- March 28, 2024
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WINTER GARDEN – During the Feb. 23 Winter Garden City Commission meeting, commissioners approved a resolution establishing a 90-day extension on a moratorium prohibiting the consideration of applications for future development and building permits for businesses located adjacent to East Plant Street between Dillard Street and State Road 429.
The East Plant Street corridor has been a subject of discussion since 1992, when the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency decided shape the direction of future development in that area.
To assist in making that long-held vision a reality, the city passed a temporary moratorium of the same nature on Feb. 25, 2016. When that moratorium expired, the city passed a 180-day extension Aug. 25, 2016 — making the 90-day extension approved on Feb. 23 the second extension in the past year.
However, another extension did not please some business owners. George Douglas Laman formally accused the city in a flier of wanting to change Plant Street in undesirable ways, such as closing churches, funeral homes, businesses that are not bars or restaurants and tearing down houses.
City Manager Mike Bollhoefer responded to the flier’s comments during the meeting, calling them egregious and untrue, emphasizing that city staff needs more time to ensure it gets the plan right.
“After we finish our analysis, we’re creating a whole plan,” Bollhoefer said. “The reason we need more time here is because we’ve been doing this a year, and we’re very close to finishing up, but we want to have a few more meetings with local business owners to fine-tune the plan that the consultants have provided to us.”
The plan, he added, will create architectural and planning standards for the area in line with their overall vision. Once a finalized draft is completed by the hired consultants in about 45 days, it will be distributed for review to the commissioners, as well as local property and business owners. A meeting will follow to discuss the plan’s contents which will then be offered to the City Commission for a vote.
Bollhoefer and Winter Garden commissioners emphasized the setback that could be created if an application for a development proposal happens to slip though that does not meet the standards they wish to set in place.
“One bad project could have a negative impact on the entire street area,” Bollhoefer said. “The last thing you want to do is to develop it into a very good high-end development and have someone across the street or down the corner build something that’s more of a low-end development that could bring your property value down.”
The one exception is for existing properties on East Plant Street. These properties will not have to comply with the new codes.
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Contact Gabby Baquero at [email protected].