City of Winter Park Planning & Zoning Board — May 26, 2026 (Work Session)

Meeting Overview

Type: Work Session (midday, non-action) Quorum: Yes (6 of 7 members present) Duration: 50 minutes (12:00 p.m. – 12:50 p.m.) Location: Chapman Room, 401 S. Park Avenue

Amendment note: This document was first harvested on 2026-06-04 as an agenda-only forward signal, on the assumption that Winter Park does not publish minutes for discussion-only work sessions. That assumption was wrong. The approved Minutes (fileId 6295) were published after that harvest and are incorporated here; the document is now document_type: both.

Attendance

• Present: Alex Stringfellow, Jason Johnson (Chair), Bill Segal, Charles Steinberg, Michael Dick, Vashon Sarkisian
• Absent: David Bornstein
• Staff Present: Allison McGillis (Director of Planning & Zoning), John Harbilas (Asst. Director of Planning & Zoning), Nicholas Lewis (Planner II), Corinna Lundgren (Planner I), Mary Jean (Administrative Coordinator)

Agenda Items

Item 1: Preview — 1020 Palmer Avenue lot split / Comprehensive Plan Amendment (CPA #25-05)

• Type: Comprehensive Plan Amendment (preview of the June 2, 2026 public hearing)
• Case Number: CPA #25-05
• Location: 1020 Palmer Avenue (~3.67-acre lakefront estate); text amendment to the Future Land Use Element
• Applicant: Tara Tedrow (attorney; applicant and contract purchaser)
• Request: Add a Future Land Use Element policy permitting the subdivision or lot split of lakefront property meeting specific criteria.
• Current Zoning: R-1AAA
• Proposed Zoning: No zoning change; comprehensive plan text only
• Acreage: ~3.67 acres
• Staff Recommendation: Staff presented an alternative policy intended to preserve the historic home while allowing a lot split — not the applicant's text.
• Action: No action — work-session discussion
• Notable Discussion: McGillis walked the board through the applicant's proposed policy changes, lot size and frontage requirements, building limitations, setbacks, and comparison against existing zoning and surrounding properties. Discussion covered the future of the historic James Gamble Rogers home known as Merrywood standing on the property — its condition, demolition status, preservation potential, and whether the policy should be structured to encourage saving it. Staff's alternative policy prompted discussion of precedent, consistency with the city's policy of preserving large lakefront estate lots, potential legal implications, and anticipated public input. The board asked to review additional setback information, refine conceptual plans, evaluate staff's alternative, clarify that historic designation would be required to preserve the house, confirm the applicant's position on the staff proposal, and consider public feedback before making a final recommendation.

Item 2: Preview — 210 East Morse Boulevard townhomes and synagogue (CU #26-01)

• Type: Conditional Use (preview)
• Case Number: [not stated in the work session minutes; docketed as CU #26-01 on the July 7 and August 4, 2026 agendas]
• Location: 210 East Morse Boulevard (existing El Cortez apartments), with the synagogue fronting Knowles Avenue
• Applicant: [not named in the work session minutes; GAI Consultants, Inc. on behalf of El Cortez, LTD, in conjunction with Chabad of Greater Orlando, per the July 7, 2026 agenda]
• Request: Demolish the existing El Cortez apartments and construct five townhomes fronting Morse Boulevard plus a synagogue and preschool behind them on Knowles Avenue.
• Current Zoning: R-4
• Proposed Zoning: No change; conditional use plus setback and impervious-coverage variances
• Acreage: [not stated]
• Staff Recommendation: [carried to a later hearing]
• Action: No action — work-session discussion
• Notable Discussion: Site layout, parking, underground garage, rooftop deck, the conditional use request for three-story buildings, setback and impervious coverage variances, stormwater retention, and streetscape fit. The substantive friction was architectural: the board reviewed several design iterations and debated the synagogue's scale, massing, materials, glazing, columns, domes, and compatibility, with concern expressed that the design appeared overly ornate or lacked a clear architectural identity. The board asked that the applicant be requested to explain the architectural inspiration for the synagogue, that its feedback be shared with the applicant, and that revised plans return to a later work session before final consideration.

Item 3: Preview — restaurant and café conditional use at 1560 Orange Avenue (the Hub building)

• Type: Conditional Use (preview)
• Case Number: [not stated in the work session minutes; docketed as CU #26-04 on the July 7, 2026 agenda]
• Location: 1560 North Orange Avenue (the Hub building), with an off-site parking lot across Orange Avenue
• Applicant: [not named in the work session minutes; WP Station Tower, LLC, attorney Rebecca Wilson of Lowndes, per the July 7, 2026 record]
• Request: Conditional use for a restaurant and café within an existing office building.
• Current Zoning: O-1 (office)
• Proposed Zoning: No change
• Staff Recommendation: [carried to a later hearing]
• Action: No action — work-session discussion
• Notable Discussion: Restaurant operations, seating capacity, hours, outdoor improvements, entrance redesign, and the site's eligibility for a restaurant under office zoning because it exceeds current parking requirements. The board reviewed landscaping and buffering for both the main site and the parking lot across the street, including restoration of the adjacent city park and replacement of gateway signs; the shared parking analysis; how the revised proposal differs from a larger proposal considered several years earlier; and compatibility with nearby residential properties. Direction discussed: improve landscaping and buffering to reduce impacts on neighboring homes; limit the parking lot across the street to office users rather than restaurant patrons or valet operations; rely on valet within the main site during peak restaurant hours; monitor parking and traffic impacts. A potential conflict of interest requiring one board member to recuse himself from the public hearing was briefly discussed.

