Church proposed for Winter Garden

The Winter Garden City Commission unanimously approved Thursday, March 12, the first reading of three ordinances impacting New Life Slavic Church.

Commissioners Chloe Johnson and Colin Sharman were absent.

If approved after the second reading of the three ordinances at the meeting Thursday, March 26, the church will be able to annex approximately 1.5 acres located at 1414 East Crown Point Road and approximately 2.02 acres located at 1325 East Fullers Cross Road into the city of Winter Garden. 

A second ordinance would amend the future land use map of the Winter Garden Comprehensive Plan by changing the land use designation of the property from Orange County Low Density Residential to City Low Residential. 

The last ordinance would rezone the property from Orange County A-1, which is Citrus Rural District, to City PUD, which is Planned Unit Development. 

The approval of the ordinances would allow New Life Slavic Church to construct an 11,162-square-foot church, which will contain a one-story worship area with 286 seats that will connect with a two-story area for offices and meeting rooms. 

In order to mitigate impacts to surrounding properties, church staff will provide 30-foot landscaped buffers along all property boundaries, which also will allow staff to preserve many of the mature trees at the boundary of the property. 

The applicant also proposed two access points on the property: one from East Fullers Cross Road and another along East Crown Point Road. There is an existing traffic signal at the intersection, and the applicant will stripe a designated left-turning lane along East Crown Point Road to assist with traffic turning into the property.

When Mayor John Rees asked if there were any opportunities for something to go in that property that could produce revenue, Planning Director Kelly Carson said although she doesn’t know the history of the property, “there were some developments that were considered some time ago.”

“For a long time, given the residential nature of the surrounding properties, we had said you know, it would have to be something that was either residential in nature or compatible with the surrounding low-density properties,” she said. “A church is kind of one of those transitional uses. It’s considered kind of a quasi-residential use. It’s a signalized intersection, so we thought that was probably a good use for that corner, because a single-family house might not be appropriate at a signalized corner. But there had never been any talks about commercial uses. It could certainly have been a higher-density residential proposal.”

Commercial rezone proposal

The City Commission unanimously approved the first reading of two ordinances to update the future land use to Commercial and rezone to Planned Commercial Development for the 2.88-acre property located at 761 Garden Commerce Parkway.

The property currently is designated as Multi Office Industrial and zoned as Planned Industrial Development. 

The proposed ordinances would allow the owner to accommodate more commercial service uses such as medical aesthetic/clinics; studios such as yoga, ballet and dance; retail; and pet-care facilities. 

“The applicant’s request for additional uses on the property would allow for greater flexibility of uses without interfering with the existing businesses in the surrounding PID,” Carson said. 

She said the property already is developed for the approved site plan, no site plan changes are needed to accommodate the new commercial uses, and there already is sufficient parking for commercial uses. 

The second reading of the ordinances will take place Thursday, March 26.

Mixed-use buildings proposed

Commissioners unanimously approved the first reading of an ordinance to rezone properties at 15411, 15540 and 15541 E. Oakland Ave. and 841 Tilden Oaks Trail from a Planned Unit Development to Planned Commercial Development.

The rezone would allow for the development of four mixed-use buildings consisting of commercial uses on the bottom floors and residential uses on the second floors. 

The neighborhood commercial component will be 12,515 square feet with a total of 12 dwelling units on the second floors. 

The neighborhood general open zone permits uses such as attached single-family units such as townhomes, multi-family residential and neighborhood oriented commercial uses, Carson said. 

Carson said city staff required the property proposal to be Planned Commercial Development to further define the neighborhood commercial uses and all the specific development requirements of the parcels, such as setbacks, buffers and architectural standards. 

After receiving community feedback, Carson said there was no major objection to the proposal as a whole, but there was concern about people going through the neighborhood to access the commercial property. 

“We did explore that, and we found that because of some limitations of grading and some existing utilities, that was not possible,” she said. “But (the applicant) did amend some of the circulation so it didn’t have to go through their neighborhood.”