Ravaudage reaches new heights with six-story apartments

The Winter Park City Commission stood divided earlier this month over whether a proposed Ravaudage apartment complex should stand two stories taller – what some saw as a potentially overbearing structure looming over city streets.

City Commissioners voted to allow a setback variance to the planned Ravaudage development on Dec. 8, allowing for the project’s four story apartment complex to move up to six stories and closer to its abutting roads.

The city granted the variance on the condition the building stay 200 feet away from Lee Road.

The 296-unit apartment building would sit up against the south side of Morgan Lane between Bennett Avenue and Lewis Drive, standing less than 5 feet from the corner of Lewis Drive and Morgan Lane.

Commissioner Carolyn Cooper vehemently opposed the change, suggesting the building’s proximity to the road throws off the area’s human scale and makes it less walkable.

“I just don’t see why we would want to do this to Winter Park,” Cooper said. “Just because someone comes and asks for something doesn’t mean you have to give it to them.”

Commissioner Tom McMacken said he could support six stories at the center of the development, but not along the roads.

“Six stories is six stories, and there really is a difference,” McMacken said. “…Four is bigger than anything we have and six is two higher than that.”

Winter Park Planning and Community Development Director Dori Stone said that development planned for the areas surrounding the building will help it blend in when facing north from Lee Road.

“The way we looked at is if you’re coming down Lee Road, there’s development that’s going to occur in front of this building and that development can be one to four stories,” Stone said. “You’re going to have some staggering of height from Lee Road to the 200 feet back where this building starts.”

Cooper and McMacken voted against the resolution, but the change requested by developer Dan Bellows still went through by a count of 3-2.

Mayor Ken Bradley said prior to the vote that the building’s height doesn’t make a difference when talking about human scale.

“I would note that human scale comes from width of road,” Mayor Ken Bradley said. “The people in Manhattan would suggest they have human scale and those are 70- to 100-story buildings. I could walk by a one story building that’s dilapidated and I don’t want to walk by there.”

“I don’t think the size of the building makes it human scale.”

Bellows said he didn’t understand the concern over the proximity to the road when it already exists in Winter Park.

“Why does the five or six story Alfond work, but my building won’t work?” Bellows said. “... People love going to Luma, well Luma is a six-story building and it’s right against the sidewalk.”

Bellows said he plans to sell the site of the proposed apartment complex to American Land Ventures within the next month or two.