Public Hearings Summary

[Not applicable — work session. No public hearings, no public comment taken.]

Key Signals

• The board asked staff to confirm that historic designation would be required to save Merrywood, then voted a week later for the policy that does not require it. This session is where the 1020 Palmer fork was framed: applicant's ungated lot-split entitlement versus staff's alternative gating any split on designating the pre-1950 house on the Winter Park Register of Historic Places. The board explicitly asked staff to clarify that designation is the only mechanism that preserves the home, and asked to hear the applicant's position on the staff proposal. On June 2 the applicant confirmed she would not proceed if preservation were required, and the board approved her text 4-2. The work session identified the preservation lever correctly and then declined to pull it — the decisive fact being the applicant's structural engineering report and eleven months of failed marketing to preservation buyers.
• A synagogue's architecture, not its use, is what a Winter Park board argues about. The El Cortez redevelopment pairs five townhomes with a three-story place of worship, preschool, underground garage, and rooftop deck on an R-4 parcel — a genuinely unusual mixed program. The board spent its time on domes, columns, glazing, and massing, calling the design overly ornate or lacking a clear architectural identity, and sent it back for iterations. Winter Park has no formal architectural guidelines (a limitation the board named at the May 5 El Car Wash denial), so aesthetic objections are being routed through the conditional use standard. The item was tabled twice more — to August 4, 2026 — without ever being heard.
• Restaurant conversions of Winter Park office buildings are now unlocked by parking surplus, and the corridor's excess 1970s parking is the asset. The Hub at 1560 Orange Avenue qualifies for a restaurant under O-1 office zoning because the site exceeds current parking requirements. That is the whole mechanism: a building over-parked for a two-tower office scheme that was never fully built now carries enough surplus to support a 301-seat restaurant. This is the adaptive-reuse-friendly-arterial-density-hostile-filter pattern in its cleanest Winter Park form — the city will admit substantial new activity into an existing envelope while refusing new envelope.
• Two of the three items previewed here carried recusals, and the third became the city's most contested comp-plan vote of the cycle. A conflict was flagged at this session for the 1560 Orange Avenue hearing (Vice Chair Steinberg recused July 7); Alex Stringfellow disclosed a planned recusal on 210 E. Morse at the July 28 work session. A six-member board that loses one voter on each of its two largest conditional uses is operating with thin margins — the 1560 Orange approval carried 5-0 with one recusal and one absence, from a seven-seat board.
• This is the last work session before the board's composition changed. David Bornstein, absent here, had been thanked at the May 5 regular meeting for six years of service. Samuel King was introduced as his replacement at the June 2 meeting, appointed by City Commissioner Craig Russell — and voted with the 4-2 majority on CPA #25-05 in his first seated meeting.

Raw Notes

• Source platform note: Harvested from the May 26, 2026 PZB Work Session agenda (fileId 6127) and approved Minutes (fileId 6295) — CivicClerk winterparkfl tenant, agendaId 1470, event 2199.
• Correction to the 2026-06-04 harvest of this meeting: the earlier document recorded source_url as .../Meetings/1493 and board_abbrev: PZB. Both were wrong. The correct agendaId is 1470 and the CivicClerk event name is "Planning & Zoning Board Work Session," so the board abbreviation is PZB-WS. The earlier document also asserted that no minutes are produced for discussion-only work sessions; minutes were published for this session and for every other 2026 P&Z work session except the three that were cancelled.
• The published agenda listed one discussion item with three bullets: "1020 Palmer Ave lot split/Comprehensive Plan Amendment," "Conditional Use for restaurant at 1560 Orange Ave," "Conditional Use for townhomes/synagogue at 210 E Morse Blvd." All three were discussed.
• The minutes name the historic house as Merrywood and attribute it to James Gamble Rogers. The June 2, 2026 minutes date it 1939. The June 2 agenda packet described it as a 1938 James Gamble Rogers II residence; where the packet and the minutes disagree, this corpus follows the minutes.
• Case numbers and applicant identities for the 210 E. Morse and 1560 Orange items are not in this document; they are drawn from the July 7, 2026 agenda and minutes (2026-07-meeting-PZB.md).
• Meeting structure: Meeting Called to Order → Discussion Item(s) → Adjournment. Recording secretary: Mary Jean.
• Downstream: CPA #25-05 approved 4-2 on June 2, 2026 (2026-06-meeting-PZB.md). CU #26-04 (1560 N. Orange Ave) approved 5-0 with conditions on July 7, 2026, then approved by the City Commission with 21 conditions. CU #26-01 (210 E. Morse Blvd) tabled from July 7 to August 4, 2026 (2026-08-agenda-PZB.md).