Winter Park looks to ease code for large developments

A proposed change to Winter Park’s land development code could make final approval easier for larger developments along Park Avenue and construction within wetland areas.

Winter Park City Commissioners looked at changing the land development code during their Oct. 13 meeting to require a majority vote instead of a supermajority vote for conditional uses, which include building three story structures within the city’s central business district and building in wetland floodplains.

The conditional uses would only require the support of three Commissioners as opposed to four under the proposed ordinance, a concern for City Commissioner Carolyn Cooper.

“I think two of the items we have here today – not building in the wetlands and not allowing increases in heights along Park Avenue – are critical,” Cooper said. “They’re both conditional uses.”

“I think it’s very important that we not build in our wetlands … I will not be voting to remove the supermajority for conditional uses.”

Mayor Ken Bradley spoke against the use of supermajority, believing it’s excessive governing.

“I think it’s hard to argue against this,” Bradley said.

“To me we need to get the supermajority out. It’s a flawed process that our city has tried to govern with.”

Many recent votes made on the City Commission have been 3-2 two splits though, with City Commissioners Steven Leary, Sarah Sprinkel and Mayor Ken Bradley often voting in similar fashion.

Leary, Sprinkel and Bradley each voted in favor of an ordinance back in June that would change the city’s land development code to allow for more planned developments – projects of a larger size that tend to be mixed-use.

The ordinance would have allowed planned developments to be constructed on any four-lane road outside the box of Fairbanks, Interlachen, Pennsylvania and Webster avenues.

City Commissioners would vote down the ordinance during a second reading in August, before a crowd of more than 140 residents bearing “no density” signs.

The Commission’s consistent difference in opinion could lead to some difficult 3-2 votes on crucial matters, Cooper said.

“If you look at our elections, if you look at our population, Winter Park is kind of a 50-50 community,” Cooper said.

“We’re often very, very close on a lot of things. Some things are so important that I think having that extra backstop that says ‘four reasonable people have to agree on something’ kind of removes it from the political realm to me.”

City staff brought the ordinance before the City Commission mainly to promote consistency, said Planning and Community Development Manager Jeff Briggs.

The city received a legal opinion in September 2012 noting that supermajority votes on ordinances conflicted with the city charter. In July, Winter Park voted to remove comprehensive plan policies that required four votes for conditional uses.

Staff felt that the land development code should match the comprehensive plan, Briggs said.

The supermajority vote requirement for the three-story building conditional use has been in place since 2009, Briggs said, and the wetlands supermajority vote dates back to the mid ’80s.

Commissioner Tom McMacken said he wanted to see conditional uses treated like ordinances if they were to become a majority vote, undergoing two readings before final approval instead of one.

The City Commission agreed, and voted by a count of 4-1 to move the item to the second Commission meeting in November with modifications. Mayor Bradley voted against.

“The pendulum swings back and forth a lot, and I just hate to see things like our wetlands become a victim of politics,” Cooper said.

Briggs said there aren’t any current applications that the land development code change would affect.