City of Winter Park Planning & Zoning Board — June 30, 2026 (Work Session)

Meeting Overview

Type: Work Session (midday, non-action) Quorum: Yes (7 of 7 members present — full board) Duration: 52 minutes (12:02 p.m. – 12:54 p.m.) Location: Chapman Room, 401 S. Park Avenue Agenda time estimate: 60 minutes for the single discussion item

Attendance

• Present: Alex Stringfellow, Jason Johnson (Chair), Bill Segal, Charles Steinberg, Michael Dick, Vashon Sarkisian, Samuel King
• Absent: None
• Staff Present: Allison McGillis (Director of Planning & Zoning), Nicholas Lewis (Planner II), Corinna Lundgren (Planner I), Mary Jean (Administrative Coordinator)

Agenda Items

Item 1: Legal constraint on reviewing quasi-judicial applications in work sessions

• Type: Procedural / legal (non-action)
• Location: N/A — board procedure
• Applicant: N/A
• Request: Address a legal concern regarding the board's practice of reviewing quasi-judicial applications during work sessions.
• Staff Recommendation: N/A
• Action: No formal action. Staff committed to begin requesting applicant consent before discussing specific projects in work sessions, and to continue coordination with the city attorney.
• Vote: N/A
• Notable Discussion: The minutes record the concern as legal in nature, without stating the specific exposure. The remedy adopted — applicant consent as a precondition to discussion — indicates the exposure runs to the applicant's due-process interest in a quasi-judicial hearing rather than to Sunshine Law compliance.

Item 2: Lot-split variance policy revision

• Type: Comprehensive Plan / Land Development Code policy direction (non-action)
• Location: Citywide
• Request: Revise the comprehensive plan policy governing lot-split variances to clarify that compatibility is measured based on the specific variance type — area or width.
• Staff Recommendation: Staff will bring back revised language as part of a future amendment package.
• Action: No formal action — direction to staff
• Notable Discussion: The board also discussed adding exemptions permitting lot splits where properties are designated as historic resources, including in Orwin Manor, to encourage preservation while still requiring formal review and approvals. Staff will evaluate these changes for inclusion in future amendments.

Item 3: Board administration and process

• Type: Administrative (non-action)
• Action: No formal action
• Notable Discussion: McGillis confirmed a quorum for the next regular meeting, discussed upcoming Chair and Vice Chair selections, and discussed adding the annual board orientation video to a future work session agenda. The board discussed obtaining earlier access to application materials before meetings and improving how documents are shared. A future work session on sidewalk café permits and related code enforcement was requested.

Public Hearings Summary

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

Key Signals

• Winter Park's board was told it cannot keep pre-reviewing quasi-judicial applications in work sessions, and the fix is applicant consent. For at least fifteen months the board used its fourth-Tuesday work sessions to walk through site plans, parking counts, facade materials, and traffic mitigation for items it would hear the following week. On June 30 that practice was flagged as a legal concern and staff committed to requesting applicant consent before discussing specific projects. Four weeks later the board adopted a Chair's opening statement formally restricting work sessions to fact-finding with no position-taking and no public comment. The corpus's earlier read — that Winter Park's real deliberation happens in the work session — is now a description of a practice the city is actively dismantling. Anyone tracking a Winter Park application should expect substantive argument to migrate back into the public hearing.
• The lot-split rule that broke twice this spring is finally being rewritten. The board directed staff to revise the comprehensive plan so compatibility is measured against the specific variance sought — area or width — rather than requiring both to meet median neighborhood standards. That ambiguity is what produced the 6-1 board approval and March 25 City Commission reversal at 436 N. Knowles Avenue, the unresolved argument at the April 28 work session over the Stirling/Glencoe panhandle lot, and the applicant's withdrawal of SUB #26-01 on May 5. Three failures, one defect. The amendment package has not been adopted as of August 8, 2026 — the rule is still ambiguous on the ground.
• Winter Park is moving toward trading lot splits for historic designation citywide, four weeks after refusing that trade at 1020 Palmer. The board asked staff to evaluate exemptions permitting splits where properties are designated historic resources, naming Orwin Manor specifically. That is structurally the same instrument staff proposed and the board rejected 4-2 on June 2 for lakefront estates. The distinction is direction: at 1020 Palmer, designation would have been a condition imposed on an applicant who had shown preservation infeasible; here it would be an incentive offered to owners of houses that can be saved. Orwin Manor property owners are the named beneficiaries — a neighborhood that also sits at the center of the 1560 Orange Avenue restaurant fight, where the applicant is rebuilding the neighborhood's historic entry gates as a community benefit.
• A full seven-member board turned out for a procedural session, including the newly seated member. Samuel King's second meeting was a work session on lot-split policy and board process — not a hearing. Winter Park's board treats its non-action sessions as load-bearing, which is exactly why the legal constraint on discussing applications there is consequential rather than cosmetic.
• Sidewalk café permits and code enforcement are queued for a future work session. A minor line, but the first appearance of sidewalk-café regulation in the Winter Park record, and it arrives the same season the board is approving a 301-seat restaurant with outdoor plaza dining at 1560 Orange Avenue and a three-restaurant commercial center at Fairbanks and Denning. Outdoor dining capacity is arriving faster than the code governing it.

Raw Notes

• Source platform note: Harvested from the June 30, 2026 PZB Work Session agenda (fileId 6264) and approved Minutes (fileId 6310) — CivicClerk winterparkfl tenant, agendaId 1474, event 2200.
• The published agenda listed one discussion item with three bullets — "Upcoming agenda items," "Lot split policies," "General board comments" — budgeted at 60 minutes. The minutes are notably brief for the session length; no specific pending application is discussed by name, which is consistent with the legal constraint raised at the same meeting.
• The minutes close with: "No formal actions were taken; staff will return with revised language and follow-up items for future consideration."
• Meeting structure: Meeting Called to Order → Discussion Item(s) → Adjournment. Recording secretary: Mary Jean.
• Downstream: Chair and Vice Chair selections occurred at the July 7, 2026 regular meeting (Johnson re-elected Chair 6-0; Steinberg elected Vice Chair 6-0). The board orientation video was presented at the July 28, 2026 work session, where the new Chair's opening statement for work sessions was also adopted (2026-07-meeting-PZB-WS.md).