The March 28th, 2024, Land Use Hearing Officer meeting. There are agendas on the back table for anyone who would like one. Also on the back table are forms you can fill out if you would like to speak or receive a copy of the final decision on any case on today's agenda. If you think you might want to speak during the hearing, you will need to complete a speaker form. Once the form is completed, please hand it to our clerk. I'm Barry Buenaventura, an attorney with Kahn and Buenaventura PA in Tampa. I have been appointed by the Board of County Commissioners to be a Land Use Hearing Officer to hear variants and special exception cases. If anyone has a pending case in which I or my firm is representing you, please bring that to our attention now as we want to avoid any potential conflicts. I don't believe that to be the case, but please let me know if you feel otherwise. During this meeting, please put all cell phones and other communication devices on Vibrate. The cases will be called in the order on the agenda unless there is a request for a case to be taken out of turn. These hearings are quasi-judicial, which means that they require due process, and the decisions are to be based on competent substantial evidence presented during the hearings. County staff will present the county's review and recommendation on the case first, and then the applicant will have an opportunity to present any additional information they would like to provide. After the applicant has concluded their presentation, I will open the hearing up for public comment. This is the public's opportunity to provide information and express their opinions on the application. If you have any questions that come up during the presentation, you can ask them during your time to speak. Please do not ask questions or make comments from the audience while others are speaking at the podium. The county, the applicant, and I will note questions you raise during your comments and try to have them answered following the close of public comment. When it is your turn to speak, either for your case or during public comment, please state your name and address for the record into the microphone at the podium. These proceedings are recorded, and it is very important that you speak into the microphone to ensure an accurate recording, and we ask that you speak slowly and clearly. After public comment closes, the applicant in the county will be given the opportunity to answer any questions or reply to comments that may have come up during public comment. They will also be able to make any concluding statements they may have. The hearing will close for each case following the concluding statements of the parties. My decision will not be given today, but will be provided in a written final order within 14 days of today. Again, if you would like a copy of my decision, please fill out the form on the back table and provide it to the clerk. For the record, I want to note that I have received no ex parte communications. That means that nobody has contacted me about the cases today outside of these hearings today. If anyone should need an interpreter, please let the clerk know, and the county staff will try to arrange one for you. All testimony today must be given under oath, so I will now ask our clerk to swear in all speakers. If you're going to address the land use hearing officer on any case today, please stand, raise your right hand, and answer out loud to the following question. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you provide today is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. Okay, the first item on the agenda is the minutes from the February 22, 2024 land use hearing officer meeting. We can show those as approved and accepted, please. Next up, we will turn to LDL SE 2023-15 under old business. Eric Peterson for the Land Development Division. LDL SE 2023-15, the Tabitha Way 1 SE. The applicant is requesting a special exception to park a commercial vehicle on a residential property located at 5051 Tabitha Way, west of U.S. Highway 27, east of North Avon Park Cutoff, south of State Road 17, south of Frost Proof in Section 30, Township 32, Range 28. On March 11th, 12 mailers were sent out to area property owners. One board was posted on the property on March 8th, and a legal ad was published in the Lakeland Ledger on March 15th. Staff has received one letter in opposition. Ian Nance will give you more details on the case. Good afternoon, Ian Nance of Land Development. This is a special exception case that was opened and heard and continued from the December hearing to give the applicant an opportunity to provide a survey to potentially allow a trailer to be parked with a semi on the subject property. The applicant provided the survey, and his staff is sticking with the recommendation to approve only the semi. For a quick refresher, the subject site is approximately 1.11 acres within an agricultural residential rural land use district south of Frost Proof and along U.S. Highway 27. On the right is the updated site plan that was provided with the requested survey. During the December hearing, I noted that the applicant might be able to park the commercial vehicle to the southern side if there was room for the 20-foot setback from the property line, and the survey shows there is not room for this. The mobile home itself is less than 25 feet from the property line. So the rear yard is where it can be kept, but just the semi. There is simply not enough space to park a trailer to without potentially violating setbacks. And again, though there appears to be suitable location to park the truck toward the front near the highway, the LDC does not allow parking in the front yard. The property does have direct access to U.S. Highway 27, a principal arterial roadway that makes this property ideal to commercial vehicle parking. And here's a picture of the mobile home on site. Again, the truck will be parked to the rear and is adequately screened by existing vegetation and from the road by the mobile home. U.S. 27 is state road, so Polk County has no jurisdiction with requiring driveways, but as you can see, there's an existing driveway already on site. Given the proposed location of the parking area for the truck, it is not anticipated to create a negative impact on the health and safety of surrounding residents. The other standards found in the LDC Section 216, shown here, can be met. And again, staff recommends approval, and I'll stand for questions. In the proposed conditions of approval that are included in the staff report, looking at condition number six, it says that the vehicle shall be parked only in the area to the side of the home. I'll correct that. But it's a bear. Should be rear? