Planning Commission on 2025-11-05 9:00 AM

it's 8 50 and we need to start with our workshop so i'll ask staff if there's any changes or additions to the agenda that we need to be aware of all right good morning uh just a few notes one the meetings from october are not available i guess there was some computer quirk so that we need to be voted on at the next hearing um ldcu 2025 21 the steric cycle reconstruction project it's highlighted on the screen here too that has been moved to december 3rd this was advertised but was not originally on the agenda ld spd 2025 7 the skyview drive spd this was advertised and was previously on the agenda but it has been continued to december 3rd i knew there's quite a few members of the public interested in that one so just a heads up that that has been continued december 3rd numbers eight and nine on the agenda these are the us 98 ecx cases uh it's a cpa text amendment and ldc text amendment these will be presented together numbers 10 and 11 the natural cowder's cases will be presented together numbers 13 and 14 the highway 542 um cases will be presented together and number 16 and 17 the braddock roads cases will be presented together at the end of the number of agenda uh i believe shonda has a quick comprehensive plan update and then uh mrs diskel has a short talk about um the affordable housing advisory committee okay that'll do it any comments from the board members questions okay wait till nine o'clock to start our meeting 2025 uh meeting hearing of the uh pope county planning commission to order i ask for a uh uh first of all i'll ask you to please turn off or silence your uh cell phones and if you're like me you might want to double check that uh that it's off or silenced and with that i'll ask for a a roll call uh from our secretary robert beltran present cindy janem also present merle bishop present mike hickman present angela angelic sims present mike schmidt present kevin update i'm here we have a quorum thank you um so with that we'll stand for our pledge allegiance and as been pointed out uh our minutes were unable to be sent so we haven't had a chance to uh to read over those those will come before us at uh december meeting um and we've discussed the agenda at our work session are there any uh other comments or changes to the agenda that board members need to make at this time mr chairman yes sir i was up at the attorney's office trying to speak with him just a few minutes and i missed the uh opening um i would like to request that ldcu 25 2025 27 be continued i received a letter from the attorney suggesting that i might need to recuse myself and uh until i can get a clarification of that and his reasons behind that just a request okay the board want to i don't know if the applicant is here or if the board wants to entertain uh motion or motion for that or but then for clarification mr smith you you need to recuse yourself or you're not sure you need to recuse yourself that's the suggestion his letter says i respectfully advise that you abstain from voting on ldcu 2025 27 and i just was handed this just about 20 minutes ago when the assistant attorney came in um any comments staff staff is the applicant so the u.s okay is the applicant present i think it's the isn't it the regional water cooperative yes we're representing them okay this is the regional water cooperative have any objection or is it a timely matter well is there consultants here for that don't think so oh okay just me do you need to get it down there today i mean he can recuse i don't i don't think it's that much of a hurry they have one uh site that's uh begun construction on their test wells and they're they need to begin construction on the uh the production well which is what you're voting on my my thought is my opinion is that um if mr smith uh has been advised to abstain from voting on this uh that he do that and we proceed i don't know of any other reason that we need to continue it i mean that's just my thought it's it's uh i'll offer that to the board if there will anybody wants to make a motion to continue that meeting but i'm thinking that we proceed and mr smith just abstain from voting is that okay i seem like we have a consensus to do that okay then we will that will um be able to stay on the agenda any other comments questions about the agenda not do i hear a motion to accept the agenda has been uh presented to us by staff motion second all in favor signify by saying aye aye and with that we will proceed with the uh first case which is ldcu 20 i have a few comments if that's okay i'm sorry you'll allow i just have a few opening oh yes general procedures i'm sorry that's okay i'm jumping the gun i'm learning no problem bear with me um i'm just going to go over the general procedures for today's meeting the land development uh case planner will introduce the case and disclose any responses to the notification which were not already provided to the planning commission in their packets the case planner will then present their staff report and recommendation anyone in the audience who wishes to speak and present testimony on a case will be sworn in the applicant and others in support or opposition of the case will be given the opportunity to speak the applicant will be given the opportunity to respond to any opposition testimony the planning commission will then discuss the case and vote on the matter expedited hearing procedures may be used by the planning commission under the following circumstances if there is no opposition to the case present at the hearing the recommendation of the office of land development is for approval and all of the commission members present wish to use this procedure with regard to level three reviews pursuant to section 906 of the polk county land development code the planning commission may approve the applicant's request deny the applicant's request or approve the request with additional conditions pursuant to section 921 of the land development code the applicant or any substantially affected interest may appeal the final decision of the planning commission to the board of county commissioners by filing a formal application with the land development division and paying the application fee the appeal must be filed with the land development division within seven calendar days of the planning commission hearing the board of county commissioners shall set a date and time for a de novo hearing if a party decides to appeal a decision made by the planning commission with respect to any level three review he or she will need a record and may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made the record includes all testimony and evidence given at the hearing each person or party that qualifies to file such an appeal must independently exercise their right of appeal in order to preserve that right a party cannot and should not rely on their right to appeal being preserved by someone else filing an appeal on the same matter please be advised that a party may withdraw their appeal to the board of county commissioners prior to that de novo hearing if one party withdraws their appeal and another party failed to file an appeal there will be no appeal or hearing on the matter before the board of county commissioners the application fee will not necessarily be refunded for such a withdrawal please further be advised that if a de novo application is filed with the board to be recognized during the de novo hearing as organized opposition you must either file the application for de novo hearing or receive written authorization from at least five entities or individuals to speak on their behalf against the application and they must waive their right to speak during the public comment portion of the public hearing regarding level four reviews pursuant to section 907 of the land development code the planning commission's decision is a recommendation to the board of county commissioners the board of county commissioners will ultimately decide the matter at a later date regarding ex parte communication the planning commission receives numerous communications from the public unless otherwise stated it should be presumed that ex parte communications have been made to the members of the commission regarding the matter during the hearing the applicant organized oppositions and the public may request the commission to disclose any ex parte communications or site visits they have had regarding the matter and question the members regarding their communications or site visits unless the commission member recuses themselves he or she has determined that they are able to hear the case and fairly and impartially make a decision on the matter based on the substantial competent evidence in the record mr chair would you like for me to swear in the witnesses for today's cases yes please thank you if you intend to address the planning commission on any case today please stand up raise your right hand and answer out loud to the following question this applies to all cases so if you believe you may speak today please be sworn in do you swear or affirm that the testimony and evidence you provide to the planning commission today will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you you may be seated i'll now go over some housekeeping items before we get started first we need to admit the county's land planners as expert witnesses they have all been accepted as experts in the past however if you would like to voir dire any of them as to their background or expertise then you may do so at this time without any opposition to their admission can we please have a motion to accept staff as experts in their field of land planning so moved have a motion second all in favor signify by second aye aye secondly if we have any experts of applicants then you may tender them at this time or you may wait until your case is called finally the planning commission must review quasi-judicial land use cases quasi-judicial means the action entails applying land development policies to a specific land development application in a fair and impartial manner the commission's review is limited to two areas consistency and compatibility regarding consistency the commission must determine whether the application is consistent with both the comprehensive plan and the land development code the staff report and presentation will provide expert analysis and opinion regarding the applicable criteria as well as a recommendation as to whether the application is consistent with those criteria regarding compatibility the commission must determine whether the application is compatible with the surrounding area the commission will be presented with testimony and evidence at the hearing both written and oral by law the only evidence the commission may consider is competent substantial evidence which means evidence that is sufficiently relevant and material that a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion the following items are competent substantial evidence evidence that is fact-based and relevant to the applicable criteria staff reports and staff presentations citizen testimony may be competent substantial evidence so long as it is fact-based and may include testimony regarding subjective matters that do not require expertise such as aesthetic and compatibility of a project with the surrounding neighborhood however popularity polls petitions testimony that is hypothetical speculative based on fear or consists of generalized statements that do not address the land development criteria are not competent substantial evidence for example fear that the project will cause increased traffic or crime is not competent substantial evidence lastly when expertise is required for technical issues like traffic engineering drainage wetland impacts school and utility capacity light and noise pollution or the application's impact on property values citizen testimony is not competent substantial evidence unless the witness is qualified as an expert in that area that concludes my comments thank you okay we will proceed with our first case which is item ldcu 20 25 27 the region uh pr wc wells number nine and 14 is has there been any anything received in support or opposition that wasn't provided to the staff or the um commission i think so i'm just going to take one second while we get the case pulled up for okay did we receive any support or opposition that hadn't been previously provided okay staff will you present the case please yes our first case eric peterson for the land development division is ldcu 2025-27 this is the addition of two lower floridan aquifer raw water wells or well sites uh to be added to an approval that the planning commission granted uh over a year ago for a 30 mgd uh water production facility and five lower floridan aquifer raw water wells throughout uh the area southeast of uh the city of lake wales uh north of uh well north and south of lake walk in the water uh these these sites are located and you see the the ones that were approved are in gray here this is the uh uh um the two new ones will be uh halfway in between some of the other ones it provides a series of uh multiple wells for extracting water from the lower floridan aquifer if you're not familiar there's more than one floridan aquifer that we all of our water today comes from the upper floridan aquifer it's it's easy to get to it goes uh has a depth of anywhere from um 75 to 400 feet in this area uh below the surface these lower floridan aquifer wells go to 1400 feet below the surface this gives you an idea of what's where they are they're both in agricultural residential rural areas uh this is one site it's uh at the uh this is site nine uh now the numbering of these sites are not sequential um you know as we have 14 and nine they've tested looked at many different sites and we've chosen a total of seven so there there's uh been a lot of different um locations looked at until they found the right ones for these this is well site nine at the corner of mary mosier uh lane and lake walk in the water uh road uh the uh other site is we call it uh well site 14 it's going to be on an acre of what is now the colony tract which is part of a larger wetlands mitigation bank uh this is just going to be on a small portion uh of that property far away from any wetlands this is what the the sites will typically look like uh for the the raw water wells there's no personnel on site uh they will be screened and buffered and things of that nature but it's just a lot of equipment there will there'll be a generator pumps and things of that nature on on the site and uh they don't take up a lot of space there are for every site there are three uh wells uh drilled the production well as i mentioned goes down to uh a depth of at least 1400 feet and um and further uh there are two test wells and the reason why we have the two test wells that is to test the upper florid and aquifer uh the one test well tests the upper area of the aquifer the other test well tests the bottom these will monitor the impact that these wells will have on the upper florid and so as as a safety measure not only to the upper florid and in general but to neighboring uh property owners who have wells that uh tap into the upper florid and aquifer this monitoring system will uh assure that the drawdown from any one of these wells is not having an adverse impact on it so as to affect neighbors or to affect the aquifer so that's why the test wells are there so every site has at least three uh test wells this is an example of one of the sites now we haven't put the equipment on it yet the pumps and everything but these are the uh the test wells uh and uh what they essentially look out and how much space they take on the property these are the two sites one of is is out it seems like there's nothing around it there is a neighbor to the south about uh 150 200 feet uh their driveway is to the south of this site uh the mary moser lane site is going to be right next door to uh a a home home and uh like some of the other sites that have been located in subdivisions are are near homes and not anticipated to have any adverse impacts on them we've had a lot of water production facilities all over the county that have been in residential subdivisions where nobody would even know it was there unless you work for polk county utilities so they're fairly benign why were we doing this well polk county along with 16 other municipalities in the county are members of the polk regional water cooperative it the upper florida aquifer has reached its limits for drawdown so we have to find alternative sources to have any uh future growth or water to support future growth so uh we had to seek an alternative and one alternative that we have in in polk county is the proximity to the lower florida aquifer as an alternative we're not close enough to any oceans and we don't have enough big enough lakes to really draw down surface water so this is our our opportunity to uh fulfill the the needs of the public as polk county grows into the future and its cities um we will uh it is difficult it is going a difficult process the lower florida aquifer is has a very high brine content which means that the facility that was approved last year up on um boy scout road um that is a reverse osmosis plant that will be extracting the brine from the water and putting it into the system that brine is is injected back down into the lower florida aquifer at the base of the lower florida aquifer it's about 8 000 feet below the surface give or take and so that's that's an uh a long leap that we're going through that's why this is a multiple jurisdiction project and uh is is going to provide for the future needs of polk county and with that i'll stand for questions any board member have a question of staff at this time i'll open the uh public hearing and ask if there's anybody here in support of this application anyone in opposition to this application if you come forward please and give us your uh your name and address and i assume you were sworn in yes sir i was okay um good morning my name is linda allegan fish i live at 4413 walk in the water road mary moser lane was named for my maternal grandmother who purchased 26 acres there in 1924 i'm a little confused about this meeting because he said this was to approve the starting the production well well they've already drilled one six inch well which he's talking about which was a water supply um the actual construction on the site started in may of 25 preparation for the drill area was the concrete poured in june of 25 the six inch well for water supply was drilled in july of 25 and the production well was just started in october the drilling is approximately 100 feet from my cousin's home on the north side of mary moser lane and is even closer to my cousin's home on the south side of mary moser lane how would you like that view from your front yard the families along walk and water road where the wheels are being drilled are being inconvenienced by the noise heavy trucks and equipment movement bright lights during night drilling and walking water road being blocked at times plus the additional aggravation when the transmission line will be dug and laid yet those residents have no benefits from these wells we were led to believe at first i understand today he's put a different picture up that this was going to be a deep water well but now there's more wells on each site um and according to the driller which i've spoken to the depths of some of the uh water supplies are between 300 and 350 feet deep and that is the depth of many of our wells i understand the need for water but the 15 cities of polk regional water co-op in polk county exasperate the issue with gross over construction building houses closer together allowing five or more houses per acre infrastructures lacking and polk residents have been voicing their displeasure for months but we are being ignored many have asked is this water for polk residents or is it also being sold to surrounding communities am i a little confused about saying that we could um object to this later or whatever appeal it because the polk regional water co-op would not be investing mega dollars into these well sites without some degree of assurance of their completion thank you anyone else to speak on this case on this matter seeing no one eric staff do you have any response yes the well she mentioned are the test wells that are being dug and the production well is the one that will be a lot larger and it will go down uh to a depth of at least 1400 feet so the production well has not been constructed yet yes those were test wells to test wells determine that this was an appropriate location for the production well or no before we start digging or drilling the uh the lower florida and aquifer well we get the test wells uh in in place first so that we can monitor during the well drilling process uh any impact to lower floor floor or to the upper florida yes yeah just a question why wouldn't you come before you do test wells why wouldn't you come and and ask for this apparently there was a slow closing on the property that got them behind and we got it late to come before you and uh like last last month we we actually were given the wrong parcel number so we had to continue it to this meeting so um they're yeah they're moving quickly the facility is going to be online in 2027 so and start meeting the needs because come december 31st there's no more additional drawdowns on the upper florida aquifer to be permitted so every city every one of the cities that are participating are going to need to expand their water treatment facilities in the upcoming you know decades and there will be no expansions after uh december and if if the permit's not in-house and nearly ready for completion it's not getting issued so it's not like they can rush in at the last minute and get a no i appreciate the need for the for the water there i just find it a lot that you're having the latitude to go in and do these things ahead of getting approval for it well follow up on that does drilling a test well require no any kind of uh land development approval the the uh no test wells uh are not uh do not fall under our class three utilities uh they would be considered class class one or or not even uh mentioned in the utility uh definition as as we apply it the the production well at the point where you're taking water out and it's servicing an area that's the class three utility that you're voting on today or the expansion of a class three utility so they they obtain a permit to dig those test wells yes just a will permit i guess yeah yeah so just just if i could mr chair just a couple clarifications the first well on the far left is kind of just the water supply for the the operations of the site the second well is the monitoring well um that is also i mean it's kind of all labeled test well but um so it's just to kind of monitor what's happening in the upper florida and as you're use a lot utilizing the lower florida well and then the final well which is the third one on the far right is the deep well that will become the supply well as eric described it just for clarification purposes in 2025 uh all municipalities water use will be limited to their actual use of that water during that year and so this project needs to be online as quickly as possible to make sure that we do have future water supply for this area so there's lots of different things that are happening conservation other important elements that are occurring to make sure that we're making it right for the water and for the people that live here today in polk county but this is kind of a series of elements that need to occur and have to be online as soon as you can be i have a quick question um once the production well is complete does it make any noise does it have any lights does it do any sort of impact in that way i i don't have any data for continual monitoring i know that when i've been next to one you don't hear it from the outside usually uh the uh there will be some kind of apparatus that encloses them and you you don't hear uh much than a low hum if you put your ear up against the um the the the drilling is you know the process of drilling is going to be loud that always happens it's just like if if we're expanding a road the the road building's going to going to have some impact but the road will get done and things will go back to normal the well will get done and it'll be a much more quiet and uh the operations there won't be a lot of visitation to it it's going to be operated by what's called the uh uh scada system which i always get the acronym wrong it's like scuba it's a system control and data acquisition system so electronically they will uh monitor the the test wells and the production well uh and its impact from a remote location probably at the plant so the we were um provided in our backup with some um exhibits and i'm looking at exhibit six which is the photo of the of a i guess a typical production well facility is that what we're being asked to approve here i mean will that be the appearance okay question this has some very far-reaching excuse me hello this has some very far-reaching effects for the planning commission i've been taught not to ask questions i don't already know the answer to but i want to ask you um what are we monitoring for what's the concerns with having a monitor well any any impact it would have on that system it's it's essential uh this this hasn't been done in a lot of places so it could have different impacts in different locations that's why every one of these tests or every one of these wells is equipped with test wells to to monitor that and to assure the public that everything's going there's not going to be any adverse impact to neighboring residents or adverse impact to other communities that might still be uh getting their water from the upper florida is it is it true that the greatest concern is that there will be contamination from the salt water lower aqua lower aquifer into the upper and that's why we're i've not heard any any concern neighbors wells or anything like that is not going to have any kind of that's not that's not been uh presented as as a concern uh this is more about pressure drawdown uh any uh potential and you know geotechnical impact yeah just to clarify again and eric's right the only the only concern is there is a tremendous amount of confinement between the upper floridan and the lower floridan aquifer that said we know what we know we don't know what we don't know right and so therefore additional monitoring wells are put in as a measure of safety to be sure you see no impact when one well is being drilled versus the other and that's a water level impact not a water quality impact so just to be clear the the concern there is that there is no impact to the upper floridan aquifer that there is no drawdown associated with this from the into the upper floridan aquifer it's all contained within the lower floridan aquifer which is a non-traditional water supply source therefore consider an alternative water supply for this region in this area and this water from the lower is going to a desalination plant for what purpose to be treated and for potable to become potable water in the system drinking water drinking water oh county yes he just uh to show you on the uh schematic for the well the casing goes down 1400 feet as you can see in this drawing right so see that there and the lower or the upper floridan is you know 75 to 400 we have already had uh salt water contamination in areas of the upper floridan aquifer that is that is known by swift mud anybody and everybody um when you start pulling the plug on a bathtub what happens the water drains down when we start pumping from the lower floridan aquifer millions of gallons for the purpose of supplying water to even adjacent counties what's going to happen to the upper floridan aquifer when we're drawing the volume out of the lower well if there's to be any impact that's what the test wells are for right that's that's why we need to take a look at this because we need test wells absolutely yeah i don't have any doubt about the test well yeah all the modeling and best available silence has shown there will be no impact to the upper floridan aquifer that's why the water management district has approved this these facilities in these cases that's their responsibility the salt water intrusion you're referring to is more coastal communities not inland communities so the upper floridan aquifer has been impacted along coastal communities but not here in polk county just to be clear i respectfully disagree with you okay any other asking questions any other questions if not i will close the public hearing portion of this case and bring it back to the board for any discussion or motion i move to approve second i have a motion and a second to approve roll call vote please roll call robert beltran for the motion cindy janam also for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt um as i have been respectfully advised that i should abstain from voting i abstain i'm for the motion kevin updike or the motion motion passes thank you motion passes next case is ldcu 2025-20 reynolds conditional use has there been any uh contacts or information received regarding support