City of Winter Park Planning & Zoning Board — June 2, 2026

Meeting Overview

Type: Regular Meeting Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 members present) Duration: 1 hour 59 minutes (5:00 p.m. – 6:59 p.m.) Location: City Hall Commission Chambers, 401 S. Park Avenue

Amendment note: This document was first harvested on 2026-06-04 as a forward-looking agenda (2026-06-agenda-PZB.md). The approved Minutes (fileId 6326) were published afterward and are incorporated here; the document is now document_type: both, and the two agenda-stage items carry their actual dispositions.

Attendance

• Present: Alex Stringfellow, Jason Johnson (Chair), Bill Segal, Charles Steinberg, Michael Dick, Samuel King
• Absent: Vashon Sarkisian
• Staff Present: Dan Langley (City Attorney), Allison McGillis (Director of Planning & Zoning), Nicholas Lewis (Planner II), Corinna Lundgren (Planner I), Mary Jean (Administrative Coordinator)

Board composition change: Samuel King was introduced at this meeting as a new board member, appointed by City Commissioner Craig Russell. He succeeds David Bornstein, whose six years of service were recognized at the May 5, 2026 meeting.

Agenda Items

Consent: Minutes of May 5, 2026

• Type: Consent
• Action: Approved
• Vote: 6-0 (Michael Dick moved, Charles Steinberg seconded; Sarkisian absent)
• No public comment.

Item 1: SPR #26-05 — Lakefront additions at 1128 Preserve Point Drive, Lake Berry (Windsong)

• Type: Site Plan Review (lakefront)
• Case Number: SPR #26-05
• Location: 1128 Preserve Point Drive, on Lake Berry (Windsong development, platted Lot 12, lot type B)
• Applicant: Nasrallah Design Studios (Adam Metel, representing owners Thomas & Jana Landreth)
• Request: Construct additions to the existing single-family home totaling 1,907 square feet — a 682 sq ft two-car garage in front and a 1,225 sq ft pool house in the rear.
• Current Zoning: PURD (Planned Unit Residential Development) — Windsong Development Standards
• Proposed Zoning: No change
• Acreage: ~90,933 sq ft unsubmerged (upland)
• Staff Recommendation: Approve
• Action: Approved
• Vote: 6-0 (Charles Steinberg moved, Michael Dick seconded; Sarkisian absent)
• Conditions: None added
• Notable Discussion: Lundgren confirmed the proposal meets floor area ratio, impervious coverage, and lakefront setback requirements, and that the garage and pool house sit well within the setback lines. Views from the lake and from neighbors would not be affected. Stormwater retention is met through four existing swales plus two proposed. The board's only question concerned front-yard permeability percentage. No public speakers. Staff-report detail from the agenda packet: proposed impervious coverage 25,570 sq ft (28%, against a 40% maximum); total structure 10,439 sq ft against a 22,733 sq ft allowable under the 25% lot-type-B FAR; pool house set back 350 feet from the ordinary high-water line against a 75-foot PURD lakefront setback; pool-house/deck elevation matches the existing home at 78 feet and does not exceed the 3-foot wall-height limit facing the lake; no trees removed; new swales provide 2,319 cubic feet of retention.

Item 2: CPA #25-05 — Lakefront lot-split Comprehensive Plan text amendment (1020 Palmer Avenue)

• Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (text amendment to the Future Land Use Element)
• Case Number: CPA #25-05
• Location: Text amendment to Chapter 58 "Land Development Code" Article I, "Comprehensive Plan"; subject property 1020 Palmer Avenue, a ~3.67-acre lakefront estate
• Applicant: Tara Tedrow, 1473 Kelso Boulevard, Windermere, FL 34786 (attorney; applicant and contract purchaser)
• Request: An ordinance adding a Future Land Use Element policy permitting the subdivision or lot split of lakefront property meeting specific criteria.
• Current Zoning: R-1AAA, Single Family Residential future land use. Existing Policy 1-5.1.1 prohibits the subdivision of lakefront estates.
• Proposed Zoning: No zoning change; comprehensive plan policy only
• Acreage: ~3.67 acres
• Staff Recommendation: Approve an alternative policy, not the applicant's. Staff recommended permitting a lakefront split only where a pre-1950 home is designated on the Winter Park Register of Historic Places, with each resulting lot having at least 110 feet of lake and street frontage and at least 52,000 sq ft of upland area. Staff outlined three options for the board: approve the applicant's text, deny and retain the existing prohibition, or advance staff's historic-preservation alternative.
• Action: Approved — the applicant's text, as new Policy 1-5.1.8
• Vote: 4-2. In favor: Charles Steinberg, Bill Segal, Alex Stringfellow, Samuel King. Opposed: Jason Johnson, Michael Dick. Vashon Sarkisian absent. (Bill Segal moved, Charles Steinberg seconded.)
• Conditions: The adopted policy text — Policy 1-5.1.8, Additional Lakefront Lot Considerations — permits the subdivision of a lakefront property with a minimum of 3.5 upland acres, zoned R-1AAA, with a Single Family Residential future land use designation, and existing as of October 1, 2025, into two lots subject to: (1) each lot having 150 feet of frontage on both the lake and the street; (2) each lot a minimum of 1.5 acres; and (3) combined gross floor area between the two lots not exceeding 40,000 square feet, with each lot's final gross floor area set at site plan review and neither lot exceeding 35% FAR.
• Notable Discussion: McGillis stated plainly that the criteria are so restrictive that no other property in the city currently qualifies, and that staff's alternative would likewise apply only to this parcel. She noted the applicant's 40,000 sq ft combined cap is materially below the roughly 56,000 sq ft buildable if the property remained a single lot, and that the resulting lots would still be substantially larger than neighbors and would require no variances. The property holds a 1939 residence designed by James Gamble Rogers, known as Merrywood, listed on the Florida Master Site File and identified by the city as a potential historic landmark but not designated on the city's historic register; staff considered its eastern-portion location feasible to preserve through a subdivision. Tedrow testified to eleven months of preservation effort — working with preservation organizations, marketing the property, hosting nearly 100 vetted tours, and commissioning a structural engineering report that concluded the house suffered serious structural problems and should not be saved. She confirmed under questioning that the amendment was intentionally crafted to apply only to Merrywood, and stated she opposed staff's alternative because demolition is financially unavoidable. She argued the alternative to a split is a mansion potentially exceeding 50,000 sq ft, out of scale with the neighborhood. Board members supporting the motion concluded preservation was no longer feasible and that two controlled estate lots better protect scale and character than one much larger home, and emphasized private property rights. Opponents argued the comprehensive plan clearly prohibits lakefront splits, that a policy applicable to a single property is an inappropriate special exception, that any change should amend the existing policy rather than add a property-specific provision, and that granting unique development rights to one property carries legal risk. The board confirmed before deliberating that the applicant would not proceed if historic preservation of Merrywood were required.

Remaining agenda structure

Action Items, Non-Action Items — none. Staff Updates: McGillis reminded the board of the board appreciation event on June 18, 5:30–7:00 p.m. at the city's event center. Board Comments, Upcoming Agenda Items — none recorded. Adjourned 6:59 p.m.

Public Hearings Summary

• Number of speakers: 6, all on CPA #25-05. Zero on SPR #26-05 and zero on public comment.
• General sentiment: Split. In favor: Mick Night (1160 Tom Gurney Drive) and David Bornstein (1670 Mayfield Avenue) — the immediate past Vice Chair, speaking as a private resident. Opposed: Aimee Spencer and Michael Spencer (both 1509 Orange Avenue). Position not stated: John Skolfield (358 Vitoria Avenue) and Scott Peelen (1555 Lakehurst Avenue).
• Key concerns:
  • Whether a comprehensive plan policy written to fit exactly one parcel constitutes an improper special exception
  • Legal exposure from granting unique development rights to a single property
  • Whether the fear of an oversized single home justifies altering long-standing lakefront policy
  • The fate of Merrywood and whether the policy should be structured to encourage saving it