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Again, in the, I'm looking at the survey, in the site plan that's overlaid on top. So there is room to put the vehicle, but not the trailer. Yes, ma'am. There would be, the property width to the rear is approximately 100 feet wide. Once you apply the 20-foot setbacks, you've already knocked out 40 feet, and then the posed vehicle is 54 feet. So it's just under six feet of kind of free space that would be available to get 54 feet worth of vehicle parked back behind that house. So staff wouldn't feel comfortable recommending approval for, there'd be plenty of room for just the semi, but not with the trailer too. Okay. And the dimensions of the semi itself without the trailer are? I believe it was 28 feet. It's a pretty good size semi too. 28 feet long and 11 feet in height. So it's that you're concerned about the accuracy of parking within the remaining 60 feet or that the vehicle would have to move, maneuver within that 20-foot buffer in order to end up in the remaining 60 feet? Or tell me more about the concern that you have. I don't put words in your mouth. The truck's going to have to work within the 20-foot buffer just to get to the back of the house anyway from the side property line. So now as far as the trailer's concerned, parking to the rear, it's a small target to hit. And I'm not sure what all is back there. There's existing trees. And I know the applicant said at the last hearing some have been cut down. It's just under six feet. I'm sure the driver's plenty skilled on parking it. However, I think the potential's pretty high for it to be in violation and just don't want to lead them in that direction. You see the shed here is sticking out almost 22 feet off the property line here too. So even if they backed up into it, you're losing another couple feet of space. It's a hard target. So there's a shed, which raises another question that I had, that straddles the property line. Yes. Is it a different ownership on the other side? It's the same ownership. Okay. So it's all treated as – no, it's not all treated as one lot because you're applying the 20-foot setback from that line. Right. Okay. In this case, in December, they were approved for a special exception as well to the rear of the site. For that adjacent lot? Yes, ma'am. So even though it's treated as two separate lots, it's okay to have a structure that straddles the boundary? With common ownership, I don't believe – and I believe that structure's been there for an extended period of time too. I'd have to look into that history to complete answer. But it is a unique piece of property for a truck parking case. You have a really good spot to park up here, but the code won't let you do it. So it divided lines by parcel IDs, but not necessarily by owners. So technically, we've still got to go buy a 20-foot setback there. LDC doesn't really grant any exceptions to that. Is the applicant present? Could you start off with your name and address, please? Yes. My name is Nora Frayer. My address is 5187 Crystal Beach Road, Winter Haven, Florida, 33880. Okay. So you're here on behalf of the property owner? Yes, ma'am. I submitted the survey basically showing the vehicle with the trailer that does have very little wiggle room, as he explained. But they are able to park back there. I mean, they're surrounded by woods. Now I was listening to the conversation about the shed. The shed is an old shed. It's been there for a very long time, I believe, before the property was purchased. It was purchased with it. So, I mean, they've tried their best, and it does fit. I mean, there's plenty. Even though there's a little bit of wiggle room, that vehicle does fit there with the trailer. What is the dimension of the trailer, the length of the trailer? It's not the big ones. It's, oh my God, it's 50, 54 feet, I think, together with the trailer. It's not the, I know there's longer ones, but they don't have the bigger ones. They only have this one. Can you describe how the vehicle is used by the applicant? They do sod. They run a company that transports sod to different properties, different companies. So that's what the vehicles are used for, to transfer sod. Is the vehicle currently parked on the property with the trailer? Is this a code enforcement case, or is it parked off-site somewhere until this? Well, they haven't parked it on-site. They know that they're in the middle of this process, so they haven't parked it on-site. So where are they parking it? I'm not sure. I think on the other side where permission was granted on the property next door for right now until we came to some kind of agreement here with the county. If the county does not approve parking of the trailer on this site, I assume that parking next door is not a long-term solution. All right. What are the options at that point? She hasn't thought about it yet. Basically, if the county doesn't approve, I think that's going to be a big impact on the business because she doesn't know what she's going to do after today. I have a question. So even if she was to detach the trailer from the vehicle, would the trailer be allowed to be parked or left on that corner here where it's empty, detaching it from the commercial semi? No, it still wouldn't be allowed. And if I may, too, maybe I need to get up with the applicant. If the applicant wants more latitude parking these vehicles here and is running a sod company, we need to explore possibly off-site agricultural use. It's a support use for if there's nearby sod farms and this is a halfway spot to transporting it. That's a whole different process. It's a level three planning commission review, and I'll be happy to speak with her about it if we're looking for more latitude for parking these vehicles. Okay. I can, I don't know. Okay. So is that something you can do now while we move on to other cases, or are we continuing this case for another go-round? She's not here. No, that's what I'm saying. We can talk offline here and move forward with this case and whatever rendering we go forward with. That's fine. They'll have that option to park it behind the house up until we hammer out some other idea for a conditional use permit. The conditional use, excuse me, the conditional use process would go before the planning commission. That would be probably about another three to four-month process. In which case it would not come back here. Correct. Okay. So do we just continue this in the event that you're unable to resolve it, it would come back again? Or how do we leave this case pending, or do we not need to? This is one option for them. If they have, essentially they own two properties and they've gotten commercial vehicle parking approved on one, and they're coming in for another. So they are within the letter of the law so long as they're different operators at each residence. If they want to have vehicles in the front and where the residences are really the primary use and truck storage is their primary use, they need to go through the other process. It's more expensive and a little higher bar of standards to reach. This is one avenue, but does not work for multiple vehicles. If they cannot park the trailer behind the residence, code enforcement will continue the action that's before them right now. They'll continue to apply the code