or opposition uh staff if you'll please present the case good morning uh andrew grahowski presenting ldcu 2025-20 the reynolds mobile home case the applicant is requesting a conditional use approval to install a mobile home located on reynolds road on approximately 3.75 acres in the residential low one future land use district on october 17th one board was posted on the subject site and 34 mailers were sent to area property owners on october 22nd an ad was published in the lakeland and winter haven sun with no public response staff is recommending approval mr chair move to expedite i have a motion to expedite i get back in a second is there anyone here to speak in support or opposition to this case seeing none we have a motion to expedite all of the uh go ahead staff with an expedited uh the proposed model i'm sorry i need to take a vote on the motion all those in favor of the uh motion to expedite please signify by saying aye all right go ahead um so the proposed mobile home will meet all setback requirements in the rl1 land use district and utilize a shared driveway easement for the property directly to the south two mobile home parks the village of lakeland and anglers cove are less than a quarter mile from the subject site off of reynolds road um so haven't a mobile home been located adjacent to the subject parcel or if the property was greater than five acres additional approval by the planning commission would not be necessary the proposal is consistent with the ldc and comprehensive plan as well as compatible with surrounding uses and with that i thank you and stand for questions any questions of staff no uh so there's no uh opposition is the applicant here for this yes ma'am huh yeah do you have anything to add to this no she does not so i'll entertain a motion uh regarding this case move to approve motion to approve second second roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy jenna masso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt for the motion kevin update for the motion motion's approved next case is ldcu 20 25 22 robert weed mobile home oh that's one yes staff all right good morning colorado sweat land development presenting ldcu 2025-22 the robert weed mobile home the applicant is requesting a conditional use approval for a mobile home to be located on approximately 1.88 acres within within a residential low future land use district on october 22nd 16 mailers were sent to area property owners one board was posted on the property october 21st a legal ad was published in the lakeland and winter haven sun on october 22nd we have received no response from the public staff finds this request compatible with the surrounding area and consistent with the comprehensive plan and land development code staff recommends approval moved expedite second have a motion second to expedite is there anyone here in support or opposition to this uh this application seeing none uh we have a motion second to expedite all in favor signify by saying aye aye okay can proceed with an expedited procedure staff recommends approval this mobile home request is compatible with the surrounding area approximately 104 feet to the north and 65 feet to the south of the subject site measured from property line to property line are two mobile homes both mobile homes obtain ingress and egress off of king road the proposed mobile home will meet the required setbacks of the land development code and with that i will stand for questions any questions of staff is the applicant present doesn't look like it uh do i have any more discussion questions or a motion regarding this case move to approve ldcu 2025-22 second i have a motion and a second roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy jenna masso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic simms for the motion mike schmidt for the motion heaven update against the motion i like the applicant to be here understood motion passes next case is ldcu 2025-14 laura downs mobile home sorry good morning again cow rogues with land development presenting ldcu 2025-14 to lower downs mobile home the applicant is requesting a conditional use approval for a mobile home to be located on approximately 2.45 acres within a residential suburban future land use district on october 22nd 30 mailers were sent to area property owners one board was posted on the property october 20th illegal ad was published in the lakeland and winter haven sun on october 22nd we have received no response from the public staff finds this request compatible surrounding area and consistent with the comprehensive plan and land development code staff recommends approval mr chair move to expedite second uh motion to expedite in a second uh is there anyone here to speak in favor or opposition to this case yes ma'am are you here to are you the applicant no are you here to speak in opposition okay yeah right so we're not able to expedite because we do have opposition so uh i'll ask staff to go ahead and proceed this subject site is located north of winter haven uh lake road south of us highway 22 east of combi road west of thornhill road in section 24 township 28 range 24 the subject site subject site is located within a residential suburban land use district within the suburban suburban development area this is not the first mobile home within the surrounding area approximately 834 feet to the east and 556 feet to the southeast of the subject site are two mobile homes the mobile home to the east obtains ingress and ingress and ingress off of trail drive while the mobile home to the southeast obtains ingress and egress off of josh reynolds road if at least one of the mobile homes were abutting the subject's property side lot lines the application would not be required the proposed mobile home will be replacing an existing barnuminium as the primary dwelling unit the barnuminium will be an accessory dwelling unit providing housing for the applicant's son while the mobile home will be providing housing for the applicant's daughter the barnuminium will meet requirements of the lbc per section 206a the accessory dwelling unit resides within a 3 200 square foot steel metal accessory structure an additional 800 square feet accessory structure is located on the property both structures will be located on the side and rear of the principal dwelling unit meaning accessory structure setbacks in the residential suburban of five feet side and ten feet rear this provides an approximation of where the foundation of the mobile home will go in the location of the barnuminium within the steel metal structure these next two slides further illustrate the barnuminium the total square footage under the roof is 800 square feet below the maximum 1000 square feet of heated floor space and staff recommends approval the mobile home request is compatible with the surrounding area approximately 834 feet to the east and 556 feet to the southeast of the subject site are two mobile homes the proposed mobile home will meet the required setbacks for the land use district and all other applicable setbacks in the ldc the mobile home will replace the existing barnuminium as the primary dwelling unit the barnuminium will meet accessory dwelling units per section ldc 206a the proposed request is consistent with the land development code and comprehensive plan and with that i will stand for questions any board members have questions of staff is the uh and i'll at this time i'll open the uh public portion of the meeting is the applicant present yes which could you come forward please that's your name and address or were you sworn in laura downs uh 313 josh reynolds road lakeland florida 33801 and you were sworn in okay do you have anything to add to what staff has said or well everything that we have out there we take very good care of and we would never bring anything in that was not really really good like we just take care of our property in our homes and we just wanted our daughter to also be on our property we own 25 acres out there and i've grown up out there my whole life um my grandma and grandpa all of my family have and so we thought this would be no problem but okay this is my husband grant husband yes we we want our kids to be out there with us so and they want to be so okay thank you thank you anyone else to speak in support of this uh application are you you want to speak in support yes sir come forward set your name and address and uh were you sworn in yes okay good morning my name is james ortiz i live on 326 josh reynolds road actually i'm right across from the down family and i don't have a problem with what they want to do they take very good care of their place so don't you know a lot of other people and i'm sure it won't look like a mobile home when it's done i'm sure any questions thank you any more in support anyone in opposition to this case yes ma'am come forward please set your name and address and were you sworn in yes okay um i live at 541 josh reynolds road um my name is laurie headley my property's under my former married name laurie wells um i have lived there all my life from i was brought home from the hospital on the street now the two that he was talking about one trailer is on five acres of land the other trailer was brought in and the former residents that owned the property to begin with said oh well we will deed my daughter the other property to go with it that never happened now we're stuck with that trailer unfortunately they do take good care of their property i'm not giving them not taking away from that but we all know what trailers look like years down the road they ran down and they're they're they're and they bring down the property value so i oppose this that's just any questions from board members okay thank you thank you thank you ma'am is there anyone else to speak in opposition to this matter seeing none i'll close the public comment portion of this case and bring it back to the board for discussion or a motion move to approve ldcu 2025-14 second i have a motion and a second to approve roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy jenna masso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman against the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt against the motion kevin updike for the motion motion is approved motion is approved next case is ldcu 2025-16 for a child care center conditional use staff good morning again kyle roguis with land development presenting ldcu 2025-16 the main street child care center the applicant is requesting a conditional use approval for a child care center to be located in the residential low three land use district on approximately 0.44 acres on october 22nd 63 mailers were sent to area property owners two boards were posted on the property october 20th a legal ad was published in the lakeland and winter haven sun on october 22nd we have received no response from the public staff finds this request compatible with the surrounding area and consistent with the comprehensive plan and land development code staff recommends approval the subject site is located at 255 uh 2445 main street north of polk parkway south of the interstate 4 east of florida florida avenue west of thornhill road west of the city of lakeland in section 16 township 28 range 24 the subject site is located in a residential low three land use district within the transit supportive development area the subject site is considered loss one two and three of the lake bonnie addition subdivision planted in 1925 with residences with residences constructed soon thereafter in the 50s and later the subject site has served as a religious institution since at least 1976 the 3575 square foot building was construction constructed in 1966 according to the applicant their current child care center is experiencing a high weightless and therefore intends to revitalize the site by providing child care services to the surrounding residential neighbors the service will provide support services for from children from the morning to late afternoon child care centers are conditionally permitted in the residential low three future land use district following a level three review by county staff and a public hearing before the planning commission the site is situated in a predominantly non-residential area along main street which is conducive to the applicant's intent for the proposed conditional use the adjacent area is comprised of automotive wholesale business to the west and mobile home residences to the south across east side drive is a commercial automotive repair shop and mobile home residence with commercial uses further to the south per section 708 child care centers require one space per five children permitted plus five employee spaces according to the applicant the request anticipates a maximum of 47 students at least 15 paved parking spaces are required given this request parking waivers may be requested under different circumstances with administrative approval the proposed site is to be accessing off of main street and one access off of east side drive allowing for circulation with child care pickup and drop off schedules this conditional use is projected to reduce on average 125 trips a day and 38 trips trips during peak hours a minimum traffic study will be required as a result of the anticipated trips to identify if any off-site improvements are required a key fact is that drop off and pickup times will be concentrated at the beginning of the day and later in the afternoon according to polk county's road inventory main street is a county maintained urban collector road approximately four miles in length and a paved surface width of 20 feet and right-of-way width of 60 east side drive is a county maintained urban collector road approximately 0.45 miles in length a paved surface width of 20 and right-of-way width of 60. main street between us 98 and cumby road has a capacity of 790 pm peak hour vehicle trips in two separate links in each direction this road link is currently operating within about 64 percent capacity left the current level of service is operating above the minimum county standard this is an adequate there's adequate sidewalk network which runs along both sides of main street and east side drive there is mass transit available with a citrus connection stop approximately 2.6 miles west of the subject site and staff recommends approval the request is compatible with the surrounding area as the property previously served as a religious institution the child care center functions to provide caretaking and supervision services to local and adjacent communities like the previous use this request operates as a similar intensity and functional use the proposed request is consistent with the land development code and comprehensive plan and with that i will stand for questions board members have any questions of staff seeing none i will open the public uh comment portion for this case is the applicant present yes could you come forward please say your name and address and you were sworn in um yes my name is ajana felix cotto and i am beside the 6504 chipendo road lakeland florida for the 2445 east main street um location and this is the owner of the building my name is mohammed alahi 2728 eagle reese loop kissimi florida 34746 mine do you have anything to add to the uh staff report to what's been presented um no just that um so we um direct the current um on combi road we have one location um and my mom has been in daycare since 2008 in lakeland florida um she got her very first one two three years ago so um we have a lot of demand and we have parents here with us today that are in support um and are being waiting for another location just because our current one is really small so you're relocating from we are just um we're keeping our current location we're just adding another one to add well you'll keep that one and this will be an addition okay yes yeah well mirrors have any questions of the applicant thank you anyone uh here and to speak in support of this application yes ma'am come forward please were you sworn in i was not you were not okay you please raise your right hand do you swear affirm that the testimony and evidence you present to the planning commission today will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do thank you that's your name and address please mariah tausch 1026 lakewood court apartment one lakeland florida 33801 thank you um i would just am here to support them uh they have been providing quality care to my daughter i'm a teacher in pole county i work for jesse keen elementary and i see every day the quality care that they give my daughter so i'm in support of their new facility thank you thank you any questions anyone else in support anyone here in opposition to uh this matter seeing none i'll bring it back to the board for any discussions or questions additional questions or a motion mr chairman approved to go ahead i'm sorry okay ldcu 2025-16 i have a motion second and a second roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy janem also for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt for the motion and kevin updike for the motion motion passes thank you next case is ldpd 2025-10 southern storage all right good morning ian nance land development staff recommends approval of agenda item number six ldpd 2025-10 a request for transitional area development for the expansion of an existing self-storage facility into a residential low future land use district the subject site is located at 1410 linear road west and south of us highway 98 north of banana road and east of park bird road north lakeland section 11 township 27 range 23 for the record one board was posted on site on october 20th and 17 mailers were sent and a legal ad was published on october 22nd staff has logged no response these tads ultimately require board approval and the date has been set for december 2nd to the right of the side of the context aerial photo of the site this is north of lakeland off of us 98 to the left is a closer view as you can see the first two phases of the self storage facility have been constructed an electric sub station is located to the south to the west is higher density residential development approved through a planned development in 2020 and a handful of site built and mobile homes are located to the north and south the applicant wants to expand the self-storage facility into the blue highlighted area here one option for doing so was to expand the linear commercial corridor district in which the existing facility is located to the west comprehensive plan policies for the expansion of the lcc are prohibited prohibitive however so this tad route was chosen the tad allows a limited number of non-residential uses into residential districts including self-storage that provide a transition between higher intensity development or utilities and residential uses the benefit here is that an approval is site plan specific whereas an lcc expansion would potentially allow a host of uses deeper into a residential area self-storage is a natural option in tad as it is complementary to single family residential development and is not an intense use if the layout is designed properly these are also subject to ldc section 220 for compatibility standards which include 50-foot setbacks for non-residential structures from residential property lines site plans shown here easily meets these standards and offers additional screening and buffering techniques in accordance with the comprehensive plan and land development code criteria the expansion property is approximately 9.4 acres the applicant plans single-story structures to a maximum floor area ratio of 0.25 the maximum which is allowed r01 it will utilize an existing driveway onto lanier road a stormwater pond to the south provides space between the facility and residential property to the south additional landscaping and fencing will also be provided here to the west will be landscaping and the requisite 50-foot setback and a type a buffer will be provided along the near road this application meets the standards for tads and self-storage facilities which are found in ldc section 303 it's a newer google earth photo again self-storage facilities are land intense but the day-to-day activity is minimal compared to other non-residential uses and then you can see there's a lot of separation between the existing residential uses nearby given the proposed layout nature of the use find staff finds this request compatible surrounding development these facilities create limited impacts on public services the application meets the relevant standards of the comprehensive plan and land development code and staff recommends approval any questions from board members of staff just one uh ian the the only reason you're here is because tads require this in a level four review right yes exactly okay okay any other questions seeing none i'll open the public comment portion of the uh the hearing for this case is the applicant present is there anyone here to speak in support of this case anyone here to speak in opposition to this case yes sir if you would come forward please do we know if the applicant is planning to be here to staff now as far as i knew but were you sworn in sir yes sir no yes oh you are okay sorry my name is jerry duncan 1433 lanier road the property that's directly to north of this proposed is six acres with four dwellings it's all family lands been there for 50 years uh i'm not we're going to do what we're going to do poe county is growing whatever my concern did you say that the entrance is going to utilize the existing entrance yes sir okay so there won't be another entrance built no sir okay the only other concern we have after the last hurricane like i said we've lived there 50 years never had flooding we had two dwellings that were under two feet of water because of that new development that shows to the west this is nothing but pavement and buildings and it's only going to cause more stress to the flood plain that's already gone because of this new development that's my opposition it's not fear it's reality of what we've lived through on our properties that's all thank you any questions from board members no seeing none anyone else to speak in opposition to this matter seeing none i'll close the uh public comment portion and bring it back to the board for discussion our motion is there any outfall for the catchment areas this is a stress basin i believe there's an outfall here along um the fdot right away there's a should be a staff report here but it does just discharge an fdot um swales and they are built a hundred year 24-hour ponds it's counted forth the design they they had to for the first phase too no connection to the other one on the other property over here i don't believe so i'm shared i think shared i i'd recommend let me um let me see if i can track down that i was going to suggest that so maybe get a motion to uh continue this case to the end of the agenda and then uh see if you can contact the applicant and what his situation is move to continue second i have a motion second to continue this matter to the end of the agenda all in favor received by by saying aye aye okay next case is ldcd 2025-6 hamilton road sub-district good morning alia and gleeman with land development presenting number seven on the agenda ldcd 2025-6 the lake hamilton road sub-district this is a future lane use map sub-district change from business park center one to business park center two to allow for outdoor storage the subject site is located south of drainfield road north of medulla road east of county line road west of the city of lakeland and section 6 township 29 range 23 on october 22nd 26 mailers were sent to property owners three signs were posted on october 17th and a legal ad was published in the polk sun on october 22nd with no responses from the public so the subject site is located in the west side of the county near lakeland international airport the properties in this area are warehouses and are used for industrial purposes for the airport and this is what the change would look like with the surrounding area and the site is consistent with all policies and objectives and the comprehensive plan and land development code and i'll stand for any questions any board members have questions on staff do you i do do you know what the um the city of lakeland land use and zoning is on the lakeland the city portion i do not okay but i i believe it is industrial okay some sort of i think the advocate's here to speak to that maybe have we heard any did you hear anything from the city of lakeland i did i did email them and they just would like a buffer landscape buffer off of hamilton road okay any other questions okay with that i'll open the public comment portion for this uh agenda item is the applicant present yes sir you would come forward please will you sworn in sir okay state your name and address ryan barron 225 east lemon street lakeland florida 33801 i'm with the law firm peterson and myers and we're here on behalf of the applicant ruth and green we support staff's review we do think that this is in line with um the uses surrounding the property there's bpc one to the east bpc i'm sorry bpc two to the east bpc two to the west and then uh mr gleeman was right concerning the city of lakeland um zoning for the property to the south which is industrial um so with that if you all have any questions we're here not that it is really pertinent but i'm just curious as to what the storage what you intend to store on the site for outdoor storage um at this time i'm not sure okay i was just curious thank you anyone else in support for this applicant anyone in opposition okay well if you come forward and we'll and i think you were sworn in your name and address please evan benedict 39 39 hamilton road lakeland florida okay and i'm next to the ruthven property uh my concern has been continually and i've been dealing with this issue with ruthven for quite a while and lakeland electric is the lighting that they put up their rental lightings apparently is what they've told me and neither are responsible for their improper what i consider improper even they mentioned it initially that the person that designed it kind of messed up but the the problem i've got is they use stadium style lighting that looks like this and it's directed above and towards the road and it's difficult to drive even because it's so dark elsewhere there's no other lighting so if you look it distracts you and i'm a 50-year pilot and i come in landing on runway 10 and they're so bright that they make it difficult to spot other aircraft too so i would be very concerned and i've been concerned i've not taken it to the faa or anything but it's one of those where is it my battle i you know what you end up putting up with stuff the the other part is the lack of a buffer or a screen their their parking has no buffer or screen with residential so i'm proud that the city of lakeland is stepping up and mentioning that about the buffer the third item is there is an easy way to do it with the lighting and that's regular parking lighting pointing downward all these lights are high intensity stadium style lights pointing vertically horizontally i mean where the light is directly in your eyes all the time it's the glare is almost painful i won't say it's painful but it's certainly annoying and all they would have to do and i've asked them is to tilt the lights down like all other warehouses in the area nope nope they said we can you can put up poles and pay for any kind of stuff and uh i just gave up so in your reviews of these going future a lighting plan with these development of all these high intensity lights uh maybe a good idea to require because it's hard to drive for us older people we we are very sensitive i'm i'm approaching 70 and uh yeah get get in front somebody who left their brights on and that's what we're dealing with these kind of led lights thank you let me let me ask a question i want them to understand where where do you live again i'm 39 39 the ruthven property they're building is on alachua is that how you pronounce my own road i don't the corner of alachua and hamilton i'm directly next to the roof and across the street so their lights stick up over the top of their roofs because they have them so high and they're horizontal so they shine on me all the time so your pro your property is now you're in the bpc no i'm uh agricultural royal residential they've moved in our area you get she's pointing to it here merle okay okay i got you and i'm fine with development and okay and to give you an example this is directly across the street from me and this is done right tiger they're pros nice lights beautiful buffer beautiful development parking but you know what well it looks good i'm gonna ask staff if they'll uh maybe explain that and if there's any requirements for our lighting plan or any requirements for shielded lighting or anything of that nature so for this use it's a permitted use in this district so they would just go straight down to building and have to meet the florida building code when it comes to lighting and anything like that have you turned in a i'm sorry merle have you turned in a a code infraction with building code no i i went direct i don't do that i go to the