Winter Park board votes down proposed assisted living facility

A proposed assisted living facility along U.S. Highway 17-92 in Winter Park has been shot down – for now.

The Winter Park Planning and Zoning Board last Tuesday unanimously voted down a request to rezone an empty lot along the busy thoroughfare – the potential site of the 73,000-square-foot project.

Board members expressed concern over the building’s large size. The three-story building would hold 106 total beds throughout 90 units.

“The project is just too big for the footprint of that property right now,” board member Shelia De Ciccio said. “I would have to vote against it.”

Real estate investment group Sentio Investments LLC planned to build the facility in the empty lot beside the St. John’s Lutheran Church.

The location came as an unwelcomed sight to nearby residents, who feared that the influx of employees, medical staff and other services would worsen existing traffic problems in the area.

“If you allow this change, this little gem of a neighborhood will devolve from an already busy cut through to a major channel for commercial traffic, including garbage, laundry and food delivery,” said resident Sara Brady during the meeting.

“The proposed design resembles a resort and will tower over everything in this neighborhood, destroying the character of this particular sector of 17-92 … If you allow this development, you will kill this neighborhood.”

“I would love for each and every one of you to come to my house at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and sit on my driveway in my lawn chair with me and I’d like you to witness the mayhem that’s coming down my street,” said resident Ken Bowser, who lives just a block away from the proposed site. “Then I want you to look me in the eye and tell me it’s not going to get worse.”

The group of disgruntled residents wrote a petition as well, gathering more than 100 signatures prior to the meeting.

“This will destroy the peace and quiet of our neighborhood, bring way too much traffic and destroy the beauty of Garden Drive between 17-92 and Orchid,” wrote resident Laura Lopez. “This is our home and it is indecent of anyone to decide to go against what the people who live here need and want.”

But Board Chairman James Johnston said that a project of some kind would likely go through on the property sooner or later.

“I do have a concern about the size, but I also will say that this property is going to be sold,” Johnston said.

“The residents need to understand that something is going to happen on this property, and this proposed use which you came out against today I think is one of the lowest-impact uses for your neighborhood …You may be looking back thinking the ALF facility would have been a more appropriate use.”

The project was scheduled to go before the planning and zoning board again on Jan. 12, though the applicant hasn’t expressed a desire to do so yet, said Winter Park spokesperson Clarissa Howard.