and continue the fines and everything. So it doesn't solve anything if they work outside of the parameters of this approval for them. If the conditional use is granted, that solves it? Yes. Okay. That could solve it, yes. Yeah, but we don't have an application before us, and they haven't solved that. Right. So what do we do with this case while we see if the conditional use is going to be a solution? Well, if this case is approved, it gives them one option, and maybe that's enough for them. But if they, like we say, space-wise, it really is difficult to park the trailer behind where it's intended in the code as an accessory use to a residential site. Maybe what they really need is commercial vehicle parking. Past aerial photos have shown multiple vehicles on this site beyond two, so it may be really what they need, but that's for them to decide. Okay. So if I'm understanding, nothing special needs to be done with this case. It either gets approved or denied, and along with that decision, the applicant is free to, in addition, pursue a conditional use, whether this is approved or denied. That is correct, ma'am. I see. It's approved with or without the trailer, I suppose, is the recommendation is for approval, at least, of the vehicle, regardless of the trailer. So don't. Okay. So when I hear something from you, explain. I'll contact her after the hearing, and we'll start. We have to figure out what the business is and what their operations are. It's a longer process to go through the conditional use that we can't really go through here today. If this is to be approved, the staff has applied a number of conditions to the approval, a number of proposed conditions, which are pretty standard for the commercial vehicle. I just want to make sure you've reviewed those with the applicant since the applicant is not here, that no maintenance can be performed, no load or cargo can be stored on the property. I think that would include the sod, absent of some other approval. I think what they do is they get loaded somewhere else, but they bring it home so they can early in the morning deliver. Okay. And if approved, the approval is only for the duration of their ownership and their use, et cetera. It wouldn't transfer to any other owner. Okay. Okay. Anything else for the moment? No. Okay. Then I will open up the application for public comment. Is there anyone who came here today to speak regarding this application, either for or against? I do note that the staff did receive one call in opposition with a concern over decreased property values, so that information has been provided to me. But seeing no one from the public who is here to speak, that includes public comment. Anything else? No, ma'am. Anything else from staff? No, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. And then we will now move into new business with the first item being LDLSE 2023-26. LDLSE 2023-26, the Old Polk City Roads, special exception. The applicant is requesting a special exception to park a commercial vehicle on a residential property. The subject property is located at 1142 Old Polk City Road, east of Tom Costine Road, west of Walt Williams Road, north of Meadowood Drive, south of Victoria Lane, north and west of the city of Lakeland, and section 8, township 27, range 24. On March 11th, 17 mailers were sent to area property owners. One board was posted on the property on March 11th as well. A legal ad was published in the Lakeland Ledger on March 15th. We've received one call in opposition and two in support. Melissa Celestine can go into greater detail on the case. Good afternoon. For the record, Melissa Celestine presenting LDLSE 2023-26. I did want to say on the record that we did send you an updated staff report within it. I had an old road in there, but it's all corrected now. Was that the only change? Yes. It was an incorrect? Street name. That's all I did. Okay. It was on page four, I believe. Thank you. You're welcome. A staff is recommending approval of the applicant's request to park one commercial vehicle on residential property located north of Lakeland. The subject property is north of I-4 and east of Highway 98 North. The site is within a residential suburban X land use district and a Polk City special protection area where the minimum lot size is of five acres. This site is approximately three acres with a single family residence in which the owner of the vehicle resides. According to the property appraiser's website, the property was acquired in December of 2021 and the residence was built in 1962. The site has direct ingress and egress along Old Polk City Road. Old Polk City Road segment connects Circumloop Road North to Walt Williams Road. The vehicle can either go west on Old Polk City Road to access the interstate or travel east to access State Road 33 before reaching Commonwealth Avenue North and entering Lake County. The proposed vehicle is a 2009 Kenworth T-660 semi-truck that will be parked to the rear of the residence. The vehicle is approximately 13.6 feet in height and 29 feet in length. According to the submitted site plan, the vehicle will exceed the 20-foot setback requirement outlined in Chapter 2, Section 216-D. The nearest off-site residential structure is over 170 feet away. However, the proposed parking area will be required to have a Type B landscaping buffer per the requirements in Section 216. Here is a submitted site plan showing the proposed parking location of the vehicle outlined in red. You can see how the applicant exceeds the 20-foot setback requirement. The site plan also confirms that the parking area will be to the rear of the residence, minimizing view from off-site. Here is just some of the vehicle's information followed by some site visit photos. This is a proposed access point. A commercial drive rate is required. This is the carport that the vehicle will be parked under. If the proposed carport for the vehicle were to be fully enclosed, a special exception would not be required. The commercial driveway will need to be built in accordance with Chapter 7, Section 705-I, as shown here on the right. Staff finds the approximate three-acre property to be sufficient to accommodate a vehicle such as this while meeting the standards required in Section 216-D. The vehicle will be parked on the same lot occupied by the owner, and the request meets the 20-foot setback requirements. Additionally, if the carport was fully enclosed, a special exception would not be required. With that, I thank you, and I'll stand for questions. So this lot is approximately three acres. Correct. What is the minimum lot size in this land-use district? Five acres. Okay, but this is a lot of record. It's a lot of record, yes. And again, looking at the proposed conditions of approval, number six says that the vehicle is to be parked in the area to the side of the home. To the rear, I will fix that. Sorry. Does this approval include a trailer or no? It does not. No trailer. Did they request a trailer approval? No. And if you would take me through, again, the