person if they don't want to do it that's as far well we're we're not the people's what oh no no but you are the people that if you read the plans it determines if there should be a lighting plan and i'm suggesting and building code takes care of that and that's who you're going to need to talk to about okay so you guys don't handle this no sir no interest okay i've seen uh mr bart allen has come forward um do you have anything to add to this do um good morning just for the record bart allen land use attorney with the peters peterson meyers law firm 225 east lemon street lakeland florida here this morning on behalf of ruth and green mr brandon clark is in the back of the room i was visiting with him as uh mr kevin sorry i didn't catch your last name um was speaking and wanted to touch on a few things one the request that's before you today is for a future development site those lights that are being presented are were previously constructed but i think it's really important to point out that those are lakeland electric lights that are installed by lakeland electric they are not ruthven lights they are on ruthven property but when you when you work with lakeland electric lakeland and electric has their standards they install their lighting and things of that nature it's really kind of out of our control in in many regards we appreciate kevin's concerns and are sensitive to them certainly as this site develops with with the county we will be you know working through your standards and working with your codes which have specific specific lighting and landscaping and things of that nature again this is just a sub-district change really more focused on the ability to provide some of the tenants that are proposed to go here the ability to do some light outdoor storage outside of that what mr kevin was speaking about that that's an existing site in a in a just to the south so we've mr clark has spoken with kevin on a number of times it's something that we'll continue to work with but really we're strip we'll have to continue to work with lakeland electric on those issues thank you any questions from board members yeah just as a follow-up what about the buffering question or issue or item came up we will absolutely comply with whatever the county's buffering and landscaping requirements are along right away as it relates to to this project the primary focus of of this project from the bpc perspective is on to hamilton that's where you know kind of you'll have your ingress and egress there will be some access off anchuca which but that access on anchuca is is for employees only so pedestrian type cars not truck traffic so we'll be complying with all of those codes and requirements as we go through the level two process thank you question our land use doesn't at all address lighting yes sir i thought so it does it does when it's abutting residential um like you mentioned before this is a project that was approved in the city of lakeland under lakeland lighting standards and it's also we're talking about the lakeland electric street lights um and as you can see his his property is is separated uh by the city uh that is developing on or has developed on this site this is the site here on the opposite side of anchuca our code would if it was abutting residential have certain lighting standards um for uh and separation uh we also as you know in residential subdivisions we have uh the uh downward lighting uh dark skies requirements for those uh this one unfortunately because it's city and it's already developed we we don't have an opportunity here to uh enforce any anything or or deal with the existing lighting that's out there that's provided by the city if i'm not mistaken i live out in that area that is the landing approach for the airport as well and having anything other than dark sky lighting seems to be counterproductive for safety and other things i i'm just i i do do we have to have direct abutment is there is there of for the lighting to apply does does it have to be directly adjacent can there be no buffer distance is there no buffer distance i i don't know that no not not when there's intervening buildings once again this the what's been done has been done within the city of lakeland and yes it's city city electric companies city airport i i wish they would communicate if that's a problem but i that's not our our jurisdiction to to dictate thank you sir any other comments questions anyone else here to speak in opposition seeing none i'll close the public comment portion for this agenda item and bring it back to the board for any discussion or a motion mr chairman move to approve ldcd 2025-6 isn't in its entirety second of a motion and a second roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy jenna masso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt for the motion kevin updike for the motion motion passes thank you next case is ldc pal 2025-9 us 98 ec x cpa and i understand this is going to be in conjunction with item number nine so eight and nine will be together but we'll need two motions motion for each yes sir and you did my job well good job and jp sims is the case planner uh good morning jp sims of land development so item agenda number eight is ldc pal-2025-9 the ecx cpa text amendment and item number nine ldct-2025-20 ecx ldc text amendment both of them are being heard together because what we're doing is making a change to both the comprehensive plan and the land development code text that will basically provide cohesion between the two when it comes to allowing more than 30 cap of retail personal services and commercial uses within the ecx use of the us 98 sap so we're only looking at the us 98 sap and what we're doing is in the comprehensive plan like so we're just amending it to allow for us to exceed the 30 percent limit on those services within that land use district with the approval of a conditional use so you can't just go and like throw in more additional retail and commercial services without going through a conditional use process this gives us a mechanism that we can then control the process of having these conditional uses just go willy-nilly in that land use so like i said we are in the us 98 selected area plan so the us 98 selected area plan you know was created back in 2004 with a separate ordinance the point of it was to create an ability to have multi-use districts within the highland city corridor is a very high growth high attraction area when it comes to development that's still occurring as of today the selected area plan was originally intended to support like polk state college the vocational schools the residential that was developing in the area so allowing the commercial usages to grow based on market demands would actually be compatible with the surrounding area as it's developing in a rapid pace and like i said allowing us to exceed the 30 cap within the ecx would give more commercial more retail more personal service availability within that area so if you're looking at the future land use map you can see there's a lot of different land uses in this area but the ones we're particularly concerned about are the six ecx's that are scattered throughout the sap they range anywhere from 109 acres down to 0.59 acres now just a couple months ago we did have a case where we took an employment or sorry a town center use converted into employment center and that is the 5.5 acre site listed here as ecx six on the top right so the justification for the change like i said it would create cohesion between the two conference plant and the land development code and it would give us the ability to still approve additional retail commercial and personal services within the ecx but it has to go through a conditional use process in order for us to do so and with that i'll stand for questions so that that's the change so you can do the 30 percent but right now you can't that's it right you can't do anything else based on acreage so for instance so this this gives us the ability to exceed that with justification and meeting the criteria and all that correct with with board approval okay back and back in merle's day the wisdom was not to exceed 30 percent and uh now we're just want to throw all that out the window for something else what is the new not to exceed well you can exceed except 30 even up to 100 of the total ecx with the retail commercial and personal services but like i said it does have to go through the additional conditional use process which you have to have justification for bringing the project in there there has to be a market demand for the actual project um but yes it would allow you to go up well beyond the 30 percent in the ecx but it has to be based on what's needed in the area i think i like merle's idea best with me any other comments or questions seeing none i'll open the public comment portion of this and ask is the applicant present good morning commissioners again uh for the record bart allen land use attorney with the peterson and meyers law firm uh 225 east lemon street lakeland florida here this morning on behalf of the applicant ecp have mr jacob moss holder with me in the back of the room um mr simms has given you exactly what this case is all about it it doesn't lift the 30 cap unless we come back before this board with the binding site plan with the justification for additional uses which will also likely include additional buffering and things of that nature that becomes part of the uh binding site plan this is um this area highland city area the us98 uh area has really blossomed over the past few years particularly with the um expansion of the us98 clubhouse intersection that rebuilding of that that signal um with the cooperation of a number of of developers in this county um you're seeing a lot of growth in that area this is also something that we've done and applied in other parts of this county we did similar amendments to the comprehensive plan and land development code in the i'll probably get the sap wrong but i believe it was the us27 sap on the east side to allow these kinds of this kind of flexibility when you have some smaller sites it's difficult to limit a 5.5 acre site to 30 30 of 5.5 acres those smaller sites some of that that it makes a lot of sense to provide this flexibility and of course it's subject to the discretion of this board in the future so that's what all i've got we'll stand for any questions any questions from board members seeing none is there anyone here in support of this application anyone here in opposition to this application seeing none i'll close the public comment portion and bring it back to the board for uh discussion uh and and are a motion mr jerry you need two motions i need two motions i need a motion for number eight and another motion for number nine so i move to approve ldc pal 2025-9 second motion second roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy jenamaso for the motion merle bishop or the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt against the motion and kevin updike for the motion motion passes thank you next case is number 10 ldcpas 2025-26 natural encounters and i understand this will be done in conjunction with number 11 which is ldct 2025-18 uh good morning again jp sims land development so uh item number 10 is a comprehensive plan amendment 2025-26 where we are looking to change the future land use designation on a 33 acre parcel from agricultural residential rural to leisure recreation it is in the rural development area and then the text amendment that goes along with it ldct 2025-18 is prohibiting certain uses from being developed on the site once the change is made to leisure recreation subject site subject property is located south of state road 50 540 sorry it's supposed to be 540 cypress gardens boulevard west of us 27 east of eloise loop north of thompson nursery road surrounded almost entirely by the winter haven city limits in section 17 township 29 range 27 staff does recommend approval on the changes 69 mailers were sent to prior property owners on october 22nd 2025 there was no response from the public one sign was posted on october 21st 2025 and a legal ad was published in the lakeland and winterhaven sun on october 22nd 2025 so as i mentioned we are going over to the southeast part of winterhaven so we're looking at thompson nursery road highway 27 interchange looking at the site from above it is highlighted in yellow us 27th to the east thompson nursery road is to the south there is a road that connects from thompson nursery up to the site called conservation way it is currently a private road but it has been instructed to me that once the road has been developed for the residential that you can see on the ground it is supposed to be dedicated to the public and will become a regular public road so looking closer at the site you can see that there's a few sites that aren't in part of this total development site but we're looking at the larger section over here and this will currently be used as agricultural residential rural there is a conditional use in place on the site for a breeding boarding and rehabilitation center that was passed several years ago and it is currently in operations as natural encounters incorporated changing it to leisure recreation would allow them to expand a little bit with additional uses on the site but as i mentioned before the text amendment that goes along with it limits some of the more invasive uses or some of the more abrasive uses to the surrounding residential development you can see it almost is entirely surrounded by the city of winterhaven's city limits to the west and to the east are their conservation future land uses and to the north and south other in sub land use districts so like neighborhood subdivision carlton arms is to the north and there's new residential development that is coming to the south so having visited the site you can look east down thompson nursery road natural encounters like i said is to the north of where i'm standing you have to go down conservation way to get to it looking east i'm sorry that should be looking west down thompson nursery road again you can see conservation way is currently unpaved but like said it is under construction so once it is done being developed and expanded it'll be relocated and then dedicated to the public from what i've been instructed looking north on conservation way again you can see that there's a lot of development going on in this area so you can see like the trucks and stuff in the distance that are working out there and then looking south there's another subdivision that is coming on the south side of thompson nursery road as well mr martin was kind enough to allow us onto the site to actually look at the premises to see what was there so we did take a couple of pictures just kind of give an idea of exactly what type of operation they're running there which like i said it's a breeding boarding rehabilitation facility for exotic birds and this was one of the pins that they had there overall i thought the site was very cool and they do have a large collection of parrots and stuff on site as well or macaws my bad so since the site will develop out as a leisure recreation commercial usage it doesn't have any kind of generation as far as student generation is concerned and it does sit within acceptable distances of all different infrastructure requirements such as fire police parks water i did reach out to the city of winter haven if they had any objections to the site i spoke with two different employees there and neither one of them had any objection to the change but they did let me know that there is a water line that runs along the west side of the property that way that we know that site is connected to water and then wastewater is actually being expanded along thompson nursery road to accommodate the upcoming new residential developments so in the future they could potentially connect to wastewater and then as far as the text amendment is concerned like i said we are creating a section 2.135 v in the appendix e section of the land development code which will be parcel specific certain uses on the site so like i said we even with the leisure recreation the restricted uses they won't be able to construct hotels or motels helistops a medical marijuana dispensary they can't create any kind of multi-family recreation vehicle oriented uh recreation amusement intensive nightclubs and dance halls outdoor concert venues or recreational vehicle parks these are all uses that we deemed might be um not desirable to the upcoming residential developments but the site itself you know it's it's very low-key so the justification for approval as i mentioned before the change from agricultural residential rural to leisure recreation would be compatible as it has already been developed out with commercial uses the sites abutting the subject site to the north and south or residential to the east and west or conservation per policy 2.115 a5 of the comprehensive plan lr is allowable adjacent to residential uses ldcu 2018 52 granted the site the conditional use to act as a breeding boarding and rehabilitation facility which it will continue to operate as and set as a use that is also not allowed within the leisure recreation land use that conditional use will stay in effect us 27 is a principal arterial nearby to the east thompson nursery road is currently being developed to expand and improve it for future residential developments and conservation way is a currently a private road but is anticipated to be relocated dedicated as a public road when the property of the south is developed the change of future land use would allow for the expansion of commercial uses on the subject property but the text amendment does limit what can actually be developed on site and with that i'll stand for question any questions of staff natural encounters has been there for years long time like back to the 80s i want to say maybe before that but i'm somewhat familiar with it so see no questions i'll open the public comment portion of this case and ask is the applicant present when you come forward please good morning commission again just for purposes of the record my name is bart allen i'm a land use attorney with the peterson and meyers law firm my address is 225 east lemon street lakeland florida i have um just a real brief presentation uh a lot of what uh mr sims covered i will also cover and i will be brief but i sometimes i just want to brag on some of my clients from time to time you're right mr bishop uh natural encounters has been out there for a long time um is for you know steve martin uh i could go on and on about steve if you haven't been to this site and you don't know anything about steve please do some research on your own after the time he's incredible uh he has an incredible reputation with the training of animals and birds in particular he's on all kinds of boards and involved in all kinds of charitable and conservation activities he was just recently um this year identified as one of the top 50 influencers in the zoological world now when i think of influencer i'm thinking tiktok and all that kind of stuff or at least that's what all the kids are doing um this is not that this is actually influencing the zoology the how the animals are cared for and all the the training and all of that sort of stuff so it's it's really cool what he's doing um steve is in the audience with us mr martin also mr rob buells from natural encounters uh just really really cool stuff and you can see it's neat to see somebody in the upper right corner there where he's got one of his birds and he's sitting there with jay leno on the on the tonight show so pretty cool stuff this site is 33 acres it was previously um a wildlife refuge and preserved under the old zoning code going back to the 1983 zoning code and i don't believe this conflicts you out mr bishop but i also in my file have some correspondence where you were growth management director here at pole county going back into the early 2000s where some of these conversations regarding natural encounters were going on i've totally forgotten that so it doesn't conflict me out exactly um i figured that i figured the statute of limitations has expired on that but it has been recognized as a non-conforming use back in 2019 the board recognized it with an extended extended rights determination to bring it into a more conforming status just to protect some of its rights there's a lot of development that's going on the project immediately to the south and on the north side of thompson nursery road is beginning to develop conservation way is being rebuilt that was just an easement that was to the benefit of natural encounters that will be a new public road in the future um to connect to connect um conservation way out to thompson nursery the bti project on the south side is making a significant investment into thompson nursery road that's about a seven million dollar investment into that road to advance some improvements there so you're seeing a lot of growth come into this area and part of what this intent is is one let's get them as legal conforming as we possibly can to protect them as development comes and comes around but it also opens up the door they historically have not allowed or have not been able to permit a tremendous amount of visitors they've been limited on some kind of special type event visitation this will allow them to bring some people out there to see and what you heard mr sim say is the experience i've had really really cool things going on on this piece of property that nobody really knows about has an opportunity for them to to uh to expose more people to it maybe have some accessory things where maybe they have a little gift shop so a t-shirt sell some snacks not turn a full restaurant but that kind of stuff so that's the purpose of this um uh and of the comp plan future land use and land development code text amendments with that i will sit down um and uh here for any questions um but request a favorable recommendation of the board of county commissioners on both the um conference of plant tech uh future land use map amendment and the ldc text amendment thank you any questions mr allen saying none is there anyone here to uh speak in support of this application yes ma'am can we come forward please were you sworn in yes sir okay my name is rachel osborne i live at 107 conservation way winter haven 33884 um i'm actually the little horseshoe piece of property that his property surrounds um i am in favor of this um my family's been out there since the 80s my dad actually worked for steve a long long time ago so my only i'm in favor of it because i support what he does my only concerns are the traffic um as they mentioned that there is development going on um but it's not it's not going to pave the entire conservation the conservation way it's only approved right now to pave half of that road um so the rest of it that would remain a dirt road will that be maintained by them with the you know influx in traffic going back there because there's only two other residents me and my neighbor um and the other issue would be privacy for my children that you know we've been out there for years um if there is visitors of the community which is i don't have an issue with but what will what will that do to my privacy at my home so that's my only like i said i'm i'm for it um i agree with what he wants to do i think it's great but i have to think about my family's privacy and well-being as well so do you use is it conservation way use that now for access yes sir your house is i'm looking at a map here on ariel and does that does your access come off i want to say the back side of that of your property or is there an access a driveway it's right there where that mouse is so you come okay okay and you take a left gotcha into my driveway okay okay yes sir you want to uh the neighbor you referred to is other it's the the more treed lot on the the west the the west of the property yes sir we'll see if we can get some uh some answers for you okay thank you thank you is anyone else speak in favor of this anyone here to speak in opposition to this matter seeing none mr allen you want to help us out here just briefly um the she was correct the the reconstruction of conservation way is going to go up to the property line the yellow line um that's being done by other parties unrelated um and through basically through the city of winter haven and their development approval process that's not anything that has been at the request of my client they're actually moving the location of where the gate is going to go because they had those rights under the easement that the landowner to the south had those rights so that's all working through and you may be familiar with some of that too as well mr bishop with your past time as city winter haven development director um so all that's all of that is going on conservation way as it exists on the natural encounters or mr martin's property will continue to be maintained uh today as as it has always been maintained by them uh any if if the activity were to expand significantly if there were to be new buildings added we would have to come back through level two things like ingress and egress and site access and all of that will have to be addressed at that time this is more about getting the use in place than it is about approving any new development the intent is not to expand and become a zoo essentially uh you know winter haven zoo but it is it is the is the it is to be able to maybe potentially do some new and additional things and when that happens that will all go through the level two process come through and if improvements are required improvements are required and appreciate our concerns about um uh safety and and things like that that's when landscaping and buffering and all of that stuff will be will be discussed thank you any questions of mr allen seeing none i'll close the public comment portion and bring this back to the board for any comments or a motion and we need two motions for the item number 10 the comp plan amendment and item number 11 the land development code text amendment move to approve ldc pas 2025-26 second motion second roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy john amasso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt for the motion kevin updike i'm for the motion motion passes thank you and the next item um 2025-18 move to approve ldc t 2025-18 in its entirety second motion second roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy jenna masso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt for the motion kevin updike for the motion motion passes thank you next item is ldc pas 2025-16 osprey osprey creek comprehensive plan amendment has there been any uh additional comments come in that we haven't received okay thank you uh staff sorry and i'm back uh for the record jp sims of land development agenda item number 12 is the osprey creek comprehensive plan amendment ldc pas dash 2025-16 this is a request to change the future land use designation and the development area on a development of regional impact in the rural development area to residential low in the utility enclave area on 17.48 acres of in the poinciana master plan subject property is located south and east of marigold avenue north of county road 542 lake hatchenaha road and west of osceola county line east of haynes city city limits in section 01 township 28 range 28 staff does recommend approval 28 mailers were sent to area property owners on september 15th 2025 there's been no response from the public five signs were posted on september 15th 2025 and a legal ad was published in the lakeland and winter haven sun on october 22nd 2025. so we're going out to the poinciana area as you can see the marigold avenue is right there so taking a little bit of a closer look at the site we're looking at two separate tracks that are within the poinciana master plan that have already been part of an approval uh plan development uh 20 ldpd-2023-29 did already get approved a couple of years ago that allows for osprey creek to develop on the site and you'll see in some of the pictures that the ground has already been broken but the reason why we're here is because these two particular tracks were slated as commercial and institutional uses within the poinciana master plan and policy 2.130a of the comprehensive plan does state in the poinciana dri that if a land use is going to be changed from its original intent of the poinciana master plan it has to go through an official future land use change or the comprehensive plan amendment so that's why we're doing this for these two particular tracks so taking a closer look at it you can say like there's two tracks currently there is no road that leads to these sites but they are part of an overall approved plan development that is already in place future land use is currently dri development of regional impact and we'd be changing it to residential low so this is a screenshot from the original poinciana master plan the two highlighted areas over here on the right one is listed for commercial the other one was listed for institutional likes it mentioned before because we are changing the uses of the original poinciana master