Key Signals

• Winter Park broke its own prohibition on splitting lakefront estates, 4-2, with a policy the applicant confirmed on the record was written for exactly one property. New Policy 1-5.1.8 permits a lakefront split only where the lot has 3.5+ upland acres, R-1AAA zoning, Single Family Residential future land use, and existed as of October 1, 2025. The Planning Director stated no other parcel in the city qualifies. This is the inverse of the form-based defense the corpus tracks elsewhere: instead of writing character protection into the code, Winter Park wrote a single-parcel exemption into the comprehensive plan. The precedent that matters is not the dimensional criteria — it is that the board accepted property-specific comprehensive plan text as a legitimate instrument. Anyone holding a large Winter Park lakefront parcel now has a template and a date-of-existence cutoff to argue against.
• The demolition of a 1939 James Gamble Rogers house was the price, and the applicant made non-negotiability the winning argument. Merrywood sits on the Florida Master Site File but was never placed on the city's historic register. Staff's alternative policy would have permitted the split only if the house were designated and preserved. Tedrow testified to eleven months of failed preservation marketing, roughly 100 vetted tours, and a structural engineering report advising against saving it — then confirmed she would not proceed at all under staff's version. The board's swing votes moved once that was on the record. The operative mechanism for anyone reading Winter Park preservation fights: an undesignated historic house is leverage the applicant can spend, and demonstrating that preservation is infeasible converts the city's preservation lever into a reason to abandon it.
• The Chair lost, and the newest member — seated that night — voted with the majority. Chair Jason Johnson and Michael Dick voted no; Steinberg, Segal, Stringfellow, and Samuel King, introduced at the start of this meeting, voted yes, with Sarkisian absent. King was appointed by City Commissioner Craig Russell to the seat David Bornstein had held for six years. Bornstein, whose service was recognized at the May 5 meeting, appeared at this hearing from the floor as a private resident of 1670 Mayfield Avenue and spoke in favor of the amendment. Winter Park's most consequential land-use vote of the cycle was decided by a four-member majority on a seven-seat board, one of whom was voting for the first time and one of whom is an appointee of a sitting commissioner. Board composition, not board philosophy, is the variable to track here — the six-month-board-flip dynamic in a single appointment cycle.
• The volume of routine lakefront work is what makes the exceptional vote possible. SPR #26-05 cleared 6-0 in minutes with a single question about front-yard permeability — a 1,907 sq ft addition on a 90,933 sq ft lot at 11% FAR against a 25% allowance, 350 feet back from the high-water line. Winter Park's lakefront regime approves large additions on large lots without friction. The friction is reserved entirely for creating lots. That asymmetry — build bigger, freely; subdivide, almost never — is the actual shape of Winter Park lakefront policy, and June 2 is the night the second half moved.
• Six speakers decided the most consequential comprehensive plan amendment in the city's recent record. Two in favor, two opposed, two who stated no position, on a policy change that ran the meeting to 6:59 p.m. Compare the May 5 El Car Wash denial, where nine opposed residents produced a 6-0 rejection of a staff-recommended conditional use. Winter Park's board responds to organized neighborhood opposition on site-specific uses and proceeds on thin turnout for policy text — a clean large-votes-small-crowds exhibit, and a practical note for anyone deciding where to spend their attention in this city.

Raw Notes

• Source platform note: Harvested from the June 2, 2026 PZB agenda and 52-page agenda packet (fileIds 6162 / 6164) and the approved Minutes (fileId 6326) — CivicClerk winterparkfl tenant, agendaId 1471, event 2726. Minutes approved by the board on July 7, 2026.
• Correction to the 2026-06-04 harvest of this meeting: that document recorded source_url as .../Meetings/1494. The correct agendaId is 1471. The agenda-packet staff report described the house as a 1938 James Gamble Rogers II residence; the minutes date it 1939 and attribute it to James Gamble Rogers, and name it Merrywood. This corpus follows the minutes.
• The agenda-stage harvest anticipated a staff-versus-applicant fork and flagged the 1290 N. Park Avenue precedent (another Rogers residence preserved by a comparable mechanism) from the packet; the minutes do not restate that precedent, and the board did not adopt the preservation-gated path.
• Meeting structure: Call to Order → Consent (May 5 minutes) → Public Comments → Public Hearings (SPR #26-05, CPA #25-05) → Action Items → Non-Action Items → Staff Updates → Board Comments → Upcoming Agenda Items → Adjournment.
• The staff alternative policy text in the packet contained drafting artifacts ("provide variance an exception", "circumstances:, if the historic designation is achieved") carried verbatim; that text was not adopted.
• This is a recommendation to the City Commission, not a final adoption. The comprehensive plan amendment requires City Commission action and state review; neither is recorded in the corpus as of 2026-08-08.
• Of the three items previewed at the May 26, 2026 work session, only 1020 Palmer reached this agenda. The 1560 Orange Avenue restaurant (CU #26-04) and 210 E. Morse Boulevard townhomes/synagogue (CU #26-01) were docketed for July 7, 2026.
• Attested by Mary Jean, Board Administrator.