path that a commercial vehicle would take departing the property and getting out of the neighborhood. Okay, so this one right here. They can either go this way towards Commonwealth Avenue, and this would be the route to get into Lake County this way, or they can go ahead and take, go down this way and get to I-4. So I-4 is kind of hidden behind this, right here. And how is Old Polk City Road? It's an urban collector. With no restrictions on vehicles of this type? Correct. Okay. Is the applicant present? If you could start by giving us your name and address, please. Christina Cosillo, 1142 Old Polk City Road, Lakeland, Florida, 33809. Okay, so you have heard staff's presentation. Did you have anything that you would like to add in support of the application? It's our livelihood. My husband, which he's present, is Mel Gonzalez. He drives a truck over the road, and he is home two to three days in the month, so the truck would be parked at our property for those days only because he works over the road, and we would like the permit to be able to park at our property so we don't have to pay storage costs to park the vehicle away from our home. You said two to three times per week or month? Per month. The remainder of the time the vehicle is? On the road. He works on the road, over the road. Is this a code enforcement case? Is the vehicle currently parked there? No. We had to rent a storage to park it until you guys. Okay, so you're currently renting a space, but you're hoping to not do that in the future? Yes, ma'am. How far away is approximately is the place where you? About an hour because we couldn't find a closer storage near our home. Everything was occupied. The staff has recommended approval with a series of conditions, which are very standard conditions for this type of approval. So if the special exception were to be approved, I just want to make sure that the conditions are understood, that it is for the vehicle itself only and for no trailer, that it is only for the current owner of the vehicle and the property. And if you were to sell the property, the right to park a vehicle there does not transfer to any future owner of the property. You can't park anyone else's vehicle there, just this one or its comparable vehicle. No maintenance can be performed on the vehicle on this property. You cannot store cargo in the vehicle on the property. You would have to construct a driveway to commercial standards before the vehicle can be parked there, and all of that has to be approved through the county to assure that it is constructed properly. Yes. It can only be parked in the location that is shown on the site plan, which is to the rear of the home, with the appropriate buffering that the county is requiring, and that the approval would be valid for one year, and before that one year expires, you would have to request an extension of it, which can be approved administratively, provided that all the conditions are still being made and that you've submitted that request timely. And when I say administratively, that means you would not have to come back in for another one of these hearings, that it can be done by staff. So those are understood? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Okay. I do believe we have at least one individual here who wants to speak about the application, and we have several that have submitted other comments as well. So we'll move to that now. But unless you have something else? No, that's all. I was going to say. Okay. That's all. Thank you. Okay. So I will now open up public comment on this application, open the public hearing. I will start with one person who I believe is here to speak in person, Melody Jacobs. Excuse me. My name is Melody Jacobs. I live at 1209 Timmer Ridge Drive across the street from the applicant. Now, I'm not saying what they're doing is right, but they do park four cabs, tractors there in their yard. At any given time, he's home weekly, to my knowledge, because I can sit on my porch and see over there. My problem is the volume of traffic that has come to Old Polk City Road. I mean, the community is growing. Subdivisions are coming. And Indian reservations came down the road. And we got Amazon down the road. And we got children catching buses. My concern is property value and the safety of our street out there. Because years ago, semis were not allowed to go down Old Polk City Road, the portion we live on. I don't know what happened. Things change, I guess. Okay. So it used to be that vehicles of this type were not permitted on the road, but now they are. Yes. I've lived there for 30 years. It used to not be permitted down that highway at all. Are there signs that prohibited vehicles? No, ma'am. That's why I said, with the growth, things have changed. Still a two-lane road out there. And we're surrounded by subdivisions like Tibber Ridge, Sherwood Forest, Walt Williams, all those. Like I said, there's school traffic out there, school buses, and the value of our property is going to stand ahead with this. And you say that you have seen more than one commercial vehicle there? Yes, ma'am, at any given time until they had to move them. There was more than one at any given time out there. That's my concern. How many more are they going to put out there? Okay. Okay, just so you know, if this were to be approved, it would be for only one vehicle, and any vehicle in addition to the one vehicle that may be approved would be in violation, and that is a matter for code enforcement to take up. So approving one is not the same thing as approving more than one. Okay. Anything else you'd like to add? No. My concern is just five property and all that, and how many semis the cabs have been sitting there before. So that was my concern. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And I see we have another individual who has asked to speak in opposition to this item, and that is James Torralter. Thank you. Please come forward. Is that C-H-E-R or C-H-A-R? Thank you. Okay. You could start by giving us your name and address, please, and tell me where that is in relation to the property we're here talking about. My name is James Charlton, 1206 Timber Ridge Drive. It's right there directly across from him, right across the street of Old Polk City Road. I'm right there on the corner. I'm opposed against him having them there because he's had more than one truck there. His maintenance man comes there early in the morning at 7 o'clock in the morning, works on the trucks. He leaves the trucks run during the day three, four, five, six hours a day, and then when he gets ready to go, he starts them up for another hour or so in the middle of the night, and it shakes my mother-in-law's bedroom and wakes her up. She's 75 years old, and it's loud. Like I said, he's had more than one truck there. He's had three there parked. Okay. And it shouldn't be allowed. Okay. I appreciate the comments. I'll just repeat what I said earlier, that if this is to be approved, it is only for one vehicle, and anything