plan on these two tracks we have to come through the comprehensive plan amendment to actually change the future land use and this is a site plan from the plan development that was already approved in 2023-29 again you can see that there's the two spots right here that there was commercial listed for the original pd and then there's institutional over here which we're going to be changing the two of those to residential so looking south on marigold avenue like i said you can see that the ground has already been broken on the site off to the east there is construction currently going on looking north on marigold avenue and as far as concurrency is concerned it is within distance of sheriff and fire availability we do have a letter from toho water authority showing that it can connect to water and sewer and that there is available capacity in the area and there is um there will be some issues with the school concurrency to my understanding as i believe two of the schools are actually over capacity so that's something that they'll have to come up with concurrency wise when the development is completed but the justification for the approval from dri in the rural development area to residential low in the utility enclave area would be compatible as already been approved with a planned development with a mix of residential recreation and commercial uses marigold avenues and urban major collector that is currently being improved and widened to accommodate future growth in the area this is an appropriate type of road for a large-scale development to access onto the change in future land use would allow for the construction of residential uses and it is consistent with our comprehensive plan and land development code as i said before there's the mechanism from the point santa dri of why we're having to do this in the first place and with that staff will stand for questions any questions from board members for staff seeing none i'll open the public comment portion for this uh agenda item is any is the applicant present yes sir were you sworn in yes sir okay name and address please hi good morning commission john ryan adams rj witness or excuse me rjwa 8 broadway kissimi florida we are the applicant or the agent for the applicant and we're in agreement with staff's report that this is compatible and consistent with your land development code and your comp plan policy be happy to answer any questions you all may have if we have any questions thank you is there anyone here to speak in support of this application seeing none anyone here to speak in opposition to this application seeing none i'll close the public comment portion and bring it back to the board for discussion and or a motion yes sir i'd like to hear from the uh school board representative regarding concurrency good morning for the record melissa selesting with the poll county school board so i did run some numbers and the elementary school currently has capacity the middle school and high school does not but the adjacent schools do have capacity so they should be able to achieve concurrency at the time of level two if approved but they would still need i mean they still need to uh pursue concurrency determination at the time that they get their final approval absolutely so if this were to be approved once they get into their level two review process then they would apply for the binding concurrency application to actually vest the seats for this proposed project okay thank you you're welcome do we have a motion mr commissioner moved to approve ldcpas dash 2025-16 in its entirety i have a motion do we have a second second motion second roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy janamazo for the motion moral bishop for the motion mike kickman for the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt for the motion kevin updike for the motion motion passes okay thank you the uh next case is uh 13 and 14 which will be heard together so i'll have staff want to introduce the cases well you want to introduce the case you want me to you did it you're doing great that's all i would say is what you said so you guys weren't doing much down there so i thought maybe she was trying to she was trying to give you something to do i appreciate that okay i think it's better less keeping you awake yeah right all right i'll go ahead and get started um for the record mark bantland development um i'll be presenting agenda items 13 and 14 together because we're talking about the same piece of property um the requests here the first request is a comprehensive plan amendment small scale to change 12.64 acres from residential suburban to business park center and then the second request request is to do a district change from bpc1 to bpc2 on the same piece of property by way of background when a land use amendment occurs the lowest um district is assigned to it in a separate action that being a level four is uh approval is required to change it from in this case from bpc1 to the site is located generally between the city lakeland and the city of auburndale on the north side of county road 542 as you can see in the aerial to the right as far as notice uh 21 mailers were sent on october 20th two boards were posted on that same date a legal ad was published in the lakeland winter haven sun on october 22nd we did not receive any response from the republic and staff does recommend approval and this is a level four review for both cases they will go before the board of county commissioners on december 16th this is a close-up of the site the site is a vacant located on the north side of 542 south of the csx railroad and just a bit south of us highway 92 east this is the current future land use map in the area as you can see the site is designated residential suburban there are non-residential uses to the north including industrial linear commercial corridor and further east with a commercial enclave at 542 and old dixie highway intersection and also industrial as you can see the proposed land use amendment if approved would designate the property as business park center specifically business park center one and the second request for the district change if approved would change it to business park center two um i'll next show some aerial photos showing the four points on the compass here this is a view of the site looking north the site bounded in red you can see 542 the railroad is there under all the trees and then us 92 and the takeaway from this is you can see a lot of the uh industrial uses along the railroad and next to us 92. this view looking south shows the property and the property to the south of 542 this next view looking east it looks more like a square but that's just because the angle of the photo the the key point of this picture is it shows uses to the west and also east of the site and then the last picture looking east i'm sorry looking west again you can see 542 to the left the railroad us 92 and lakeland electric has a substation uh right next to the site as far as impacts on infrastructure none are anticipated there are some zone a which is undetermined floodplain on some portions of the site but they're not a significant amount of the site justification for approval it is an area that has commercial industrial institutional uses if you include the substation um our location criteria for business park centers uh speaks to the requirement it has to be next to a railroad in either access an arterial highway or access an arterial highway via a collector road in this case um about a half mile east you can get on old dixie highway which then accesses us 92 which is an arterial highway from us 92 you can go west to lakeland go about another mile or so east and access the interchange with the polk parkway so for those reasons we determined that was consistent with the location criteria we consider this used to be compatible and consistent with the comprehensive plan so that concludes my presentation and because this is two items we'll need two actions thank you any questions for more members of staff seeing none i'll open the uh public comment portion for this or these two items is the applicant present running ryan baron um 225 east lemon street lakeland florida 33801 i'm with the law firm peterson and myers here on behalf of the applicant we support staff's review and agree with it this property is just there's the railroad just to the north there's the industrial district to the north and there's the linear commercial corridor also to the north which allows some industrial uses um and then obviously the property is just adjacent to the east to that lakeland uh city of lakeland electrical substation um so with that if y'all have any questions any questions thank you anyone here to speak in support of these two items anyone here to speak in opposition to these two items seeing none i'll close the public comment portion and bring it back to the board for any further discussion or a motion mr chairman moved to approve ldc pas 2025-27 in its entirety second motion a second roll call please robert beltran robert beltran for the motion cindy jenna masso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt for the motion heaven updike for the motion motion passes mr chairman moved to approve ldcd dash 2025-7 in its entirety second motion second to approve roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy jenna masso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt for the motion heaven updike for the motion motion passes next item okay gonna give up your position okay the next case is ldcpas 2025-25 it is a land use change in point sienna from point sienna dri development of regional impact to convenience center and the case planner is robert bolton good morning good morning pardon me robert bolton with land development presenting ldcpas 2025 2025-2020-25 lake marion creek and pine street dri to convenience center x cpa the applicant is requesting a future land use designation change from development of regional impact or dri to convenience center on approximately 1.58 acres for the record 58 mailers were sent to area property owners on october 22nd 2025 two boards were posted on october 20th 2025 legal ad was published in the lakeland winter haven sun on october 22nd 2025 no response from the public has been received staff report ordinance application impact assessment are submitted into the record the subject site is a vacant parcel within the point sienna pre-dri and was originally designated for a church location this is a level four review and will be heard by the board of county commissioners on december 16th 2025 the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and development code and staff recommends approval the subject site is located at the southeast quadrant of lake marion drive or lake marion creek drive and pine street west of hemlock avenue north of marigold avenue this is a 2023 context aerial the site is located on the east side of lake marion creek drive and south side pine street drive the east the east side excuse me the west side of lake marion creek drive the land was recently acquired by polk county and is currently being transferred into a regional area park of polk county parks and recreation to the south is the lake marion creek middle school east southeast uh east southeast uh right here was originally designated as the large commercial area for point sienna however has subsequently been redeveloped into wastewater treatment plant the the site over this part of point sienna is generally built out but there is this area right here that is currently being developed uh out this is the site uh with the county owned land to the west the existing residential to the east and the south and the soon to be developed residential pardon me to the north this represents the existing land use district when the within the area this sort of hatch mark area is the pre-dri the majority of the land in the area uh has been built out as residential an area up here was recently brought in and designated as a residential low for this area is the lake marion creek middle school that has institutional two this is the land use map if it uh if this is approved um this is the uh point sienna land use uh map for the original uh dri this is the subject site right here in purple originally for the church church site this side of lake miriam creek road is currently owned by polk county and is going to be a park so the commercial designation will not be developed correct all all this will wind up okay uh whether they take it through a uh amendment and take it to preservation or what has not been decided at this point in time but the original plan this is a 14 acre tract of commercial here that will be going to the park this area was originally uh intended to have some level of commercial support for the residential so that's also gives substance to take a non-residential land use of church and be able to provide the commercial support to that area sort of a transfer um that was never done through a bliver anything like that so i'm not i don't want to imply um these are pictures of the site this is the site looking from lake miriam creek drive this is looking west along pine street back here is the county owned land right there this is looking south uh toward the uh middle school uh the site is uh serviced uh utility wise by toho for both water and uh storm wastewater uh this is going to be for a non-residential use so schools uh will not be impacted there is good response time from sheriffs i'm showing a little halibut park which is a smaller park because the park to the west hasn't been fully designated as a park they are um fully serviced uh with does have full full public services the request for future land use designation change from dri to convenience center on approximately 1.5 acres the site was originally designated as a church uh the west side of lake miriam had a larger commercial the location as it is at the intersection of two collector roads and meets the location criteria for the commercial center the request is compatible and consistent with the comprehensive plan and land development code with that i'll stand for questions those commissioners have any questions of staff this time seeing none i'll open the public comment portion of the um the agenda item and ask if the applicant is here and come forward please thank you good morning for the record shelton rice i'm an attorney with the law firm of peterson and meyers address 225 east lemon street lakeland florida i appreciate the opportunity to just briefly speak with you about this project i have with me from palmetto capital group our client jeff lasenby as well as mike houghton in addition to that we have our engineer sam medina from sloan engineering as well uh mr bolton did an excellent job summarizing this case there's commercial that ultimately won't be developed as commercial in this area going back to when this was originally approved 50 years ago 1971 whenever that may have been into the 80s always intended for there to be some localized commercial development to service the residential in that area this is a small site it was never contemplated to be commercial it didn't develop with the residential developments adjacent to it and kind of around it it's a 1.5 acre site so it's relatively small but the intent here with the convenience center future land use designation as is stated in the comprehensive plan is that it's intended to accommodate the convenient shopping needs of residents living within the immediate surrounding area so we think that's right in line with really what this area needs we appreciate staff's work on this project we respectfully request a favorable vote thank you thank you do we have any questions of the applicant anyone here to speak in support of this application anyone here to speak in opposition to this application seeing none we'll bring it back to the board for discussion and the motion chair move to approve ldcpas 2025-25 i can have a motion a second to approve roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy janamaso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt for the motion heaven updike for the motion motion passes next is number 16 and 17 be heard together staff yes it's a land use map amendment as well as a comprehensive plan tax amendment and a land development code tax amendment land use change to neighborhood activity center and robert bolton is the case planner before you begin let me ask have we received any uh comments opposition support that we haven't already known about okay okay good morning robert bolton with land development presenting two related requests ldcpas 2025-17 a future land use map and text amendment from residential low to neighborhood activity center with a comprehensive plan text amendment to section 2.135 parcel specific future land use map amendment with conditions to reference the subject site has development conditions part of the land development code text amendment ldct 2025-19 to appendix e adding conditions of development and limit limitation of uses within the nac district these will be presented but need separate actions for the record 13 mailers were sent to property area property owners on october 22nd 2025 two boards were posted on october 20th 2025 legal ad was published in the lakeland and winter haven sun on october 22nd 2025 one phone call and two emails in opposition were received staff report ordinance application impact assessment as well as other application documents and uh the opposition letter from albundale were submitted to the uh for the record under separate cover these are four level four reviews ldcpas 2025-17 will be heard by the board of county commissioners on december 16th ldct 2025-17 will have a first reading by the board of county commissioners on december 5th and an adoption hearing scheduled for december 16th the request is consistent with comprehensive plan and land development code and staff recommends approval the subject site is located uh the northwest quadrant of berkeley road and state road 60 655 berkeley road the site is east of the polk parkway state road 570 north of old dixie highway and south of gapway road this is a 2023 context aerial the site is just over a half mile east of the new braddock road interchange with the polk parkway also to the west of the site is the sun tracks facility and auburndale's youth baseball complex approximately a half mile south on berkeley road is the lake myrtle sports complex it's a very busy area this is a 2025 google earth uh image because our 2023 do not show uh what's happened with braddock road braddock roads uh realignment uh entrance and exit ramp from polk county increased from a two-lane to a four-lane divided urban collector road and was completed in june of 2024 state road 655 or berkeley road is also a four-lane divided urban collector berkeley road was transferred to dot in october of 2019 this just shows the the planning the foresight of the increased growth in this area another thing i wanted to mention is when they did braddock road they went on and had did turn lanes down to keith lane to the south they put a turn lane in that goes to this driveway but for possible future development of this site as well as already put in a curb cut there as well as a turn lane and median for the subject site this represents the existing land use districts in the area the tan gray area is the city of alberndale the subject site is residential low with the frontage along berkeley road designated as a residential low four the same as the site between it and the sun tracks property this is what the map would look like with uh the proposed land use change it's noted the city of alberndale sent a letter of opposition which i previously said is attached separately one of the objections was that it would not be considered compatible with current established residential development and that it is approximately 0.3 miles south of the city of alberndale's village center zoning which is right up here at berkeley and gapway road the zoning district is within the future land use district of lakes district mixed use polk county's comprehensive plan speaks of compatibility with other future land use districts not zoning however the city's village center or vc is described and intended as a mixed use district incorporating medium density housing surrounding the commercial center and to have an urban urban design character it also specifically excludes gas stations and drive-throughs the applicant's population support is sufficient for the separation even with this taken into account the nature of the city's auburndale village center in the county's neighborhood activity center are considered to operate differently and provide different uses also supporting the comprehensive plans distant separation for analysis the ldc text amendment ldct 2025 19 provides for development center plan and limitation of the allowable uses allowed within the nac the listings will be in a couple of slides the plan provides for enhanced buffering requirements including an opaque wall beside residential use properties other development standards include a minimum 50 foot buffer for loading and unloading zones as well as a limitation on loading unloading operation hours providing for on-site lighting standards enhanced signage standards similar to the requirements for the city of auburndale while they may not be exactly the same this is the proposed activity center plan the graphic plan indicates the locations of the enhanced buffering indicated by the red down here the green and the blue as well as the development blocks a b and c a being the hard corner between the hard intersection of the two urban collectors b being located against the state road and c on braddock road a having the highest intensity b sort of a little bit step down and c being either a further step down of of intensity these are the proposed allowable uses in the boxes and prohibited uses pardon me listed below and this is block a block b later time if you want to go over the exact uses i'll be more than happy to go over that it was also provided in the stafford this is the block c allowable and prohibited use breakout this is the site from braddock road looking west towards sun tracks uh the auburndale youth baseball complex and the polk parkway this is the site from berkeley road looking south toward braddock road and the lake mineral sports complex north towards gapway road this are corner views of braddock and berkeley road the site is serviced by a full array of public services and is not anticipated to have any negative impact it is noted that the city of alberndale is currently upgrading their sanitary sewer lines in the area and have temporarily halted connections this is land a land use request sewer concurrency would be required during a level two review the subjects two requests a future land use map and text amendment ldcpas 2025 17 from residential low to neighborhood activity center with a comp plan text amendment section 2.135 parcel specific future land use map amendment with conditions to reference the subject site uh has development conditions part of the land development code text amendment ldct 2025 19 to appendix e adding the conditions of development and limitation of uses within the nac district the combined request if the land use change and the related ldc text limitations on this type of development and enhanced buffering provide for enhanced compatibility are consistent and compatible with comprehensive plan the land development code staff recommends approval on both of these and it's also noted these will take two separate actions that i'll stand for questions any questions is this property contiguous to the city of auburndale to the east and is does auburndale have any intentions of annexing this site in this site uh when they develop they will they're in the the auburndale utility service uh area and we'll have to do a a voluntary annexation for utilities i have a question the um the letter that was received from the city of auburndale dated october the 16th 2025 was in opposition but it included uh the statement should polk county adopt this these two cases the city would ask that the following conditions be placed on the subject site and there are four conditions listed there are you familiar with those yes i i just i want to get your response to that request the it talks about the type c landscaping uh sign standards uh the landscaping since this letter has come in there's been some discussion uh there were some changes to signage uh they'd already increased uh their um landscaping uh they are asking for a six foot masonry wall the applicant is agreeing to a six foot opaque wall or opaque fence pardon me fence um outdoor storage be prohibited the impact uh outdoor storage is not allowed in nac uh i believe we put it in the ordinance uh that it for clarification uh that it would only be uh in conjunction with self storage um they and they made the statement require the same prohibited uses for block a it's listed in the staff report for block b and c and i'll let the applicant address that okay other than that do you believe the um requested um items have been addressed i believe the applicant has done a very good job they may not have addressed them a hundred percent okay but they i think have made a good faith effort okay any other questions thank you i'll open the um public comment portion of uh this these two items and ask the applicant to come forward please thank you for the record shelton rice i'm an attorney with the law firm of peterson and meyers address 225 east lemon street lakeland florida i apologize my wife would tell you i cannot multitask so there we go all right uh as i mentioned before i'm here on behalf of palmetto capital group we have the same gentleman jeff lasenby and michael houghton here on behalf of the client additionally we have sam medina with sloan engineering who's here as well to answer any specific questions related to that we may have i think mr bolton did an excellent job again summarizing this case and summarizing the components and the pieces of it i have a brief presentation i promise i'll try to be brief but we'll go through a little bit about really what's happened over the last 15 16 years in this area there's some history here there's some other things going on but there's been significant changes and i think that's very relevant to the decision that we're asking you to make today so 7.95 acres is about an eight acre track it's consistent with kind of the sizing that's contemplated in the comprehensive plan for the neighborhood activity center future land use designation it's at the intersection of braddock and perkeley road i'll talk a little bit more that about that as we get into this but those are two four lane roads a signalized intersection so this is a significant corner uh it's within as was mentioned half a mile to a mile of a new interchange that was built at polk parkway at the polk parkway for braddock road this area has rapidly changed and some commercial we think is appropriate at this significant intersection it's in the urban growth area development area under the county's comprehensive plan it is in in a joint planning area with the city of auburndale that dates back to 2009 we'll talk about that that was really intended to be kind of a loose guide and there's some specific provisions in that agreement that really contemplate this is a direction right this is something to give us an idea but with two ideas really in focus one being we want to make sure that we have compatible uses so that as things develop in the city or the county near the boundaries things are consistent and compatible with one another but primarily focused on the efficient utilization and provision of municipal services utility lines water and wastewater let's make sure we're on the same page so that we do things efficiently current future land use designation is residential low a little bit more about this you've seen this a neighborhood activity center what is it intended to do it's intended to provide the shopping needs of residents within the immediate surrounding neighborhoods so this isn't a regional activity center this isn't contemplated for substantial industrial development there's a lot of that going on along the polk parkway to the west of this site as you move north at these different intersections you have a lot of this this is really focused to provide a smaller scale commercial type area so that the immediate residents have places to go to get those personal services to get some of those things and the theory behind that is if we put some commercial in closer proximity to residences they won't have to travel as far to get those same services and so while this would have trip generation and all of those things and we'd have to go through concurrency analysis in a tia the idea here is if you put residences in closer proximity to the shopping needs that they may have they may not be on the road as long or as far so that that's some of the theory and the planning principles behind it in addition and what i really like about the polk county's process and what we're utilizing here i've seen it a couple of times utilized today are these comp plan amendments tied to a parcel