Primrose developers add wall, lighting limitations to plans

DR. PHILLIPS — The development team seeking a special exception to build a Primrose School on a residential lot at 8236 Conroy Windermere Road in Dr. Phillips again met with residents June 24 at the Crown of Glory Lutheran Church.

Rebecca Wilson, the land-use attorney for the development team, enumerated alterations to the site plan as the team initially had presented it May 6.

The plan now includes a 6-foot masonry wall on the southern and western sides to address concerns of privacy and noise, with the possibility of a wall on the eastern side, too, Wilson said. Some residents said a 10-foot wall would be better. 

A 10-foot landscape buffer would be adjacent to the masonry wall, Wilson said.

“We have revised the exterior lighting plan for the project to be minimally intrusive to neighbors by limiting the height of the mounting light poles to 30 (feet),” she said. “We will be installing cutoff fixtures, where the lighting is pointed downwards and will only illuminate the property which is inside the property lines.”

Because the facility would be closed on weekends and evenings, developers would install a video surveillance system to constantly monitor entrances, exits and the parking lot, she said.

A vast majority of residents attending the meeting presented concerns, chief of which was increased traffic congestion in that area during peak hours.

Developers hope that traffic would be spread across its drop-off period with cars going through the area already, just stopping to transport their children. But residents — particularly of Wingrove Estates in lots to the east — believe the stream of cars would exacerbate issues they already have trying to get in and out during rush hours. 

District 1 Orange County Commissioner S. Scott Boyd said the data for a traffic study of the area — compiled throughout the year at peak hours — should be ready within about a month, before the Aug. 6 Board of Zoning Adjustment meeting, when the project should be addressed.

Developers said Orange County officials likely would require an eastbound right-turn lane into the site as a condition for approval.

Boyd said Cleveland Avenue would be somewhere county staff could look into improvements, but that doing so has been difficult because of the narrowness of the space.

A representative of the development team noted increased home values in the area of the Lake Mary Primrose School relative to the surrounding vicinity, but he said whether that was definitively tied to the school was unclear.

Residents said rising Central Florida home values almost certainly were the greatest determinant there, and several citing real-estate expertise said a child care facility would decrease home values because of factors such as noise, another concern.

Boyd mentioned a recently approved Dr. Phillips Charities preschool for the area, with construction allowed to begin now. Residents asked why the area needed another preschool or child care center at all, with most applauding the notion of Primrose altogether not having its school at the location in the plan. Several implored fellow residents at the meeting to continue their support the whole way through the approval process.

Primrose Schools accept children ages 6 weeks to 6 years, with a limited 6- to 12-year-old after-school program for no more than 30 of the 200 maximum capacity of children allowed at one time, Wilson said. Hours of operation for this site probably would be 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., she said.

If Primrose has a smooth approval process, officials believe it would open this location in about a year, including a six-month project consisting primarily of construction.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].