20-minute meeting is one of the shortest in the corpus — comparable to Apopka's 13-minute March 10 2026 meeting.