specific text amendment there's a lot of jurisdictions that don't have that available to them what it does is it provides us the ability to have a comp plan amendment get to whatever we think is an appropriate future land use designation but then really condition it and limit it like you would get in a plan development where you can dictate a lot of conditions a lot of requirements to ultimately make it a better project we have a litany of those we have nine or ten pages in an ordinance related to these text amendment specific parcel specific conditions that would be dictated for this development a little bit about the locational criteria we meet the locational criteria criteria for this site your staff has reviewed that we provide some supplemental information so that's consistent with your comprehensive plan general characteristics of this directly from the comprehensive plan contemplates five to twenty acres kind of a neighborhood type service commercial operation and this is the activity center plan you've already seen this but just a little bit about it and what's contemplated here so as as part of the entitlements that we're asking for we've really been intentional and this has been with staff's input and frankly with changes from input that we received from the city of alberndale's letter we've scaled the intensity of this development so that the more intensive uses the uses that may be less compatible adjacent to residential are allowed in block a meaning at the hard corner that southeastern portion and then as you move to block b and block c those uses are more refined and more narrow so that those are the lower impact type commercial uses that are allowed there a couple other just brief things on this you have layers of landscaping and buffering separation so it's not like we have one landscape buffer around the boundary there's internal buffering that would be required here so if you're at braddock road there's three layers of buffering before you get to the residences on the north if you're at berkeley road there's three layers of buffering as well as different businesses between there so there's layers of buffering contemplated within this to we think further exacerbate the separation and make it more compatible cross access easements another component of this where as i mentioned with the text amendments you can require these types of things when you have the parcel specific text amendments that we're proposing so this is a little bit about the buffering and so what is it in the buffering that we're contemplating so this is along the northern boundary where there's residential to the north and then the western boundary where have we have residential lots to our west what's being proposed there is a modified type b landscape buffer so your typical code requirement for this between these types of uses would likely be a type b landscape buffer which would contemplate the plantings here two canopy trees four understory and 25 shrubs without a fence what we've done and the code allows for a reduction of that to basically half of those plantings if you put a fence in with it what we're proposing to do is do the full landscaping buffering that's required all of the plantings but also putting in an opaque fence so you get the benefit of both of those things along the road frontage of course that's a little different right for commercial businesses you want some visibility you don't want visual obstruction so we've got a an enhanced landscape buffer here a type a landscape buffer that would be contemplated and this is a six foot or ten foot depending on if you're talking about between commercial blocks or along the road frontage ten foot along the right of way six feet internal between the different projects or pieces so just a little bit about the text amendment and this is all well laid out in the staff report it's in the ordinance that's being proposed for adoption elimination of uses so there's been significant elimination of some of the uses that are allowed in neighborhood activity centers that as your staff has stated is compatible is appropriate based on the conference of plan analysis that's been conducted there's enhanced developer standards they range from landscaping and buffering quality and timing of that landscaping so when certain buffers would have to be implemented master infrastructure planning cross access easements limited structures or activities within certain distances from the residential units lighting requirements limited structure heights above and beyond what the code would require for neighborhood activity center operational hours and activity signage a number of things the list goes on and on about the different components that we've been able to incorporate in to this request and as the final bullet point on that as these standards and uses have been modified based on some of the feedback we've received from the city so a little bit about transportation this is just a quick picture from google earth the street view looking at the intersection the properties in the background here you can see significant intersection uh intended for heavy traffic berkeley road is a four-lane divided road and mr bolton briefly touched on that it's now a commercial route and it's tended for significant commercial traffic braddock road was rebuilt and realigned in 2024 to a four-lane divided urban collector road the interchange as we've talked about that was built in 23 24 all contribute to kind of the changes that are really happening around this property that we think help substantiate and justify this request so summary of our request it's a comp plan amendment to neighborhood activity center we have the land development code text amendment with the site-specific conditions and restrictions we have a staff recommendation of approval just a couple of things we have this jpa with the city of auburndale but since that time there have been a lot of changes to this area the central florida innovation district has also come about in 2019 we are not within the central florida innovation district where we are today but there's reference to the intersection of brackley braddock and berkeley in that as a gateway i think the choosing of the word gateway is appropriate in that vernacular because that's the same words used in the jpa when they were identifying areas for relatively intensive development in 2009 but that was back before there was the interchange at the polk parkway and braddock road so all of these things kind of tie together it's a changing area we think this use is appropriate with that said we respectfully request a favorable vote and i would ask for just a moment to respond if there's any public comment thank you any questions uh have you seen the letter from auburndale yes sir and you're familiar with the requested i guess their conditions um and i think you've addressed all of those except i'm not sure about the sign standards which basically is asking for monument signs and i'm just wondering if you have any comments regarding that yes sir so i've pulled up on a slide my summary of her four okay comments we received from the city of auburndale and i've got them word for word here if you'd like me to read them but no no that's okay essentially it's landscaping and sign standards so we've talked about the enhanced landscaping that's contemplated the sign standards frankly that the request that they've made is a little bit ambiguous from our interpretation to be consistent with polytech and some other things we weren't really sure what that would be obligating us to and so instead what we did is we added in some language about monument signs having to have monument signs which we think is consistent with really their request the six foot wall requested along the northern and western boundary we're doing the enhanced landscaping the additional plantings we think an opaque fence would be appropriate with that given we're really kind of double dipping on the landscaping on that front the limitation on outdoor storage it's not allowed we specifically have provisions that prevent it from being allowed it would only be allowed for a self-storage facility and that would be subject to the requirements that the county has in chapter three for conditional uses as well so there's a lot of limitation on that and they had a request to require the same prohibited uses from block a block b and c we shifted some of these we eliminated additional uses based on this it's not consistent but we think that's appropriate given the more intensive right at the corner less intensive commercial as you get to the residential and then the residential on the back we think that's good scaling a good planning practice can you give me an example of what would be allowed in block a that wouldn't be allowed in block b and c under the proposed text yes sir so block a would allow car wash gas stations a larger retail so larger than 65 000 square feet not anticipating that but that would still require a level three i just want to get an idea of what the difference was yes technical training uh a restaurant with a drive-through retail so all of those things are prohibited from blocks b and c that are otherwise allowed in a neighborhood activity center okay i'll ask what is the the list of allowables is long what are they going to put there yes sir so it's a great question with that in mind we don't have the certainty they're a commercial developer right so they develop and they work with lots of different folks that may ultimately want to have a site want commercial there this is an eight acre site there's three different blocks so i would think at a minimum you probably have three different uses but it's much more narrow than just a blanket hey give us neighborhood activity center on this site and we can do a longer laundry list so we think we've done it in a way that limits it but but also provide some protection to the to the residents and a little flexibility for our client to meet market demands that's a non-answer i recognize that but we don't have an answer so if i understand you right it could be any of these on those three lists it it could be as we're allowed for those blocks um it's being clear which is less less uses than you would have for any other property that doesn't have parcel specific text amendments for neighborhood activity center throughout the county so this is much more narrow than a typical future land use okay i want to ask is there anyone here to speak in support of this application anyone here speak in opposition to this application yes sir did come forward please were you sworn in okay name and address please good morning commissioners my name is travis savory i live at 133 burning bush cove at the intersection of this site across the street from it i would like to take a time to speak in opposition of this development specifically speaking to the consistency of what auburndale the city of auburndale has requested in their letter specifically number four where there's the prohibitive use that matches block a matching the rest of the development that they're planning on doing in this as i said before i live across the street from this location and although my neighbors are not here today they've asked me to speak on their behalf and also opposition of a very intense use of that block a that we that we were speaking of earlier from the applicant with that i would ask the commission to respect our request and make that noted thank you so much so let me let me understand you you're opposed to this change or you want the recommendation that the restrictions that include block a that all the restrictions on uses to be the same for all three yes sir mr bishop uh you support it if that was the case or you thank you for that question uh okay i'm trying to clarify i believe that auburndale is in total opposition of it as a neighborhood activity center okay based off of their letter yes they did make they did make requests within that letter however in that letter in the very beginning they make they make it known that they're in opposition of a neighborhood activity center due to the location uh to the south already being a neighborhood activity center and they have already approved the village center to the north and it's not consistent with with the joint planning in that that regard sir okay so i would say that we are in opposition the neighborhood neighborhood activity center because it's not consistent with what the city of auburndale is requesting for that location thank you for that clarification thank you any other questions anyone else to speak in opposition okay i'll have the applicant come forward to see he has anything to add i'll be very brief i promise thank you for the record shelton rice one one correction uh to something i stated restaurant drive-through is being excluded they would be allowed in block c but not block b as a level two conditional use so that's one deviation it is prohibited in block b but not block c i want to make sure i was clear on that as to the the comments we can go through some of the details about convenience center there's a convenience center that's located south as to whether or not that's an activity center it's being developed as really owned by polk county as part of the lake myrtle sports complex there's a small convenience center to the southeast the majority of which is being developed as part of a residential subdivision and there's some other things all that said we we have provided kind of the analysis for neighborhood activity center uh consistent with the comprehensive plan we think this is appropriate we're happy to answer any specific questions you have of us but we respectfully request a favorable vote this is a changing area this request is consistent with that change thank you just a comment mr commissioner i i mean and i i think it's great that auburndale wants to do do that but this isn't auburndale's call it's it's our it's our call and and uh i think what we need to look at is is it within the owner's rights to be able to do what he wants to with this and they've agreed to a lot if not all of what auburndale asked in their letter i just that that's just comment from me and um i'd like to add um this is my hometown i live just a couple miles from there and i've been there for 30 years and i've watched auburndale change grossly and what the attorney said about that intersection between berkeley and braddock it is absolutely set up in my mind for something just like this when we have major sporting events and i mean tens of thousands of people coming to lake mortal lake myrtle sports complex especially when they're heading back north until public's got there and that's quite a little wiggle to get over there there's nothing there's you know there's no conveniences so you know having been in auburndale for so long and just no more roof people want more conveniences less rooftops and i can understand you know it going in across the street from me that wouldn't necessarily be as exciting in my world either but at the same time berkeley road one of the letters mentioned you know we want tranquility that is not a tranquil road that is a very busy semis going up and down and you know i just being a resident there would be happy to have something new and different come in and offer things to not just the people who live there but to the people that were attracting to lake myrtle sports complex because they are many and there's just not a lot there for them any other comments this area this area has obviously changed significantly but it's still surrounded by residential gentleman had objection to because he's going to live right across the street from it it's my understanding that a restaurant would drive up i'm assuming something like a mcdonald's or something like that could be put right on this corner and i i don't see the consistency nor the compatibility for this request on this on this particular location right here maybe somewhere else but not right there my question is um has a landowner been approached to annex this site into auburndale and why has that not happened we've had for the record shelton rice we've had conversations with the city of auburndale i wasn't a part of them they were they were relatively brief a while ago that's something we'll continue to have conversations about the utility lines right and the obligation to connect to their utilities will mean ultimately there'll have to be more conversations about that um to hopefully that answers your question any other discussion or motion mr chairman i move to approve ldcp as 2025-17 back motion second roll call please robert beltran i'm for the motion cindy janamasso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic sims for the motion mike schmidt against the motion kevin updike for the motion motion passes and mr chair i move to approve ldct-2025-19 second motion second roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy janamasso for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman for the motion angelic sims or the motion mike schmidt against the motion kevin updike for the motion motion passes thank you i have a question please yes regarding the the and i we just kind of slid right past it um regarding the request from auburndale at what point in all of this do we not ignore that or have we have we just gone on past that now it was a letter in opposition so we treat it just like any other letter in opposition we considered it the board considered it and took action on the item okay so there's there's the opportunity for that to be discussed again before the uh board of county commissioners and the board of county commissioners has their you know ability to add conditions or make changes level four december 16th okay next case please mr chair quick before the next case i believe the applicant for the southern storage case arrived i don't know if y'all want to dispense with that now or wait till after this next case it's y'all's prerogative but he is here we can knock it out pretty quick y'all's call is the applicant here yes he is okay the case has been already presented and so we just need to hear from the applicant uh not sure if he's aware of the opposition i mean i think we need to hear from him particularly regarding the opposition was mainly about drainage and impacts to the surrounding area and if i can paraphrase what the opposition said was that with the development of the residential property to the west he had there was more impact on flooding and drainage and he's concerned about well if this is built because it's going to have a lot of impervious coverage is that going to exacerbate the drainage and flooding problems so i i would say do do we want to go ahead and consider this i mean i made the statements but do we consider this now hearing this case at this time is that what you're considering bringing it up at this time the staff has commented i'd make a motion to hear it seems like they're ready to go all right second all in favor say signify by saying aye aye okay so we've staff has already presented the case is there anything else to add clarify can we just say the case number again i'm sorry the case number is ldpd 2025-10 southern storage transition area development did i say that right yes sir and staffs have provided a recommendation of approval to the board yes okay we have staff call back up the site plan thank you and the applicant needs to be sworn in oh yes can you please raise your right hand do you swear or affirm that the testimony and evidence you present to the planning commission today will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do thank you okay we would like to hear from you i guess regarding what your plans are and what the the uh concern about uh drainage and flooding absolutely uh for the record my name is brian edwards b-r-y-a-n and i'm the owner and developer and customer service and today i was cleaning crew so um i apologize for the miscommunication on not being here earlier so thank you for hearing us again um so essentially what we are looking to do is duplicate what we've already done on the front of um the two parcels here and uh we have very strict standards that we have to apply to um drainage in particular especially with swift mud um we have a new uh guidelines that we will be following um and uh obviously we um we did that on our first site uh with no issues and um on the second site we would follow those guidelines i believe that uh pond will drain into a dot um situation as well so we will have even more guidelines that we have to follow there is there anything in particular you would like to know i'm happy to answer anything just they they came there was a i think the opposition uh that had some flooding and that's what they were that's what they were wanting to hear from i think you've covered that but if you have any more to add to that i think it'd be no we just we work with kimley horn on our engineering and um we plan to follow uh the guidelines that are required from us to prevent any sort of um you know problems on the surrounding areas do you know if the current site does it drain from the north to the south because the gentleman who came in is to your north so actually the site um does drain from the north to the south back to the southwest corner so um it would not drain if it if it drains anywhere it's going down there so we slope our our parking pads and whatnot uh towards the drainage uh down there on the south side that i mean that's what it appears in the first site that's why i was just making sure it would be consistent with that yep and it sounds like you will be subject to the new stormwater rules that are coming out correct to require additional attenuation storage and treatment yep exactly have you have you experienced any problems with your current facility in terms of drainage no when we had the hurricanes last year um we were only open for about three or four months and that was a good test and we had no issues at all the the drainage had come up in level two review correct ian i'm sorry yeah yes that's correct okay i'll entertain a motion mr chairman move to approve ldpd 2025-10 in its entirety second motion second for approval roll call please robert beltran for the motion cindy janam also for the motion merle bishop for the motion mike hickman angelica sims for the motion mike schmidt for the motion kevin update for the motion motion passes thank you okay number 18 staff all right number 18 is ldpd uh 2025 9 the highlands club pd and andrew grohowski is your planner i didn't get him set up on the slideshow and before he starts real quick i did distribute to the commission a um some information from a member of um the public and uh andrew here has um another email that we received late this morning i'm sorry early this morning i'll pass around before you get started i received i i assume the rest of the board members received several emails i think i received nine different emails that i forwarded to staff so i won't go through those in detail but those were nine at least nine in opposition and we were given this handout if i can find it before the meeting yeah i can't i can't put my hands on it right now but anyway so any anything else we're not aware of huh okay all right well good morning uh andrew grohowski with land development uh presenting ldpd 2025-9 so the applicant here is seeking planned development approval for a single family residential development on approximately 300 acres the request includes a total of 747 single family units on 130 foot wide and 50 foot wide lots located northwest of the city of bartow with increased density and reduced setbacks for the record 95 mailers were sent to area property owners and a legal ad was published in the lakeland and winter haven sun on october 22nd 14 signs were posted on the subject property on october 20th so staff for the record has received seven emails and one phone call in opposition not including the email that's being passed along today so the subject site consists of multiple parcels and is approximately 300 acres combined the property is west of us highway 98 south of county road 540a cruise lake drive and clubhouse road west of yarborough lane east of mccall road and northwest of the city of bartow in sections 22 and 27 township 29 and range 24. the subject site is located in the residential one low one future land use district in the urban growth area there is a small half acre portion of the site designated rl2 to the west right here as well as a small portion of the site within the transit supportive development area to the north on the northern property boundary the standard density in the r01 district is one dwelling unit per acre but can reach up to five dwelling units per per acre in the uga through the pd process which is required to drop lot sizes below the minimum 40 000 square feet reduce setbacks and increase density bartow city limits above the subject site to the east so this area is known as the lakeland highlands region and it has been built out with single-family development that was once orange groves given the historic aerials you can see the development that has occurred over this period of time from 1971 to 2023 this growth is especially pronounced in the aerials from 1988 to 2005 with the introduction of the polk parkway in 1999 zooming out to today the lakeland highlands region is almost completely built out you can see single family homes around the northeast and northwestern subject site boundaries currently the site is vacant pasture and agricultural land and is one of the last few remaining large residential tracks in the area touchstone residential subdivision is currently under construction to the east and was approved by the planning commission in 2021 for 562 single-family units case number is ldpd 2021-17 also to the east is wind meadows south subdivision within the city of bartow and was approved for 835 single-family units in 2021 to the south and west is old phosphate mining and vacant land and other single-family subdivisions can be found to the north of the property the subject site itself contains a water body natural water body known as cruise lake which spans approximately 27.96 acres so the total density proposed is 2.74 dwelling units per acre with minimum single-family lot sizes of 6 000 square feet the proposal includes the reduction of primary side setbacks for the 50 foot wide lots also known as areas b through e on the site plan from 10 feet to 5 feet accessory side and rear setbacks for these lots are reduced from 10 feet to 5 feet the larger 130 foot wide lots also known as area a on the site plan shaded in yellow proposes a reduction in accessory side setbacks from 10 feet to 5 feet otherwise setbacks will remain unchanged or increased from the rl1 district standards per ldc requirements garages are required to have a 25 foot setback so here's the submitted site plan for the record to get a better view the larger 130 foot wide lots are shaded in yellow while the remaining lots are 50 foot wide separated out the density in area a is 0.74 dwelling units an acre which is below the rl1 district standard meanwhile areas b through e have a density of 3.8 dwelling units per acre per acre the total density for the entire project is about 2.74 dwelling units per acre staff reviewed the request for locational criteria to determine the site's eligibility for the requested density it was found the site exceeds the density bonus points for planned development location due to the proximity of utilities schools shopping centers and collector roadways the proposal scored greater than 22 points which would allow up to five dwelling units per acre going through the appropriate pd process as i mentioned previously the total dwelling units per acre is 2.74 additionally the site plan designates 68.95 acres of open space which exceeds the 20 percent minimum open space requirements for pds this includes passive trails around landscape type c stormwater retention facilities and greater type c landscape buffering along roadway frontages per table 3.4 a in section 303 of the land development code one additional parking space is required for every 10 units that are less than 55 feet wide an extra 68 parking spaces will be required an applicant has provided 130 113 spaces throughout the development many of these standards today are being met which were otherwise not applicable to other plan developments in the immediate area prior to the board's adoption in december 2022 here's the amenity plan submitted for the record there are multiple type one to four amenities ranging from top lots pickleball courts a clubhouse and pool and dog parts similar similar to the locational score the site has exceeded the minimum amenity requirement of 678 points all recreation spaces will be connected by internal sidewalks and all 50 foot wide lots are within 100 1300 feet walking distance to these amenities planned developments in section 303 of the ldc designate open space as recreation space curved linear landscape ponds with trails and walking paths and a 25 foot wide type c landscape buffer buffers all along all the roadway frontages additionally the applicant has provided 25 foot type c landscape buffering along the entire western portion which is