parked there in addition to that would be in violation and would be subject to code enforcement. Yeah, but leaving them run during the day for three or four or five hours, not even go nowhere, just sit there and idle. And then when he gets ready to go, he leaves them run for another hour in the middle of the night and wakes up everybody in the household. Okay. Anything else you'd like to add? No, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. I also want to note that the county received an email in opposition from another resident on Old Polk City Road, concerned that the property is not zoned properly for having a commercial vehicle or semi-truck located on it. Another email was received from another resident on Old Polk City Road, appears to be adjacent to the subject property. This email is in support of the application. They have no concerns about the application, state that the vehicle could not be seen from the road, and that it causes them no concerns. They have no complaints. Another email was received also in support of the application. Also, a resident on Old Polk City Road saying that the sound from the vehicle is not as loud as the vehicles passing on Old Polk City Road, that they rarely hear anything from the property, that they do not have any other concerns regarding the application. Is there anyone else who came here today to speak regarding this application, either for or against? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Seeing no one, I will give the applicant the opportunity to come up and respond to anything they would like to respond to that was heard from the public comments. Okay. Anything else from staff in particular regarding the number of vehicles, noise? No, ma'am. I think you covered it. It would be a code enforcement issue if they have more than one on there. Are there any noise restrictions, and is there a noise ordinance? Not in the code. We do have a noise ordinance, but it doesn't cover the running of vehicles on property. It's under the county code. There's a number of things listed, like loud music and things of that nature, but vehicle operation is not included. Okay, so the noise ordinance is specific to what generates the noise, but not the level of the noise. That is correct. Test for noise is that to a typical person it would be considered a loud, you know, an offensive noise to the average person. Or the types of noise that are covered by the noise ordinance, but vehicle noise is not covered? I believe, I'm pulling it up right now, I believe the vehicle noise is the exempted ones. I will reopen the public hearing. It had closed, but I will reopen it since we are still on the same case. As you approach, I'm going to ask you if you were, you can approach the podium. Were you sworn in at the outset of the hearing? Okay, then that's the first thing we're going to take care of when you get to the podium. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you provide today is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Thank you. Joanne Fletcher, 1210 Old Polk City Road, Lakeland, Florida. Okay. Did you submit one of the... No. No, I did not. Okay, so Joanne Fletcher. Yes. Living on Old Polk City Road. Yes. Go ahead. I just wanted to say that we live right adjacent to their property. Our property is literally right next door. Our bedroom faces back to back to theirs, and we have never, ever been harassed or bothered by the noise from their truck. It has never been a problem for us, and that's really all I wanted to say. Whether we were sleeping, whether we were awake, it has never been a problem for us, and we are literally the closest neighbors that they have, and that's really all I had to say. Thank you. You're welcome. Ma'am, I can reference the point that the part of the noise control ordinance that references motorized vehicles, a noise disturbance is repeatedly accelerating or decelerating a motorized vehicle on a public or private property, such that it causes a noise disturbance or repeatedly shifting gears of a motorized vehicle or screeching that causes the tires to screech or squeal repeatedly. Those are the types of noises that would be covered, but just a vehicle idling is not included in what would be considered a noise disturbance under our noise control ordinance. Okay, but surely if someone had a concern that perhaps there was a noise ordinance violation that is available to them to pursue through the county's code enforcement. Yes, we may. Okay. Anything else from staff? No, ma'am. Okay. I think that concludes our discussion of that one. We'll now move on to LDL VAR 2023-69. LDL VAR 2023-69, Chelsea Avenue variants. The applicant is requesting a reduction in the rear yard setback from 15 feet to 6 feet for the construction of a screen room with a solid roof. The site is located at 336 Chelsea Avenue, south of Providence Boulevard, west of Cortland Drive, east of Chadwick Drive, north of African Daisy Court, north of the city of Davenport, and section 13, township 26, and range 27. On March 11th, 27 mailers were sent to area property owners. One board was posted on the property on March 11th, and a legal ad was published in the Lacoon Ledger on March 15th. Staffers received no opposition from the general public. This is one of these many areas where the development style works for a lot of different properties but doesn't work for all. As you can see, the way the lots were formed within the Providence development, it's a PUD that was approved back in 1989. Some of the lots have a lot of depth in the rear yard. Ones like the applicants here has very, very little depth to it, and any addition to the rear of the home, whether it be hard roof or accessory, comes very close to the property line. The one benefit to the area is that most of the dwellings back up to either open space or conservation areas. It's a very pristine development in that way. See, the applicant is placing this hard roof structure off the rear end. It's not going to encroach on any easements, either utility or drainage. Drainage begins in the tract that's behind them. It is common area. This is an approximate location of the space it would occupy on the property. It's not going to destroy the view of any nearby property owners. Properties to the rear, as you can see, there's a stormwater pond that separates them from the other phase of the development. Staff recommends approval because it will not be injurious on the area or involved or otherwise detrimental to the public welfare. And also the special conditions that exist, which are peculiar with the land, the shape of this lot is such that the rear setback is, or the rear property is, is much less than other properties in the subdivision. With that, I'll stand for questions. The shape of the lot is what causes that? The depth. Going back, if you can see the lot lines here, as the street curves, the lots become more shallow. And they all have the same uniform depth from the right-of-way. The variation is in the amount of space that's in between the dwelling and the rear property line. And some properties, such as this one, could almost, you know, expand their home about 50% of its existing size and still not get into the setback distance. Whereas with this home, just the addition of the screen room and hard roof enclosure encroaches into the setback. Okay. So because of the curb of the road, the lot is not as deep as some of the parcels down the road that are on the straightaway? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Do you know when the applicant purchased the property? Go check. Yes, I have purchased the property in March of 2020, yes. Okay. Yeah. Do you know if there's an HOA? Yes, ma'am, there is. This is the Providence Development of Regional Impact. There are not only HOAs for the certain phases, there's also a master HOA. Do you know the status of HOA approval if it's needed? No, I do not have any information on that. There's a note on page three of the staff reports that the stormwater retention pond is designated for future development, but you noted that it is used as a stormwater retention pond. Do you know if that pond is required for the development, or if there's any chance that it could be turned into something else? No, the way the drain is, a lot of this land is fairly low and close to the water table. What retention ponds they have there are pretty essential to the existing development. Thank you. Is the applicant's representative present? Good afternoon. My name is Maria Jarquin, 7082 Shoals Drive, Orlando, Florida, 32817. Could you spell your last name, please? Jarquin, J-A-R-Q-U-I-N. Thank you. Okay, so you are the applicant's representative? Yes, on behalf of Luis Alonso, who is the contractor. Are you Mr. Alonso? No, ma'am, I'm Mr. Rice, Stanley Rice, from 336 Chelsea Avenue, the owner. So you are the owner, okay. Wrong one. I apologize. So which one of you is speaking? Okay. Ms. Jarquin, you've heard the presentation from staff. Is there anything you would like to add in support of the application? No. The only thing that is that we want, you know, affect the easement, which is where the utilities are, so we are good to build the screen room. Okay. Is there a utility easement on the property? I think it's five feet, if I'm not wrong. I'm not sure. Okay. But if there is one, you're not in it. But if there is, you know, if I'm not wrong, it's five feet, so we are good with the six feet rear setback. So this question is probably more for Mr. Alonso. One of the factors that the staff and I have to consider when evaluating a variance application is hardship, something unique to the property, to its configuration, to your situation, that justifies deviating from the code's requirements. Can you address that factor here? Can you review the question? Sure. One of the factors that staff and I have to consider when evaluating any variance application is hardship. That's always a consideration in a variance application. Hardship is generally considered to be something that is unique to the property's shape or size or some improvement on the property, some other factor relating to how the property is used, the owner's use of the property. And so I'm just looking for information from either one of you regarding that factor for this application. Yes, ma'am. When the staff member came out to put the sign in, she informed me that she did take pictures of existing houses north and south of me that have existing screen patios. The two immediate houses, the two immediate houses north and south of me have full screen pool closures. At my property, it was actually designed to build with a pool enclosure, too. That is not something that that owner who bought the house initially wanted to do. I've had my share of pools. I didn't want to do it either. The house to the house to the north and the house immediately to the south extend out another 10 feet beyond where I want to go. So I have plenty of land to be able to extend this patio because I'm only asking for, what is it, 15? And we're actually really only nine of the 15 because we have an existing patio already. So the patio that I'm asking to extend out is well within the boundaries of still having the safe and not disturbing the reserve behind me at all because the two properties north and south of me extend 10 feet beyond where I even want to go. And then the immediate houses beyond those are the houses, if we come up and pan to see a wider, those are the actual homes that do have the patios, not pools, but they actually built patios. Okay, so you're asking to reduce the setback by nine feet from 15 feet to six feet? Correct. Okay, and you're saying that your neighbors have reduced that further? Yes, ma'am. Immediately north and south, it's much further than that, the house to the left and the right. Anything else you would like to add in support of the application, either one of you? Yes, ma'am. I just really want to build a nice patio, you know, of being a trooper. I want to come home and put a nice little pizza oven back there, my other half behind me. I'm just trying to look for a nice, peaceful place. That's what it's about, ma'am. And it's going to be screened in, right? That's the proposal. It will be screened in with a solid roof? Yes, ma'am. Anything else? No, ma'am. Okay, thank you both. Thank you. We'll now open up the public hearing on this application. Is there anyone who came here today to speak regarding this application, either for or against? Seeing no one. We'll close public comment. Anything else from staff? I believe there was a slight error in the staff report. There is not, it's not future development that's to the rear of this property. The future development that's referred to on one of the past plats is the one you see in the aerial photo behind their property to the east of their property. This retention pond area is a drainage easement in both the plat and it's recorded in official record book 6305, page 744 through 763. Okay, so the future development is that which is shown on Cortland Drive? Yes, yes. And that the retention pond is going to be a retention pond forever. Thank you for that, Claire. Okay, I think that concludes our discussion of that application. We will now move to LDL VAR 2024-2. LDL 2024, LDL VAR 2024-2, the Fraser Drive variants. The applicant is seeking a reduction to the rear primary structure setback from 20 feet to 12 feet for a screen room with a solid roof. The subject property is located at 895 Fraser Drive, north of Des Moines Drive, east of Fraser Place, south of Nelson Park Court in the Poinciana area in Section 15, Township 28, Range 28. On March 11th, 33 mailers were sent to area property owners. One board was posted on the property on March 12th. A legal ad was published in the Lakeland Ledger on March 15th. Aaliyah Inglema will provide the details of the staff report. Good afternoon. Aaliyah Inglema with Land Development presenting LDL VAR 2024-2, the Fraser Drive variants. The applicant is seeking a reduction to the rear primary structure setback