A new chapter for Winter Park's west side story

An incoming development picking up steam could play a part in setting a new precedent for the west side of Winter Park – a community that is ever-evolving yet potentially losing its historic character.

Winter Park City Commissioners approved the consolidation and re-subdivision of 10 properties at the corner of North Capen and West Canton avenues to make way for 12 single-family homes.

The new houses would be built by David Weekley Homes, which has constructed multiple homes along Lyman Avenue in the west side.

But the original project submitted by Sydgan Corporation back in April looked much different: a three-story, 28-unit townhome project at the consolidated properties. Pushback from the public during multiple planning and zoning board meetings led the project to gradually shrink in size to the current proposal.

Commissioner Carolyn Cooper expressed concern that more development of a larger size would come into the area were the project was to be approved.

“We all know that what we are doing here is going to open the door to many other requests from many other production development to come into the west side of Winter Park,” Cooper said.

City Commissioner Steven Leary spoke in support of the latest version of the project, noting that the developer has listened to input from the public.

“This seems like a fairly elegant solution to what has been coming from the public,” Leary said. “It’s been a challenge. I think the developer, the potential builder and the community have come together to create this solution, which started out a lot bigger, a lot more grand.”

But residents and historic preservationist alike have noticed an ongoing transformation taking place on the west side of Winter Park’s railroad tracks. The historically African American, less-affluent area of Winter Park has seen restaurants and retail spring up around Hannibal Square, followed by a multi-story senior living facility on Denning Drive and a parking garage next door.

Toward the southern end of the west side, eight uniform villas line a section of Lyman Avenue today, also built by David Weekley Homes.

“…Winter Park has witnessed a slow creep of development that is decimating the historic value and residential scale of the west side,” Friends of Casa Feliz’s Betsy Owens wrote in the group’s blog on May 31.

“The modus operandi of the west side developers is deliberate and methodical: If we do this slowly enough, block by block, nibbling around the edges, maybe people won’t really notice that we’re systematically squeezing out the lower income residents and lining our pockets in the process… Winter Parkers may not realize what’s happening to the historic west side until all traces of authenticity have been expunged.”

In the late 1800s, the west side was originally set aside as a segregated African American community, made up mostly of residents who worked in the city as servants for whites, according to an article written by Rollins College associate professor Julian Chambliss.

Racial segregation was eventually abolished throughout the 1960s and 1970s, but the community’s demographic has remained dominantly African American.

Mayor Ken Bradley said that the west side is in fact changing, though not necessarily for the worse.

“I think we have to be sensitive to the history of the west side, just like we’re sensitive to the history of Orwin Manor,” Bradley said. “I haven’t lived in the west side, but I represent it in my work. I want to be sensitive to the neighbors there and what they think there – I think the solution that was brought up tonight was very sensitive to the neighbors.”

“The west side has evolved. It’s changing, just like all of Winter Park.”