circled in red so this photo was taken from wind meadows south and illustrates the different types of amenities this project will aim to offer here's an overlay of the site plan with the subject property according to the binding plans the layout of the proposed lots are located next to similar existing size lots the layout provides relevant transitions in scale and intensity to the west is vacant pasture land and cruise woods lane subdivision which has about 170 foot foot wide lots excuse me further west you find tremont subdivision on 80 foot wide lots the larger 130 foot wide lots proposed and shaded in yellow on the site plan will be near these subdivisions to the west and northwest to the east is touchstone residential which was approved by the planning commission for 40 foot to 60 foot wide lots and reduced 10 foot rear and 5 foot side setbacks which is compatible with this request the lots and touchstone directly across from the site are 50 foot wide and the entire subdivision is about 3.58 dwelling units per acre which is not far off from the proposed density of the 50 foot wide lots at 3.8 dwelling units per acre further south is wind meadows development with 50 foot wide lots and reduced setbacks meanwhile to the north is highlands crossing with 80 foot wide lots where this project is abutting larger unplatted lots to the west and south the applicant has proposed storm water and open space to provide an extra buffer as well as the 20 foot 25 foot wide type c landscaping for screening this 25 foot wide type c landscape buffer will also be provided along all roadway frontages to negate any compatibility concerns in order to count as open space while the majority of the site is within the urban growth area a portion is partially within the transit supportive development area to the north from a public investment standpoint urban level services are expected and available at this location these services include utilities fire commercial uses hospitals schools and transit valleyview elementary and george jenkins high school are located within a quarter mile and a half a mile from the site respectively fire and ems is half a mile away and served by fire rescue station number 28 off of clubhouse road the station will eventually be relocated to closer to the site as there is a new facility proposed off of smith lane and ef griffin next to spessard elementary a citrus connection bus stop is located about 1.3 miles from the site notably along us highway 98 the intersection with clubhouse road provides an activity center with grocery retail restaurants multi-family personal services and employment highland city senior field a community park and highland city park are both under two miles to the north from the site the site is also near fort fraser trailhead in highland city with restrooms and picnic shelters the project is proposed to have three entrances onto yarborough lane with one entrance onto cruise lake drive which are both classified as urban collector roadways the site has an estimated 747 pm peak hour trips per day and a major traffic study will be required at the time of level two review the preliminary impact assessment finds these utility fire and school services are available and there is adequate capacity in short this is an area just outside bartow and lakeland city limits where the comprehensive plan directs growth and where services are readily available and higher densities are encouraged this development will be required to connect to water and wastewater served by southwest regional utility service area this is the current look of infrastructure in the area and will get updated as necessary improvements are made touchstone development to the east required improvements to yarborough lane and extended water and wastewater line south six new fire hydrants have subsequently been installed on yarborough lane there's also a reclaim water line considered available according to ldc section 702g as it's within a half a mile from the subject site to the west on cruise lake drive in short there is a full range of services in the area with capacity and with improvements underway the site funds two urban collector roadways cruise lake drive and yarborough lane according to the site plan there are three entrances proposed off of yarborough and one off of cruise lake drive both of our urban collectors yarborough lane extending south of a cruise lake drive was recently dedicated to the county and upgraded to collector roadway standards a five foot wide sidewalk was also installed along the eastern portion of yarborough the current request will be required to install sidewalks along cruise lake drive and yarborough lane today to debt and dedicate excuse me uh necessary right of way off of cruise lake drive per correspondence with tpo given the proposed development the request will require a major traffic major traffic study and demonstrate uh traffic concurrency has been satisfied with any roadway improvements once they submit for level two so here are some aerial photographs taken uh recently of the subject property this is looking southeast with cruise lake woods on the bottom right and touchstone and wind meadows in the distance here's just another photo looking west at the subject site you can better see cruise lake woods and now tremont in the distance here's looking northeast northwest so this aerial just has touchstone development to the left you can see the recent intersection improvements with a new right turn lane onto yarborough from this vantage point and here's just some grounds photos from staff site visit new improvements to yarborough including six fire hydrants and sidewalks have been installed and you can see on your screen this is the northeastern most corner of the subject site at the intersection of yarborough and cruise lake drive this is just an example these homes shown on the screen are just examples of subdivisions near directly adjacent to the proposal and so the ranges and lot size the ranges and lot sizes illustrates the different types of lots that can be found relatively close close distances to one another some have been there for decades which applies to the coexistence factor and from an economic standpoint a diversity of housing options in the area caters to many different buyers and helps maintain a strong sense of community additionally the inclusion of various housing options furthers the objective outlined in policy 2.105-a5j of the comp plan for polk county the number of proposed homes represents a return on investment in local roadways potable water and wastewater services this request is not going to be built overnight and should be and should this be approved the items listed on the screen will need to be reviewed by staff during the level two phase this includes a flood study species walkover a major traffic study and any roadway improvements it is important to note that the site is within the lake sewer drainage basin which is considered a closed drainage basin per ldc section 740 a new stormwater facility facility and drainage structures in this development shall be designed to the 100 year 24 hour storm event sidewalks will be required along roadway frontages as well as dedication on cruise lake drive so staff finds the site plan and application is consistent with the relevant sections of the comprehensive plan and land development code this is the type of intensity of development one should expect in an area such as this with advanced levels of growth and public investment and within close proximity to services and employment and daily needs furthermore staff finds this request compatible with surrounding uses these are single family uses in an area with other single family development and similar densities and lot sizes the comprehensive plan and land development code guides plan development to where public services are available such as this location the comprehensive plan and land development code require compatibility between uses which the applicant has addressed through design features such as enhanced buffering setbacks lot layout and open space the careful implementation of these tools mitigates any compatibility concerns requirements for open space landscape buffers and screening and amenities are being met and in some cases exceeded with the pd criteria outlined in section 303 these requirements would otherwise not be considered in a typical residential subdivision if approved administratively it meets the pertinent goals and sections of the comprehensive plan and land development code and with that i thank you and stanford any questions have any questions any questions of staff chair i do real quick on that area that's notched out what is what is that that that's not part of this but adjacent to right here yes sir so that's not included part of the site plan those are uh today they're single family homes how many do you know um i believe there's two and there's no there's no there's no buffering on those edges since they're class two two uses thank you and then did i hear you say correctly that they will be required to hook up to reclaimed water since they're they're meeting that section of the land development code there will likely be needing to extend that line thank you i have no further questions for staff any other questions thank you so now i'll open the public comment portion of the uh hearing of this case is the applicant present come forward please uh good afternoon commission uh for the record bart allen land use attorney with the peterson and meyers law firm my address is 225 east lemon street lakeland florida i am here this morning on behalf of the applicant um two applicants technically i got wakeman warnock lc and with me this morning i have mr chuck warnock and uh mr michael warnock and then also uh rja land which is uh mr bob adams and um like to just recognize mr adams for being here as well um i'm like like my partner shelton i'm not good at multitasking let me switch over to my presentation real quick also uh with me this morning as part of our team uh the land planning uh have from elite designs i have mr john mcveigh in the audience he's he's helped us with the land planning and in the in the uh lot of layouts uh in the back nope he moved up to the third row i have mr brian hunter from hunter engineering he's a professional engineer uh is also involved in this project working with us on engineering issues and we have engaged uh way engineering uh mr skelton is a professional engineer with way engineering he will be um is currently working on and and i wish i had it i don't uh our transportation major transportation study even though it's not a requirement as you've heard to for a level three approval we are not locking in concurrency today we are not evaluating concurrency today we are working on that in advance of the level twos to have an understanding of what's going on and i'll touch on some other things that relate to transportation in a moment but just wanted to wanted to highlight that as well that that he is involved but not here this morning mr grahowski has given you a wonderful overview he did a very very good job with his presentation and with the staff report um so one i want to commend him he's been a pleasure to work with over the past few months as we've worked this case to this point and um really really think highly of him i'm going to take a little bit of a different spin on some of the conversation points here for this project he's given you all of his staff report in a very concise version and as you heard early uh at the one of the very first comments from miss howard was we are in a quasi-judicial setting this is absolutely a quasi-judicial hearing and as she defined expert testimony and the evidence that you hear consists of exactly what mr grahowski just provided you that is expert testimony based on his staff report that he has evaluated based on the submittals and the and the existing conditions of the surrounding area and i think that's really important i wanted to remind everybody of that that this is not a opportunity for fear and and just anti-development type type type testimony that is not confident substantial evidence fact-based testimony expert based testimony is confident substantial evidence i may reiterate that a couple times but um i just want to i want to bring that up as it relates to the property a few things uh mr grahowski's already given you the the lay of the land so to speak 300 acres south side of cruise lake drive um our eastern border is the western border of the new yarborough lane that was just extended um south of cruise lake drive and um kind of northwest bartow not in bartow and kind of where south lakeland and those two those two jurisdictions have been growing together over the past past decades a little more context on the region you know and not only region's not the right right word this is this what i call the highlands area of the region bounded on three sides you got florida avenue on the west pope parkway to the north and us highway 98 to the east you can see that area is highlighted in orange you can see the subject property um on the south end there in red you can see growth has continued to move from the south or from the north to the south with between those two to arterial roads this is an area that has has continued to grow it's grown in different kinds of uses too it's not all just residential you've seen commercial development occur in these areas you've seen medical you've seen new hospitals being built in these areas you've seen there's two or three hospital sites within this within this region so you're seeing a continued growth um as as this area has developed to the south why is the property at the bottom not colored it is all previous phosphate mining area that's kind of where the line was drawn with the phosphate mine and and where those mining activities um stopped on their northern end you can see some of the scarring of the land right here just on this exhibit that's why that's there you also have a you also have the uh landfill the bart city of bartow landfill just to the southeast you've got the solar farm so a lot of different things going on in this in this area and this is just a continuation of that of that trend that has occurred over over the decades um mr grahowski gave you uh the information you need here uh urban growth area tsda that's why we have the residential low land use classification the majority the large large majority of this site is rl1 there is some little bit of rl2 within it but the entire site is rl1 which is appropriate when you look at the urban growth area how those urban growth areas are defined in your comprehensive plan and where they're appropriate they're appropriate where there's infrastructure in place they're appropriate where those planning and that investment has occurred and that's what's happened here and this is again this is again the appropriate location for these types of development this is the pd request i'm not going to spend a lot of time on this at this time because when when you with the way that our comprehensive plan the way the county's comprehensive plan is constructed is you have a when you are in residential low that allows zero to five dwelling units per acre when you are rl1 you are still allowed to go above our the the one dwelling unit per acre as long as you do a pd and that's exactly what we've done here and if you look in chapter two of your land development code in the use tables and all of those sorts of um uh codes it specifically calls that out where you can go increased density over rl1 up to five dwelling units an acre that's in the comprehensive plan as well so how do we get to the pd you got to look at is the request consistent with the comprehensive plan does it meet the land development code standard standards and is it compatible and we're going to walk through those kind of three different levels in those three areas and show you that it that is indeed the fact and that's exactly what your staff said at the conclusion of his presentation started with a comp plan residential low policy 2.120 c1 densities up to and including five dwelling units an acre we are at a gross density of 2.74 dwelling units an acre about half of that right in line where are they where are they supposed to be mapped in the tsdas and the ugas you just saw the previous exhibits and the exhibits of your staff report we are in those designations development criteria rl may contain single family dwelling units that's what we're asking for here it also allows duplexes small scale multi-family other things that we're not asking for today but it allows other things other than one acre single family lots and shall be permitted with county approval at a density of up to and including five dwelling units an acre again all three of those policies specifically lay out that in residential low the 2.74 dwelling unit per acre request is absolutely appropriate and consistent with your comprehensive plan this is just the exhibit that demonstrates so we're asking for 2.74 so i'll skip on through this one one thing that i want to point out when we're calculating that 2.74 we are not including the 27.96 acres of cruise lake so this is only the uplands we are calculating the entire project less the 27.96 acres and it is broken into two different um two different uh categories basically area a which are our larger lots at 0.74 dwelling units an acre and that again does not include the lake area um and then the b through e which is 3.8 dwelling units an acre so even on their own merits each individual development section whether it's the 50 foot lots or the 130 foot minimums we are consistent with your comprehensive plan you may recall for those that were on the board we're paying attention um the board of county commissioners over the years have reevaluated how we look at a plan development and in 2020 early 2024 i believe it's probably sometime in february we the county the board of county commissioners adopted new standards for evaluating a plan development it used to be that we looked basically inside the project inside the development to determine how many bonus points we could we could create through amenities and open space and different things to get our density up now to determine density within a pd we look outside and we look at what is what is the property eligible for and that's all based on infrastructure that's based on proximity to commercial services or employment centers and utilities and roads and schools and parks and all of that stuff and you look at all those criteria and that's in chapter three of your land development code in section 303 and you count those points up and that determines what your property is eligible for before you ever put pen to paper to design the site so you can determine what a site is eligible for without drawing in all the lots and that's and i think that's important because that's the process we've done today we are we have gone through the location eligibility to determine that we can develop we can max this site out it could go up to five dwelling units an acre we actually score 10 times more points than what we really need we only are i think it should be three times more i apologize that's a that was a uh late night uh bad math error guys um that should be three times more uh more points we need eight between eight and ten points to get to 2.7 dwelling units an acre this site scored 29 points when you look at the eligibility criteria i think that's telling that tells you that this area has all those services in place it has all of those all of those characteristics that you want for this type of type of a project and i apologize for that bad math and i was an engineer at one point the next the next two things you start looking at is you start looking at before you lay out your lots you got to figure out how much open space do you need to require your the new open space requirements are there 20 of your 20 of your site has to be provided as open space when you're doing lots under 80 feet 10 when you're going lots over 80 feet in addition you have to provide 500 square feet of recreation as part of that for every lot that's under a 80 foot wide and you can see here based on our table we're providing 23 open space excluding the lake that does not include the lake i want to make sure that's clear that is excluding the lake if you include the lake we're up closer to 40 and that lake will is privately owned it will be an amenity as part of these as part of this project in addition we are providing over eight acres of of recreation which is where i get to that 500 so you start looking at okay where do we what is the site score from a density perspective can you meet the open space and recreation criteria and and in both cases the answer is absolutely yes this is our open space just our open space plan just just to show how we calculated it then you start looking at not only do you have to have open space you have to provide amenities on top of that and you have to score your amenities for um for lots under or i believe it's 50 feet for 50 foot for the 678 50 foot lots we need 678 amenity points and you accumulate amenity points by placing dog parks and type you know clubhouses and pools and cabanas um top lots and different things around your site and that's what we've done this site based on the based on the binding site plan as part of this this preliminary pd scores 825 uh amenity points well in excess of the 678 that's required for this project and this is our uh amenity plan highlighting the different type one type two different um amenities our primary amenity the the larger amenity the type uh the type four uh the type four amenity is here in the um in the middle and you can see here within this you're looking at a clubhouse and a cabana uh pool courts we're calling a pickleball right now but if the new pickleball comes around they can be a different sport um playground you got a playground for the kids and you got a dog park right there so you've got a significant amenity package right in the middle of of this of the project and all of your lots have to be within 1300 feet of an amenity and this site plan meets that the purpose of that is to have easy access pedestrian access for the resident to just walk right out and be able to use some sort of open space and recreation activity recreation area these are all the 2024 standards that this that this site plan um meets and this is a summary of everything that we just talked about the one thing that i didn't talk about in detail is is within the plan is the additional parking we have to provide one additional space for every guest parking one additional space for every 10 dwelling units under 55 feet in width we've provided in excess of that so we meet all of the criteria or plan development standards for this project to be approved so then what do we look at we started looking at once you we we've established that the site plan is consistent with the residential low densities we've now established that the site plan meets the pd requirements the 2024 pd requirements now we look at is that is their infrastructure in place we're not locking in concurrency today we're evaluating we're taking a snapshot we're looking at is there water and sewer available are there schools around how do the roads are they there i mean is is this out in the middle of nowhere where there's no infrastructure and that's what we're doing we are not evaluating and locking in concurrency from a utility perspective there's significant water and sewer capacity in the area there's brand new lines that were run you heard that we were going to be connecting to reclaim all of those things this is straight out of your staff report at the i had the pleasure of representing the touchstone project as that came through the process that's the project that was referenced immediately to our east that project extended this green line here with a partnership with polk county utilities extended new utility lines down right to the corner of the site on in down past the primary entrances and into their project these these lines were sized to provide water and sewer services to prep to properties like this one to the two to provide those services for future development there was a cost sharing agreement that was entered into between the developer and the county and with this project alone based on the utility connection fees just for for the sewer lines that investment would be repaid in the capital improvement so there's plenty of water and sewer available um traffic i just i did earlier mention that we did not have our traffic study done yet it's not required at this point as i've mentioned we're at a level three process um not the level two but just some things that have occurred over time yarborough lane has been built to an urban collector you heard mr grahowski talk about that um into the wind into the south pass touchstone to the wind meadows community here on the south end wind meadows provides connectivity all the way out to ef griffin road as part of wind meadows and touchstone you've also had extensions um down cruise lake uh drive i believe and uh kitty fox lane i get the drive and the road switched up on cruise lake sometimes i apologize those are those connections have been made these are now open to the public you can at this point traverse from yarborough lane out to ef griffin all the way down to lyle parkway at us 98 why is that important you now have from this area you have access via collector roads to 540a in one two three four five spots four of which are signalized which provides you direct access to us 98 or you can go west down 548 of florida avenue you start blowing the map out too much and you lose the scale um you also can now go down yarborough lane through wind meadows down ef griffin to lyle parkway the yellow here that's a signalized intersection that will be implemented by dot beginning in 2026 that's been funded it's been approved by dot so you're also going to have a signalized intersection at at lyle parkway so you've got seven signalized intersections to trip to disperse traffic to wherever you would want to go whether you want to go to the publics at lakeland highlands if you wanted to go to highland city publics if you wanted to go to bartow regional you have all of those abilities right here which again goes to that investment of public infrastructure and the extension of yarborough lane past touchstone was also done through an impact fee credit agreement with polk county and that developer so again the investment in the infrastructure the the provision of those um of those new improvements help the overall region all of that will be accounted for when a transportation study is is completed during the level two process so we will be evaluating all of those um all of those improvements it will also include looking at the fact that there was 835 homes constructed or permitted in wind meadows in the 526 that were done in touchstone all that gets put into that traffic study is not done in a vacuum concurrency um you're probably going to hear some comments about concurrency i believe i read some of that and in the emails in opposition that i i reviewed last night and this morning this is your florida law this is chapter 163 3180 concurrency requires that the level of soft level of services adopted can reasonably met be met and that's requirement of your comp plan and your land development code but that requirement is not until the issuance of a certificate occupancy or its functional equivalent we're at a pd level approval today that's not what we're asking for here i'm not asking for a certificate of occupancy this approval does not allow me or permit me to move one scoop of dirt i still have to go through all of the concurrency review further in your land development code this is right out of chapter 703 consistent with comprehensive plan for statutes require that adequate facilities and services be available concurrent with the impacts of development that's your code that's your law we're not there yet concurrency determination the concurrency determination shall be requested simultaneously with the application for final development plan approval we're at a preliminary development plan approval final is level twos so this is where we are level three review pd plan if approved this would move to the level two process that's where concurrency is evaluated that's where your erp permits are obtained that's where we talk to the celestine and mr mclemore about a binding letter of school concurrency and we evaluate that that's where we do our protected species we do our our what we commonly refer to as our bugs and bunny reports we evaluate we have already done our wetland jurisdictional determination on the site that's where we evaluate and lock in utility capacity solid waste all the other all those other issues and not until we satisfy all of that do we get a development plan that we can then move forward and develop and begin development and construction which is the last stage of this timeline but we're over here on the red star we're before concurrency how do you calculate concurrency because i saw some emails regarding this in in the um in the packet that i reviewed this is your definition