from 20 feet to 12 feet for a screen room with a solid roof. The subject site is located at 895 Fraser Drive, north of Des Moines Drive, east of Fraser Place, south of Nelson Park Court, Poinciana, and Section 15, Township 28, Range 28. The site is approximately 0.18 acres, located within the development of regional impact, feature lane use, and utility enclave area. The property is lot 4 within the recorded Poinciana neighborhood 6, village 7. The lot was first recorded on February 22nd, 1974. Poinciana was established through a planned unit development, 7110, which requires rear setbacks of 20 feet. The rear of the property has a tall fence surrounding where the proposed screen porch will be. If the screen porch did not have a solid roof, it would be considered an accessory structure and meet setbacks. Accessory structures within the PUD are allowed a setback of 10 feet at the rear. Patios are common in many single-family home developments. This request will allow a hard roof so that the area can be enjoyed while providing protection from weather. The patio in question is 31 by 10. There are no easements around the entire parcel. Since 2018, the Board of Adjustment has approved three variance requests for the rear setback relief within this neighborhood and village, and the lane use hearing officer has approved one. The single-family residence was constructed in 2021 at 1,738 square feet. The small lot depth relative to the requirements of the PUD places a greater burden on the reasonable use of this land. The request will not be interest to the area involved or otherwise detrimental to the public welfare as the screen porch is in the backyard away from public view. It will maintain a 12-foot setback from the rear and meet side setbacks. If the screen porch did not have a solid roof, it would be considered an accessory structure and would meet setbacks. Four rear setback variants have been approved in this neighborhood since 2018, and I'll stand for questions. Do you know if there is an HOA for this property? I'm not entirely sure if there's an HOA. I'll defer to the applicant to that. This is in Poinciana. The Association of Poinciana Villages is a master HOA over the entire plat. They have jurisdiction over the greenways and drainage easements throughout the development. The master has jurisdiction over some of the common areas. Are you saying that they also have jurisdiction over the... There are drainage easements throughout Poinciana that are under control of the Association to maintain. The county maintains the roadways, but the Association maintains many of the drainage features. The county maintains some of them, too. Do you know if the HOA requires approval of this sort of structure? As long as they're not encroaching into any of the easements, then the HOA doesn't require any approval. Is the applicant present? Hi. My name is Carlos Rodriguez-Lopez, 895 Frazier Drive, Poinciana, Florida, 34759. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. You have heard the presentation from staff. Do you have anything you would like to add in support of your application? I mean, it's a single-family home, so we want a nice little area so we can also be in the backyard and enjoy family. When family comes over from visitation from different states, we do have elderly parents, too. So we want to make sure they're comfortable when they're outside with family. Do your elderly parents live there or they visit? They visit. And you have lived there since 2021? Mm-hmm. Yes, now. Okay, anything else you would like to add? Okay, thank you. Thank you. So this is a public hearing. I will open up this application for public comment. Is there anyone who came here today to speak regarding this application, either for or against? No one. We will close public comment. Anything else from staff? No, ma'am. Thank you. Now we'll move on to our last application for the day, which is LDL VAR 2024-3. LDL VAR 2024-3, Fox Lane Variants. The applicant is requesting a variance to reduce the western side setback from 15 to 6 feet and the eastern right-of-way setback from 25 to 6 feet to build a single-family home. The subject property is located on the southwest corner of Little Orange Avenue and Fox Lane, east of Kane Street, west of Old Highway 37 in Bradley, south of the city of Mulberry, in Section 11, Township 31, Range 23. Thirty-eight mailers were sent to area property owners on March 11th. One board was posted on the property on March 7th. A legal ad was published in the Lakeland Ledger on March 15th. Ian Nance will go over the details of the staff report. Hi, good afternoon again, Ian Nance, Land Development. Staff recommends approval of this variance request to reduce side and right-of-way setbacks to build a single-family home on a slot south of Mulberry. Subject property is located in a rural cluster center residential land use district where minimum lot sizes are 20,000 square feet, side setbacks are 15 feet, and right-of-way setbacks are 25 feet. The trouble with the RCCR land use district, though, is that when it was adopted, it was to represent older developments. And often with these subdivisions, such as this one, the plotted lot sizes don't meet the district minimum lot size requirements, and setbacks become restrictive. That's the situation here where this vacant lot of record is below the 20,000 square foot standard. To build a home here, the applicant wants to reduce the western side setback from 15 to 6 feet and a right-of-way setback from 25 to 6 feet. It's a little bit better representation here. The lot width is approximately 74 feet, and it's a quarter lot. To apply all the setbacks, we utilize approximately 54% of the subject site's width, which imposes a hardship on constructing a home here. To the west is a 20-foot wide former platted right-of-way. With the requested side setback reduction and the width of this strip, there is approximately 26 feet from the proposed home to the closest developed property to the west. To the east, part of this property was once dedicated to the right-of-way of Fox Lane. The result increased the right-of-way to 34 feet wide. With the proposed setback, this provides over 40 feet of separation between the proposed home and the neighboring property line to the east. One final note, the applicant must take access off Little Orange Avenue. It cannot take access off Fox Lane because the LDC requires garages to be set back 25 feet from the right-of-way, and this is not eligible for a variance. So really, the orientation of this home is dictated by that rule and the property's location on the corner. Here's a look at the site. That oak tree is right smack dab in the middle of that 20-foot wide strip to the west, which does provide a nice buffer. This is a look down Fox Lane, which dead ends past those two homes you see in the top of the photo. Staff recommends approval. There's a lot of history of this lot in the overall plat. It has been changed multiple times since I think it was the 1920s. And as I wrote