of concurrency this is exactly the definition that i saw in the emails of concern total capacity less the demand from existing development minus demand from vested development minus our approved and reserve capacity equals total capacity and if there is not capacity we are not permitted to move forward that is directly out of your code we have to satisfy that test now i know that there are folks that believe this may be being done wrong in certain circumstances if it is we want it done right my developer stands behind that we are not interested in in having a failed concurrency system it's important we we stand behind the process we stand behind your code we stand behind the florida statutes and we will do whatever is required of this developer at the time we get there at the time we get there so we've established consistency with the comprehensive plan we've established that it meets your lane development code we've established that we will address all the items of concurrency when we get to level twos and go through that process let's look at compatibility again this is the regional looking at a macro scale compatibility tremendous amount of different residential development in this region the lakeland highlands region mixed with all kinds of other uses bringing it in a little bit closer we have the open space and the in the landscaping buffering on the boundaries of this property to to buffer from nearby projects existing development future development there is the out parcel here we have enhanced setbacks in open space around that parcel it has an easement access through the subject property we have avoided that that remains open and maintained and if that property ever develops these will be public roads they'll have the ability to connect to public roads all of that is in place today as part of this binding site plan and that's actually not that uncommon where you have out parcels with projects like this they're scattered around this county where you where you see see things of this nature so this isn't this is not an uncommon occurrence look at this is a really busy slide i recognize that but what we try to do is we try to evaluate existing densities existing lot sizes as it relates to existing development adjacent to our site and we've heard through emails we've heard through mr grahowski's testimony you've got 170 foot lots to our west we've got um at well i don't know about a half 0.5 dwelling units an acre across the street you've got acre lots you've got 0.7 acre lots you've got a mix 80 foot lots to our west and tremont immediately to our east you've got 50s and 40s adjacent to us on yarborough lane um even further east you got wind meadows with 50s and 40s and uh there may not be 40s in wind meadows i may be wrong on that my memory is off um it's 50s and 60s um you've got a variety of residential uses all single family single family with a mix of single family is as shown by the development pattern of this area absolutely compatible this has existed amongst each other over time that's what your definition of compatibility is different uses existing in proximity with each other over time so this project is is compatible with the surrounding densities um but i but i want to talk a little bit more about density because i think it's really important here you've you there's emails in the record there's comments in the record of concerns about the cruise wood and walker's glen walker's glen is a typical typical 140 foot lot at about 0.9 dwelling units an acre we are 130 feet minimum that doesn't mean that every lot within park and within this area is 130 foot wide we on average the average lot size in area a is 50 000 square feet average that's over an acre but you've got to take into account open space you've got to take into account all those things when you look at the minimums and you look at the and you look at the uh biggest lots in there our average density density is 0.74 dwelling units an acre on the gross excluding the lake which is less dense than walker's glen less dense than cruise wood lane i think that's important we have put the larger lots in the areas near the larger lots this is probably of 18 years doing this this is probably these are probably the largest lots i've included within a plan development approval and i commend the developer for that because these will be very nice pieces of property they'll be very desirable with that lake frontage this makes a lot of sense and yes we do have 50 foot lots on that um are within this project they only access yarborough lane there is no parse track a does not connect to b c d and e so that it is not all of these cars going on the cruise lake drive they are going out through three different accesses on the yarborough lane with all of that interconnectivity with the variety of roads whether it's yarborough lane cruise lake drive cruise lake road kitty fox lane through wind meadows lyle parkway you've got all kinds of opportunities for the traffic to disperse through this area so i think that's also a very much an important consideration when you think about the adjacent properties this is exactly what the residents have asked for it's just this is one-third of this site it's 9.2 of the lots but it's one-third of the acreage and i think that's something that that is lost on some folks so with that i will get off my um soapbox i referencing my email to you yesterday sandy um this this is a great project it meets all of your comprehensive plan all of your land development code criteria it is compatible with the area it will go through concurrency at the concurrency stage as is required by florida law and polk county codes and regulations with that you've got a staff recommendation of approval a finding of consistency we support that again i'd like to thank mr grahowski for his hard work he did a great job and with that i'll conclude we'll stand for any questions you may have would request approval of this level three thank you do you have any questions of the applicant no with that i'll open uh i've already opened the public comment portion is there anyone here to speak in support of the application seeing none is there anyone here to speak in opposition to the application i see several hands i would uh remind you and in the interest of time if you would please try not to duplicate what's been said you can acknowledge that you agree with it but um i would appreciate you if you got any new information to add we would like to hear that but we don't necessarily need to hear you come up and and say the same thing that is speaker previous to you have already said so the next the next speaker is speaking in opposition is miss sue nelson who has asked me if she could have some um consideration regarding the time and she is she did notify me that she was speaking on behalf of someone and i'll give you a little leeway on that but please try to keep it be fast yes i promise is there a time limit that we're going to be under well typically we have three minutes yeah well i just nelson 2920 cruise like drive no no time clock yet i explained to chairman bishop um that i'm a foreign poll county planning commissioner and i'm speaking on behalf of someone who has cancer and could not be with us today those six minutes is well i'm not it's not even that long okay i promise you i will not i don't know if anyone would take a bathroom break okay my name is sue nelson i live at 2920 cruise lake drive i'm a former polk county planning commissioner the application before you today is not consistent with the polk county comprehensive plan policy 2.102 dash a2 compatibility or chapter three conditional uses in our land development code what is compatibility a condition in which two land uses can coexist in close proximity to each other so so that no one land use is negatively impacted by the other what factors do you look at when addressing compatibility the planning commission shall no wiggle room shall consider the following factors whether the proposed development is compatible with the general character of the area including such factors as density intensity and traffic so yes you may at this level assess traffic impacts as they relate to the character of the area compatibility increasing the lot sizes of the current project thus reducing the density of the development reduces traffic level two is when concurrency and proportionate fair share are addressed can i go back sorry how do you go back technically challenged thank you okay all of the properties along the north side of cruise lake drive are in septic tanks indicative of much larger lots even in the various subdivisions recently a wastewater line was brought in from miles away leapfrogging over all of us just to accommodate the touchstone development and now suddenly we're density on steroids the current permitted use on this property is 249 homes today the applicant is asking for 747 this is not compatible we need larger lots character of the area facing north a 15 acre sheep farm one acre lots one home on two acres walkers glenn subdivision is 1.03 dwelling acres per unit northwest a 60 acre horse ranch looking west cruise woods lane one home on 5.2 acres one home on 2 acres seven homes on 1.2 acres and one home on 2.5 acres homes on deed restricted one home per five acres are in close proximity the applicant in this case looks directly east crosses over yarborough and looks directly east again for compatibility reassurance the applicant is not taking into consideration any other direction oops traffic impacts i'm sticking to the staff report page 17 of 35 in your staff report staff states and i quote the peak hour traffic conditions at full build out will be significant and it gets worse on the same page and the additional traffic impacts from touchstones existing 562 homes have not been included it won't be included until touchstones build out touchstones has been legally approved and under construction with building permits what is poll county waiting for gridlock why won't poll county include touchdowns traffic impacts now thank you ldc chapter three conditional uses section 301 planned developments are conditional uses conditional uses require specific development criteria in order to ensure that they are not harmful to the health and safety of the surrounding residents and their surrounding properties cruise lake drive 30 my 35 miles an hour a four-way stop on one end and a two-way stop controlled on the other we've had not one but two fatalities on our roadway my husband is the district 10 medical examiner for polk highland and hardy counties polk county transportation was so concerned about the crashes we've had on cruise lake drive in 2016 they applied for and received highway safety keyword improvement funding from the federal highway administration construction crews came out resurfaced our road never completed all of the required safety and measures the federal highway administration was so angry they withdrew funding and the county had to pay back an estimated 1.3 million dollars fast forward to today no new road improvements i pulled all the traffic crashes for the last four years 22 traffic crashes 11 of them hit power poles that line our roadway we haven't even felt the effects from the already approved 562 homes and touchdown currently under construction and you want to add 757 more on a dead end road we respectfully ask for denial the 678 homes on 50 foot wide lots are not compatible with the character of our area we have nothing smaller than 80 foot lots the entire side of yarborough lane and that's not enough it's clearly not safe you only need one reason to deny thank you i stand for questions do we have any questions thank you we will ask not to have any clapping in the audience before i uh the clock starts would may i ask if you have or could could get the handout i gave you this morning which shows the two charts that's this one it would have the sorry i'm sorry that that ended up duplicated it would have uh i think oh there's this black and white okay i got you all right yeah good deal all right thank you well good morning my name is pam loose and i am your former ex-officio planning commissioner from the school board i used to sit on the diaz with you i understand that this is a level three but you should still have in your report the names of the zone schools and the surrounding schools in the space for those in those schools for students estimated to come from this development according to the interlocal agreement for school concurrency for which i was i participated in in drafting if a project advances through the development review committee detailed school board comments shall be prepared by the school board staff for local governments to include within the municipality of jurisdiction staff report to the lpa this project has been through drc the staff report for this case lacks any detailed information from the school board about school availability for the project instead it includes general statements about current and future rezoning and capital projects while rezoning discussions are ongoing they are not yet adopted and therefore cannot be used in this concurrency evaluation the elementary schools in this area are of great concern especially special special hall and elementary the chart on the top of your handout represents information you should have in your report this calculation includes the number of seats reserved by previously approved developments whose numbers were assigned to the school school school board issued several letters to developers which did not include the students already reserved this allowed the developments to be approved and move forward without providing for conversation about any mitigation as required in the ila the second chart is the data i collected demonstrating the impact of development already approved for spessard holland this is only one school you need to see the data for all schools i have a public records request submitted to the school board asking for a list of developments and the number of students approved for elementary schools in this area i used to run this report i still have not received a response why would the school district leave out this data i don't have time to tell you everything but i was asked to do what it took to keep developers from having to mitigate when i was at the school board i refused things became very uncomfortable for me and i quit i would love to tell you the whole story but i'm afraid i'm out of time and i respectfully request that you continue this case until you have all of the information required for schools thank you any questions mr chair i am obligated to point out as it's been said multiple times today that we are not at the level the planning commission doesn't consider concurrency at this level that'll be a part of level two although i'm sure we're appreciative of the comments and thank you any others and ian if you can just make sure the applicant also gets a copy of everything yes and i think we had a planning commission member that had to leave so if we can have our alternate please come to the stage i feel like it's um i mean you can stay down there but you will be asked to vote if you're that's for the record we do have our alternate good afternoon commission and thank you my name is carter anderson i'm with the law firm bush ross 1801 north highland avenue tampa florida 33602 i'm here on behalf of wanda o'keefe to answer commissioner beltran's earlier question the out parcel that he asked about is 20.47 acres of land and 19.47 acres of those are owned by miss o'keefe it's parcel 24-29-27-0000-012040 on behalf of miss o'keefe i make this statement my dad lee wilbert was a resident of lakeland for 54 years he was a decorated korean war marine veteran that loved that land but soon after he purchased it he was harassed harassed by the ellsworth family to sell them cheap this went on for 34 years as wanda o'keefe watched his health fail and eventually he passed away so any behind the scenes continued manipulation of her land or any suggestion that she is selling her land is absolutely false wanda o'keefe would like to protect her two easements the 60 foot easement and the 15 foot easement both recorded in 1988 and we appreciate your consideration and i just want to walk you through the the handout on page one labeled page one the 15 foot easement comes in uh from the east and i think uh the the uh applicant showed you that easement um that's a 15 foot access easement there's a second easement the 60 foot easement on page one that uh goes down to the south and then uh along the the the southern border to the corner to the southeast corner of the property the um page two is just a picture of that 19.47 acres there is a one acre home site owned by someone else in the middle of that pages three through five five are are from the applicant but they show the cutout very clearly um and what they show on the cutout is if you look at page four is that they really don't take into consideration the 15 foot easement or the 60 foot easement um in in in any meaningful way um and then again pages six and seven just show that cut out and then the last page of the handout is page eight this uh it's just a sketch of the 60 footage easement along the southern uh border of the adjacent property that then cut i'm sorry along the southern and eastern border of the property um so we have two comments on the staff report one is that there's a parcel id list in the staff report an earlier draft had miss o'keefe's property as the first property listed there and uh that's been deleted from the draft of the parcel id list um but she was never contacted by the applicant uh you know to have any any comments on the original draft that included her property and then second the staff report in the comments which is on page five of 35 uh has a bullet point on august 3rd 1988 an easement agreement was recorded that solely references the 15 foot easement not the 60 foot easement so the staff reports deficient in that respect um we respectfully request that that uh this request be denied because it ignores and or conflicts with my clients easements um and that it fails to protect those easements as the application is presented uh one could say it's incompatible with my clients two easements thank you so much any questions and next please yes sir yes ma'am good afternoon can you hear me my name is jessica shaw i'm a resident of walkers glenn my address is 6542 walkers glenn drive i've heard walkers glenn brought up a number of times during the presentation i saw almost no photos i don't think i saw any photo of my neighborhood and i just wanted to note that i think that is a gross omission from the report today if any one of you could see a photograph of our gate which is the sole entrance and exit to our 19 home community uh you would see that it is wholly incompatible with a multi-lane entrance and exit to be located directly outside of it to compare walkers glenn to this mega development that is proposed is factually inaccurate we are a 19 home community we have large lots and we are not we are nothing like this proposed development which would be hundreds and hundreds of homes and add thousands and thousands of residents and cars to our very small area we vigorously oppose this development and will continue to do so and with that i would add that i echo the sentiments of the speakers before me that this project is wholly out of character for cruise lake drive thank you thank you any questions that that's really not helpful i mean i understand you support her but it we appreciate you refraining from any expression of your support in that way thank you yes ma'am good afternoon my name is jennifer batts and i live at 3450 cruise lake drive um i would echo my neighbor from walkers glenn's point that my house which is directly across from the development to the north was not shown in any of the pictures or discussed in any way i am at the apex of the uh s curve and can also conclude or concur with sue um the traffic concerns which i ex recognize i'm not an expert however i am an expert at 3450 cruise lake drive where i've had multiple crashes into my yard some needing extraction from vehicles it's entirely incompatible um you can sit on the on cruise lake drive at school dismissal and watch the cars line up on the side of cruise lake drive to pick up their children to take them into their neighborhoods there's no space to do that at this s curve it's it's utterly incompatible i've also noted some of your wording and in your in your all of the different proposals that have been approved um that it's considered adequate considered adequate should not be just it it's incompatible with the safety and as expressed the character of this this region you've left totally out all of us to the north and um where we have one acre two acre 15 acre 60 acre the character of this area should not be mega growth and it wasn't intended for that i thank you for your time i'd like to ask for whoever is here in opposition to this proposal would you please stand or raise your hand so that the board no we don't do that either no anyone that wants to speak can come up though but thank you all of you come up and speak so they're aware of how many of us yes in opposition yes sir yeah good afternoon my name is ed smith i live at 6850 bent ridge drive which is within tremont which is the newest community along cruise lake most of the homes in my neighborhood have 80 foot lots and i've lived there for about a year year and a half now and i just want to share with you some of the issues that we've had and how i think it's going to be exacerbated with this new mega development down the road one issue is the safety of the students that live within the community because there's a school bus stop which it's right at the community where everyone is entering and exit the community the kids are all there early at eight in the morning and people are trying to leave the community people are driving down the street and it's a huge safety issue for the children within our neighborhood that are that are waiting there for the school bus the other issue that i have is the retention pond area so we have seven lots within our retention pond the most recent is the last hurricane that had and i think it was hylene or milton that came in and i shouldn't say it's a retention lot it's a detention so it's completely dry with the most recent hurricane we had all seven uh retention ponds were completely filled i live beside the one that's right there it not only filled it overflowed into the street the street was closed for four or five days and then retained water for almost 10 days the detention pond there overflow and is designed to go through the rogers brothers site which is in between these two sites and the water flows through the roger brothers site into cruz lake and that's the way that it was designed according to mr rogers and my conversation with him so i have a huge concern about future flooding in this area due to this pond and the way that this development could be done additionally something that wasn't pointed out is the entry and exit way on cruise lake if you look at the roadway the roadway jogs around and it's curved and it really is one of the drawing features to the neighborhood in that it's a charming winding roadway that really you know harkens you back to old florida that when you had country roads this whole area it's going to be created a safety issue for people coming in and out of the neighborhood as long as people coming around that area there and i think it's a huge issue additionally with the lot the 50 foot lots i lived in fishhawk and i want to share with you that we had 50 foot lots in that neighborhood and nowadays people have so much junk i should say we fill our garage after the garage you're parked in the driveway from the driveway people park in the streets and children can't play in the streets they can't ride their bikes down the streets there's issue with delivery trucks coming through the streets emergency vehicles when we've had fire trucks come through there's a safety issue with that number of coming through it it really just sets an unprecedented issue for the quality of life for that neighborhood and i was going to say thank you thanks up any questions i was going to thank mr smith he actually provided a perfect clarity for competent substantial evidence so when you're talking about things you've observed as a lay person that is considered by the florida court's competent substantial evidence that the board can consider in making this decision it's the speculation about what this development might impact or exacerbate that unless you're an expert cannot be considered competent substantial evidence so that um both types of evidence were presented and that gave a great example so thank you anyone else yes sir were you you're not you please raise your right hand do you swear firm that the testimony and evidence you present to the planning commission today will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you name and address please so my name is doug shoemaker um a proud new property owner at 3470 and 3510 cruise lake drive we were my family uh angie my wife i have two kids uh charlie and chapel we were inspired um by this area excuse me because of the drive on cruise lake drive that was just mentioned um and that inspiration is uh um really uh captured something called community um i enjoy the character that sue had had mentioned is what really brought us to that area um and you know the common ideas that she had mentioned i i don't think integrate well with what's going across the street um i also want to highlight uh cruise lake drive is very important to the beacon of cruise lake and why it's called that it's on that property um there was pasture improvement back in the 1970s to reduce that lake size to create where it is now there is a a historical artifact a structural artifact on that property that you see as you start that s turn that everyone sees that artifact was a boathouse it shows where the lake used to be and what i find interesting about this is that pasture improvement is now real estate development improvement where where the lake used to be will now be homes i find that interesting and i thank you guys for your time thank you any questions uh anyone else were you sworn in yes sir okay my name is gregory scott allen i live at 6325 oak point drive that's in the highlands crossing subdivision which is north of all this i do want to say that i can't repeat what all i agree with what they've said what i can say is cruise lake drive is a two lane road cut through orange groves that we're not that are not there anymore um and with that it is not safe for this kind of traffic and i have personal substantiated evidence of that because my child's bus stop was at yarborough and cruise lake i have had to move that bus stop at the advice of mckeel because of the danger at that intersection i was having to stand in the road to block traffic so my son could cross the road there there are no sidewalks there are no crosswalks traffic is crazy through there the 35 mile an hour speed limit is not adhered to it's 50 60 miles an hour i was standing there at that bus stop and i looked in the ditch there was a suspension of a car that was there from a previous accident that had been there left in the ditch wheels everything that kind of accident does not happen at 35 miles an hour and also the last thing is they're talking about the exit of these neighborhoods being plentiful and the fact of the matter is everybody in these neighborhoods is going to exit onto cruise lake to travel to ef griffin road from yarborough through wind meadows is not practical do it nobody's going to do it i've done it everybody's going out cruise lake or yarborough that's a fact nobody is going to go through wind meadows because it's such a long drive uh other than that that's all i have thank you thank you any questions i just i'm wondering it doesn't look like the roads connect the cruise lake i'm seeing this correctly there's the 50 foot lots there are emptying out this way and there doesn't seem to be any connection between those roads and the larger lots around the lake am i seeing it wrong i think there's some plans to do that from is what in that is that mr as i understood it the the larger lots shown in yellow there only connect to cruise lake i don't see any connection to yarborough because the smaller lots that's what i'm wondering like right it doesn't look like the ones on yarborough can get to cruise lake i just want to make sure i'm seeing it correctly yes they can please don't shout from the audience saying that they're not going to go through the development to get out onto cruise lake that's not what you were saying well what they have to do is they have to go on to yarborough okay i see what you're saying i thought you were a way to get to 548 which is where everybody's going is to go down yarborough and either turn left on cruise lake to go to public okay i thought you were saying from inside the development or to go straight across um and that four-way intersection there is very dangerous um they remove the flashing lights they put flashing lights on the side but uh that's not going to be adequate for this at all that is not a true straightforward way the neighborhood to the um to the east side of that jets out into cruise lake so the driver has to ease out from yarborough looking to the east and by that time when you're in the intersection you're too far out you're too far gone you're committed and then you go which is ultimately the problem i had at the bus stop because people were in the intersection and they floored it and um it was a close call a couple times right there thank you this neighbor it can't handle it anyone else wish to speak in opposition yes sir sue nelson 2920 cruise lake drive he's just i'm just showing him where the video is oh i don't think i've been sworn in so my name is richard lane i live at 6704 cruiswood lane were you sworn in i was not you'll please raise your right hand do you swear or affirm that the testimony and evidence you present to the planning commission today will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you sir so you have a video how long is the video all right all right i take it this is your property oh okay yeah do you want to explain the applicability of the video a large portion of the area looks like okay perfect it's not my my lots of 1.25 acres we moved here almost two years ago and the last thing i would say is if you've got an idea what a 50 foot lot how wide that is thank you i'm sorry like we've lost our time limits no it's yeah well okay this is a new speaker for three minutes and i've not been sworn in you have not okay do you swear or please raise your right hand do you swear affirm that the testimony and evidence you present to the planning commission today will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and thank you for letting us know my name is brenda amatawa i live at 6633 cruise wood lane which is directly behind this new development to the west okay and i have a video is this also to show the general nature of the area yes take a peek into our neighborhood okay which also includes uh walker's glen which was right there that's the sheep farm this is walker's glen all of these are larger lots larger homes horse ranch 60 acres those are fox tree no less than 80 foot lots and now we're soon coming upon five acre lots know that it's capturing thank you yes sir you please raise your right hand do you swear affirm that the testimony and evidence you'll present to the planning commission today will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you my name is brad babbage 6224 cruise lake road the property the video of the sheep farm that's my family's property we're directly across the street what i think has been kind of mentioned but not fully is in this area there's a line on yarborough lane all the properties to the west of yarborough lane are larger bigger different areas there's no properties less than 80 feet if you go east of yarborough lane that's where there's there's a change the properties get smaller the houses get smaller and this property sits directly on that line and it changes and that's why this is not compatible there is no no compatibility with this property compared to all the other properties east or west i'm sorry west of yarborough lane that's all i gotta say thank you any questions were you were you sworn in yes okay but it's on a screen that i'm not sure how to get out of sorry um so my name is nicole lane and i live on i'm 6704 cruisewood lane and i'm going to try to be respectful that you've seen some things that are duplicative so i'm going to try to get through that without so bottom line is i back up on this property so it is going to impact me i'm going to hear every build every nail i'm already hearing and seeing touchstone so just so you know i'm in um number four so i back right up on this and um everybody's done a great job to to talk about the area but you'll see we're going to bat 3.7 acres to 1.4 acres and 3 1.2 acres just on my street is backing up on this property um i will just point out that everybody's talked about this but i do recognize that the landowners also currently have one acre or greater lots on the property and they're going to stay that way in the proposed development so i just thought i should mention that so they do appreciate one acre or greater lots so think about it a football field my lot fits perfectly into a football field area a lots it's going to take two houses to fill that football field with an extra 900 square feet and then when we get to my favorite part areas b through e at 6 000 square feet that means that you're getting 9.6 houses in a football field so i don't see where there's scalability from my lot to area a to then areas b through it's either e or f i can't read the little letters on there but um i don't see how that scale i don't see how that transitions um i think this speaks a i mean a thousand words compare that's what you guys keep mentioning that we're going to have touchdown we're going to have win meadows well let's just throw in another one and so why can't we have thoughtful blend of homes with thoughtful scale so that across the street from oak point at the corner of yarbro and cruise lake drive where there's 80 foot lots why do we have to have those little 50 foot lots right there at that corner and of course the sheep farm is right there too i mean i i just it just i can't understand that that's compatibility and so i also ask that we don't go down to five feet setbacks for accessory buildings backing up on us i want 10 feet and i also really question how this is a tsda requirement neighborhood when we are totally missing sidewalks yarbro from 548 to cruise lake drive does not have sidewalks 548 to cruise lake road does not have sidewalks from touchstone to the corner of cruise lake road does not have sidewalks and it is a 42 minute walk to the bus stop so i don't know who's going to walk that and and i have reports that recommend that not so i guess i have to stop so thank you anyone else seeing none i will close the public comment portion of uh for this case and bring it back to the um to the commission for discussion the applicant oh that's i'm sorry i need don't mean to ignore you bart i would like to hear your response i'm particularly interested in the uh easement thank you mr chair we'll start there then um my mouth was dry so i was chewing a little gum though it shouldn't do that at the dais uh let's see where am i easements we'll start there on miss o'keefe's property um and i've missed the gentleman's name but um the guy with the handout i just want to point out a couple things one the 15 foot easement that is identified on there lines up directly with this green track here we are not developing within it that that tract is probably 40 to 50 feet wide so it will allow plenty of ingress and egress within their right away dedicated 50 15 foot easement to get in and out of the property we are not impacting that easement whatsoever we're avoiding it in its entirety the 60 foot easement it is not shown on our site plan it's not referenced in the staff report because it's not on this property and if you look at his exhibit even the documents that he provided it shows that it is on the property to the south that's on the mosaic property um and if you look at the reference it's it's it is shown off of the um subject property so that that that easement we're aware of it we know it's there that 60 foot easement but it's not part of this it's not part of our property it's not part of anything that my client that my client would purchase so we can't impact that at all it will remain in place and um unaffected so we we are avoiding and and and not adversely impacting either of miss o'keefe's easements mr chair i got a question bart um on that weber property uh i heard earlier that they will have access to the to the public road if if they so chose that could potentially be that will be a public road if they and at some point they're continuing but at what point i mean at what's uh what uh at the where does that connect at right there on that corner that's one of the reasons why the layout's done the way it is but i mean how much uh what kind of road frontage access would they have there we didn't measure it out commissioner hickman so i mean is it realistic that they sure absolutely i mean if it was a point at one point you can't drive through a point right at one point that this property was considered to be part of was considering being part of this property i'm not suggesting i'm not disputing what the gentleman said but that they were trying to include that into this particular now i understand that i'm so yeah very familiar with that weber property and i knew lee so yeah so so those are the easements we're not a we're not adversely impacting either one of those easements um a couple other things to talk about here um get out of my notes transportation was talked about a significant amount again the traffic study will be done at level two that will address all the concerns that were raised relative to the intersection of yarborough and cruise lake the offset we're aware that it's offset that's part of the part of the analysis that goes into to those considerations um what those improvements are will be determined by that transportation study and which is reviewed by your staff your tpo your engineering department um all of those things will be considered but that's a level two issue we we will address those at that time um let's see the videos i mean i i think the videos actually supported this project what we're doing show that there is a tremendous mix of units in this area today there's a mix of all and that's what the residents showed there's half acre loss there's acre loss there's two acre lots there's 80 foot lots you've got smaller lots to are immediately adjacent to the east i think what all that says is exactly what compatibility means different uses can coexist in the same within proximity to each other over time now a couple of things in the definition that uh miss nelson talked about she referenced to proximity and and they want to reference the fact that there are the 50 and i'll just use the site plan the 50 foot lots keep in mind they're easily a thousand feet from any of those lots you've got a hundred acres of minimum 30 000 square foot lots between those folks in any 50 foot lot so when you look at the definition of compatibility it's not what are they proposing it's what's in close proximity and i would certainly argue that the closeness of walkers glenn to the 50 foot lots contained within the proposal is not there um yes they are different but they are accessing yarborough lane the other the other piece of compatibility is not and you hear us talk about this all the time it's not exactly what's around you it talks about the general character of the area and the general character of the area doesn't say stop at yarborough lane it's everything in the area and that's what we did i spent 15 minutes going over general character of the area starting all the way at this level looking down to specifically the landscaping and the buffering and the open space that we're doing looking at almost every subdivision did i catch everybody's single family lot and every lot no i didn't and i apologize to those that i missed but this is an absolute fair representation of the existing development pattern in this area and it is everything from four dwelling units an acre down to less than one dwelling unit an acre which we are absolutely square in the middle of we have 0.74 dwelling units per acre adjacent to walkers glenn where the sheep farm was and the adjacent property to the west all entirely consistent and compatible again here's this is this is right here this is the example and i spent at length talking about about these right here you're this was um one of the lots that was shown 30 000 square foot lots adjacent to 170 foot wide lot there's zero noticeable difference between those types of lots i mean these are substantial on average the lots in track a or the development pod a are 50 000 square feet the minimum is 30 000 square feet so i think what they're asking for we're absolutely accomplishing on this this 100 acres it's exactly what we're doing and we're moving the 50 foot lots immediately adjacent to where there's already 50 foot lots 40 foot lots and a plethora as you move to our east that is the definition of scaling and transition of of development it moves more dense from the east off of this property to this property gets less dense and then moves immediately into cruz wood walkers glenn and all of those areas absolutely appropriate there will be right away dedication along uh cruise lake drive that was touched on in your staff report that that will be accomplished during the level two review the safety aspects of those will be addressed at that time there was a reference to traffic uh compatible traffic i don't think that the i think what compatible traffic is distinguishing between different types of vehicles this is a residential neighborhood it will produce residential traffic it will produce the standard vehicles that you see in every residential development throughout this area if this was an industrial project and we were building and we were putting semi trucks on this road now you're talking about incompatible traffic you're talking about mixing semi trucks and residential vehicles on a road of this nature the fact that we're adding traffic as you heard in your earliest statements about what's competent substantial evidence general concerns about more traffic is not competent substantial evidence these is the same traffic the same types of uses no change there the boathouse was referenced um the boathouse is not a part of this property it is on this uh owned by others there's a it's hard to see at this scale but there is a there's some out parcels that are on the other side of what is kind of this section line type area here that's not on this property we will not be impacting that um those were the big issues that i heard uh during the conversation i just want to reiterate that um the infrastructure is in place to support this project there were county dollars invested there were private dollars that were invested to get to a point where we can support these to to have the necessary utilities in place um you've got a good project here this is one of the best projects i've had the pleasure of presenting in front of this front of this board when you look at the overall um overall design and the layout it's extremely thoughtful when you think about how even some of the larger lots within the subdivision of of track day are along cruise lake drive i mean these are these are your smaller of the 30 000 square foot lots internal it's 69 lots that come out of that the balance of the project does not access on the cruise lake road those accesses are all on yarborough and yes you can turn make a left on yarborough lane that will all be evaluated um when do we evaluate touchstone when do we evaluate when meadows as part of these projects now as part of this traffic study those are background vested trips that get incorporated into the into the major transfer transportation study that will be a part of your level two um and i want to clear up one thing that i said on the record that i was a little bit imprecise on um the wind meadows connection is not open today it's been platted they're working on the final permits it has not been completed and constructed but you will be able to go through wind meadows out out there it is not open you can go um other ways to get there today so i just wanted to clarify that little nuance otherwise you've got a staff recommendation of approval um mr grahowski i just want to ask one one question of you is there anything you heard today to that from the residents that changes your opinion on compatibility and consistency um no sir um no no further things to add sorry so with that you've got a staff recommendation approval i'll conclude my comments you have the opportunity to answer any questions we would request a favorable vote today i have a question for you bart i i haven't heard anybody say yet how many lots of these specific sizes i never did hear that in your in your present of which of this yes sir 69 how many 69 60 which ones the 50s the 80s there's 747 total total lots there's 69 that are the 130 foot track day and then there's 647 50s 50s 50s that's that's in that's it i heard an 80s some 80s in there no okay mr hickman bart on that uh dog leg in the road there um is there does that come into the equation anywhere as far as uh traffic it'll come into the it'll come into the evaluation during the during the transportation study regarding safety issues um you got some constraint right away in there that would be difficult and that you know you've heard one thing i wouldn't want to do is i wouldn't necessarily even want to go straight and out because it does create a really nice feel in in that area i completely agree with it with that um it was someone someone had mentioned traffic going 50 60 miles an hour and i travel that road i don't know how you'd go 50 60 miles i i wouldn't go 50 60 miles around that curve around that curve and i and and i have family that used to live in tremont so i've been in this area quite a bit quite a bit of time um so but but it's uh it's up to county standards currently is that correct i wouldn't i wouldn't want to guess guess on that i would is that something that is part of that we will be dedicating right away to bring it up to standard and this transportation study and the level two review will determine whether or not we need to make any improvements uh i'm not i'm not i don't have enough detail to provide a thank you for an answer on that i got something and i assume touchstone dedicated right away as well touchstone touchstone not only dedicated right away along uh they dedicated right away along cruise cruise lake they dedicated right away along yarborough lane they acquired additional right away from the subject property to facilitate because this was not contemplated at that time they acquired additional right away along yarborough lane to build yarborough lane out all the way to an urban full urban collector road that's why i say it's public and private dollars some of that was impact fee credits some of it was um just normal ordinary development costs yeah um this might be for mr grahowski one one comment i'd like to make and pam i appreciate your comments i've sat here where merle was sitting when you were here and wanted to hear what you said i i have to i have to trust that the concurrency plans and all that in place will will follow the system and and and do right here otherwise we need to rewrite that whole concurrency plan and maybe that's that's what we need to do but he's got to follow the plan that he's been given and and i trust that mr allen and his constituents will do that with that maybe either one of you mr grahowski or mr allen could answer this but if you blow this up and look at that mile circle and you know where i'm going mr allen with this is and you had a picture up there you might bring it up um that was a good one that's a better one you blow that up there's a i don't know that people know this but there's a process called an infill development where i'm not so certain you couldn't do it here i don't i i'm sure you looked at that but that wouldn't have to go in front of this board because of the way this development is going and that area mr grahowski could yeah so staff has um mentioned that at the end of my slideshow about um looking at the adjacent um sites to the north and to the um east of the site so um technically speaking like they can come in for a portion administratively and do smaller size lots without meeting um the pd requirements that we have that i mentioned earlier um so that's that's kind of staff did look at that touched on it a little bit um but that's didn't meet the requirement i'm assuming no it the the biggest issue of that commissioner updike is that in it's either the comp plan or the lane development code i forget where there's an 80 acre limitation on one project for urban infill and with the size of this project we obviously were bigger than that that's the biggest the first i can certainly appreciate the 130 acre lots and you trying to create that consistency it's you don't see that a lot either thank you okay mr smith yes sir we're talking 647 50 foot lots and they're all turning out onto yarborough is that right that's how many uh how many ingress egress points are there along yarborough so seems like a lot of traffic prorated is the area and just precious few out onto cruise lake but that's just what i'm there you go yeah so these lots here the 50 foot wide lots they would be accessing they have three entrances off of yarborough and as mr allen mentioned um southwind meadows is currently still undergoing access to yarborough um so they would be going north onto yarborough meeting up with cruise lake drive does that answer i just have a question for mr allen are there any saunders brokers involved in this not that i'm aware of thank you it's a relevant question i have a question um this is a level three correct i liked your slide that you had up there if you could put that back up that was a really good slide because that's based on what we're voting for today level three my question is we received a letter from uh james christian pe as we sat up here on the dyer this afternoon it's from march 9th 2017 regarding cruise lake drives project and because we don't have a traffic report how is this applicable i don't understand i think that was in relation to miss sue nelson's testimony and when she was speaking about the safety issues she um referenced the letter and i think she had it up in her slides as well um and to support her um statement that there was concerns about the safety of cruise lake drive okay i think she passed that that's not what we're voting on today that would be level two correct that would be those those issues would be evaluated during the level two we're only voting for today level three that's correct for the preliminary plan art is trace linder is he involved in this i don't know the answer to that okay you potentially have a conflict i do you have a pecuniary in my office and i might have to recuse myself from okay it's if you have a financial interest in the outcome if you would have a financial benefit a special financial benefit i personally wouldn't my brokerage would um okay so the florida statute says if you particularly have a financial benefit um based one way or the other if you don't personally um it's not a type of conflict that is um forget the technical legal term but like transferred to other members if you don't personally have a financial interest okay i i don't so okay okay are we ready to vote to make a motion we'll entertain one well i would make a motion to approve ldpd 2025-9 second i have a motion and a second can we have a roll call please is not here start here kevin updike for the motion linda schultz i'm for the motion mike schmidt against the motion angelic sims for the motion merle bishop or the motion cindy jenna masso for the motion i'm for the motion she said i miss you too mike all right people left i just want to uh motion pass maybe help me on this just to reiterate that if there is this was be the final decision on this but there is an appeal process that you can make you have 30 days to make that appeal before the board of county commissioners might be might be 10 hang on wait hang on i'm not sure but i think it was tell you what the time period is it was seven days to appeal yeah seven days to appeal seven i'm sorry i said 30 you have seven days to appeal file an appeal with um the staff then it would go before the board of county commissioners okay next case all right last one last one number 19 seven calendar days thank you sorry all right last one is ldct 2025-22 recovery residences and alia and gleam is the planner good afternoon this is uh alia and gleam with land development presenting number 19 on the agenda ldct 2025-22 the recovery residence case this is a county initiated request to amend the use tables in chapter two chapter four and chapter five and to add large group homes into residential future land use districts amending chapter 10 definitions and to add recovery residents to conform with state statutes um a legal ad was published in the polk sun on october 22nd with no response from the public so basically these changes will ensure compliance with state requirements regarding recovery residences within residential zoning districts by adding group homes large to residential land use districts in this amendment will update terminology by adding recovery residences within the definitions for group homes and group living facilities and we will also be adding the definition of recovery residents to be consistent with state law and this text amendment is consistent with all policies and objectives in the comprehensive plan and land development code and these changes will meet the requirements of house bill 1163 and be consistent with state law and i'll stand for any questions do we have any questions i just i just want to understand why why you guys are doing that it's because of the house bill that passed that is correct okay i i get tired and i'm let's just pass it but i want to know what's going on i'm good the legislature in july that said we had to have a reasonable accommodation for certified recovery residences which are also known as sober homes so we're treating them just like any other group home in our code that doesn't sound like so i'll open the uh public portion of the uh the item is there anyone here to speak in favor or opposition to this seeing none i'll close the public participation and bring it back to the board for a motion move to approve second uh let's see it's ld no yes yeah it's ldcu 2025-22 no close enough i don't have it on my sheet so somebody else is gonna have to do it ldct 2025-22 isn't that what i said no that's not what i said all right do we have a second second second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye all right okay uh next we have miss bennett oh no stop that mr heath isn't here stop that um i'll be really quick uh uh ian's hungry i know you all are hungry uh this is probably more for the new members of the planning commission uh that haven't been here through the whole time that we've been working on an update to our conference of plan uh so our committee's gotten through a good portion of the elements that we're now ready to start said i'll start sending you the elements i'll send one i'll send the first one in for the intergovernmental element by email and i think for the new members i'll also include some of the slideshows that i've presented in months past to help you get up to speed just remember if you have comments or questions don't reply all in the email just to me directly um and then uh we can just chat about it if you have any questions moving forward but for the new planning commission members we expect to get you uh the comprehensive plan rewrite sometime in summer mid late summer ish give or take so that's all i had thank you thank you ben do you want to tell us something well not to tell you something to ask for a volunteer so i have to go so we receive funding like like any city or county over 50 000 people um we receive funding from both the um the us department of housing and urban development as well as the state for affordable housing we receive state housing initiative partnership funds also called ship and with those funds we are required by statute to have an affordable housing advisory committee most committees that we have are not prescriptive as far as who can be a member of those committees such as this there's no requirements however the affordable housing advisory committee does have specific people that need to be on the committee including people in the banking industry the construction industry low-income housing industry and one of the prescripted items or members is someone from the local planning agency that slot is currently vacant so our housing and neighborhood development folks have asked if i would seek volunteers to meet that statutory requirement to serve on the affordable housing advisory committee how much time does it it's a quarterly meeting they last about two hours the meetings are in this building they're a morning meeting so it is not much of a time commitment i mean i work for myself i can get time off from my boss so if nobody else wants to do it i'll i'll volunteer i'm retired and i used to work in that so i'm not then i've got two volunteers i need one so i'm not going to make that decision i'm going to discuss it and we just we need one whoever wants to do it rock paper scissors or flip a coin okay you can have it i wasn't going to call you honey but that's i'm kidding i'm kidding i'm sorry i'm sorry no you're good you're good i'm angel will do it okay then i will have the housing and neighborhood development folks get the paperwork over to you and we'll get that taken care of okay thank you okay any other business to come before us seeing none do i hear a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor of saying aye aye