in the staff report, it has been destined for a variance for an extended period of time for all these changes, the land use district changes, the former right-of-way takings, which are clearly not the actions of this applicant, who's on the property since 2022. Again, this is for one site-built single-family home, which is the dominant structure type in this neighborhood. And with that, I thank you. We'll stand for questions. So there's a substantial amount of property left behind the home, so that begs a few questions. Is it buildable, or is it wet, or is there some other reason why that, is it the trees, or, you know, just... It's high and dry. When we determined, to the best we could through all the different changes that I was talking about, when this lot was created, it was under the former zoning ordinance, when this was R3, and it's not changed since then, and it's as is now. So when the RCC was adopted, it was kind of locked in on this side, so it might take more research to find that it's possible, but it's unlikely that you can do much more with this property. I think this is what he has. And we can't do... We can't split it through infill or anything like that, because that's not an eligible action here in RCCR. Well, I guess my question was more towards if the home were made more narrow, there would be, you know, it could be a deeper home. There's plenty of property there, unless there's a reason why the property behind the home couldn't be used for that. Potentially, I think it's the gentleman's style, or I suppose to let the applicant speak to that. I can't imagine he doesn't want to pour too much concrete, having to come down from Little Orange Avenue and close to the road, have a big backyard. The aerial photograph in the staff report shows this property to be composed of two parcels. Correct. Can you help me understand that? It's under just one tax ID. They have two properties that they just have under one folio. Is there anything on the other piece? No, and I don't believe it's buildable. This is what you're speaking of here. Fox Lane ends right here, so it doesn't even have road frontage. It would take paving that road to county standards to even reach it to potentially make it buildable. So, what happened, a lot of these properties were foreclosed on or were part of bank seizures once upon a time, and then they wrapped a bunch of them in together just under the tax ID numbers, and then that's what you see here. It's been vacant for a long time and been through a couple different financial institutions, as I recall. But it's, on the aerial in the staff report, it's shown as a separate lot, so it is a separate? Correct. It's two lots. They're two plaited lots, but they're just wrapped together in one tax ID. Yes, ma'am. The parcel number isn't always indicative of one property. They can lump multiple properties into one tax ID. Sometimes we'll see these with a road cutting through the middle of them with lots on each side. All right. There's a note in the staff report on page four under item number three saying that the lot is a legal non-conforming lot, and it is eligible for an administrative setback reduction. Correct. It would be, let's see here, we changed the land development code a year or two back to allow some of these smaller lots that don't meet district standards that qualify for infill to have administrative approval of reduced setbacks. And it's based on what land use category it would fit into by its square footage. So in this case, I think I have RL2, which is comparable, but it would still be a 15-foot right-of-way setback and a 7-foot setback from the side. So it's just another way of looking at this, how we could have gotten this approved a different way. It would still require a variance. That section is not eligible for a variance, so we have to come in and go this route. Okay, so it would have been eligible for an administrative setback if they had asked for a different setback reduction? Potentially, if they wanted to build 15-foot off the right-of-way line and then 7 feet off this line, too, and we're still using almost 30% of the property doing that, which is an excess of what you would with standard lots if he wasn't on the corner. So even if that section were eligible for a variance, we would still recommend approval to reduce from 15 to 6 feet just for the hardship for being on that corner. It's pretty minimal. What they've asked for does not qualify for an administrative setback reduction? Correct. Okay. Looks like the proposed home has a square footage of approximately 2,800 square feet. Do you know if that's substantially larger, similar in size to the surrounding home? It's a little bit larger than the one to the west. I believe the one to the east was right around 2,000, 2,100 square feet. Okay. Is the applicant present? If you could come forward, please. If you could start with your name, please. My name is Francisco Carachea. My name is Francisco Carachea. My name is Francisco Carachea. And your name? My name is Limayda. I'm sorry, Limayda Paoli. Say that again, please. My name is Limayda Paoli. I'm the interpreter. Paoli is the last name? Okay. And again, your first name. I'm sorry. Limayda. I'm going to ask for you to be sworn as an interpreter, please. Do you swear or affirm that you truly and correctly translate English into Spanish and Spanish into English here today? Thank you. Do you have anything you would like to add in addition to what staff has said in their presentation? Yes. What else would you like to say in support of your application? It affects me economically because my wife and I has bought this property. We're legally married. We have a kid of five years old, and we want to give him a better future. También, pues. Quiero dar a lo mejor. Quiero sentirme realizado y poder darle a mi familia una estabilidad. I want to feel accomplished and then give stability to my family. I'm sorry. Say that again. I want to feel accomplished in my life, and I want to provide stability to my family. Anything else? Algo más. Gracias. I will open up this application for public comment. Is there anyone who came here today to speak regarding this application, either for or against? No one. We will close public comment. One question for staff, unless you had anything else. No, ma'am. Okay. Typically, one of the proposed conditions of approval is that the applicant would have one year to apply for permits. Is there a specific reason why that wasn't included, or is it just an oversight? Oversight, and I don't think there's any particular reason to require it, either, for this case. Do they already have an application in for permits? No, we don't have a building permit in yet. And just lastly, the proposed location meets the right-of-way setback for Little Orange Avenue? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Anything else from staff? No, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. I think that's it for today, then. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.