Does the Comp Plan Reflect Your Vision of Winter Park?
Fat Lady Sings on Monday
Monday’s vote will be the culmination of a months-long effort to gaze into the crystal ball of Winter Park’s future.
“History,” “Heritage,” “Village Ambience”
The process began by defining a Vision. When Winter Parkers were asked what was most important to them, two dominant themes emerged. People said they cherished the “History and Heritage” of their City, and they wanted to preserve our “Village Ambience and Small Town Feel.”
Vision — Framework for Comp Plan
The June 2016 Visioning Report issued by the City states: “Our Vision Plan is . . . long-term, aspirational, and flexible, serving as a framework into which other plans can fit, including the Comprehensive Plan.”
As the Visioning process wound down last summer, City staff and elected officials turned their attention to putting the Vision into concrete terms. Months of hard work have produced a lengthy and complicated document. The number of people able to wrap their heads around the whole thing probably can be tabulated on your fingers alone – no need for toes.
Comp Plan Belongs to All of Us
Is it a perfect document? No, but this is Earth – where things aren’t perfect. The level of engagement of City staff, elected officials and citizens has been nothing short of extraordinary. Few documents rise to this level of effort and dedication.
Is it Over? Should You Remain Engaged?
Our Comp Plan is a living document. While it is legally enforceable, it is not written on stone tablets – and, as with everything that happens in this City, there is always room for discussion. So, yes, continuing engagement should be a consideration for all of us.
What’s Missing?
Two features have been eliminated from the revised Comp Plan that may still warrant discussion, even at this late date. One is more abstract, the other quite concrete.
Village Ambiance
The more abstract element that was taken out of this revision is the commitment to maintaining our “village character.” The wording has been changed to “maintaining our traditional scale.”
Semantics? Yes. However, try this.
Close your eyes and try to conjure an image of “traditional scale.”
Now, do the same thing – but this time, evoke in your mind’s eye the image of “village character.” There is a difference.
Big Box Stores
Also missing is the concrete prohibition on single-tenant retail stores of over 65,000 square feet – so-called big box stores – within City limits. To put that in perspective, the Publix at Winter Park Village is 55,922 square feet. For a community the size of Winter Park, that is a large store by any measure, yet it is nearly 10,000 square feet smaller than the ‘big box’ formerly banished from within City limits.
Why eliminate this proscription? Does Winter Park need the equivalent of one Winter Park Village Publix plus a really big McMansion worth of retail space under one roof?
What’s New? Medical Arts District
The biggest reveal is the use of a previously untried planning tool known as the “Mixed Use Overlay” to create a Medical Arts District near the Winter Park Hospital campus. The area will include medical, wellness and associated businesses, as well as residential facilities for assisted living, memory care and dedicated workforce housing for medical service employees.
Click here and scroll down to Line 40 for a description of the planned Medical Arts District.
Mixed Use Overlay – New Planning Tool
The mixed use overlay is a planning tool that has been used by other cities, but has never found its way into Winter Park’s tool kit. According to the Comp Plan revision, “Within one year from the adoption . . . the City will create a mixed use overlay for commercially designated parcels . . . .”
Exactly what this overlay might entail for us would be the end-product of a year-long process of creating Winter Park’s version of the tool. Which is to say, plenty of discussion is likely to occur before this becomes a reality. So stay tuned.
Click here and go to Line 46 for a more thorough explanation of the Mixed Use Overlay.
Should You Attend Monday’s Commission Meeting?
Many have argued that the key to Winter Park’s value as a community is the quality of citizen engagement. Monday’s agenda is a full one. The Agenda Packet is more than 700 pages long. There will be things you won’t want to miss.
If this Comp Plan is approved, kiss Winter Park goodbye as we know it. Words matter. It’s no accident that the words “Village Character” has been eliminated from the proposed Comp Plan. It’s a binary choice folks. Does Winter Park want a “Village” character or a “City” character? If you want to see what a “City” character looks like, go to downtown Orlando sometime and take note of what you see. Take a drive down Orange Avenue south of Colonial on a Saturday night about 10:00 pm. Take the words “Village Character” out of the Comp Plan, and downtown Orlando becomes the new vision for what Winter Park will soon be.
And no-limit-on-square-feet-size big box stores are just the beginning. Get ready for the giant office towers. Bars and tatoo parlors lined up on our picturesque streets, replacing our high end establishments. Urban decay. Increased crime. Attraction of undesirable elements. Did I mention being trapped in unimaginable traffic jams? This is the proposal to be voted on Monday. Tell your Commissioners to vote “No” unless the words “Village Character” stay where they are, with no changes to surrounding words to dilute its meaning. And tell them that you vote.
You like traffic? You ain’t seen traffic until Wal-Mart moves into town. And if Wal-Mart moves in to a town, Sam’s Club often does too. And then they attract dozens of periphery retail and “other” businesses. A strip club is located just across the way from a big box store, only minutes north of Winter Park. You want strip clubs in Winter Park? Try explaining that to your kids when you take them to the big box store sometime. Tell Commissioners that you vote and that you say “No” to big box stores too.
Email MayorAndCommissioners@CityOfWinterPark.org
The current comp plan in Policy 1-3.1.4 states that the city must take steps to “Ensure the Timely Provision of Facilities at Adequate levels of Service.”
This meant that BEFORE any development order or building permit was issued, the City had to require that services- including parks/recreation, roads, drainage sewer and potable water etc had to be provided concurrent with the impacts of the development to meet the needs of that development. Alternatively, permits would be conditioned on availability of adequate levels of service. Generally this is referred to as a “concurrency requirement”.
The revised comp plan removes the words “parks” and roads” from Policy 1-3.1.4. (It also eliminates the term “concurrently” and says services & facilities can be EITHER “available” or “programmed”)
The 2011 Community Planning Act is Florida legislation that eliminated any STATE level mandate for concurrency, leaving it instead to the “discretion” of local municipalities to set it’s own level of service standards.
I am uneasy seeing the words “parks” and “roads” being eliminated from the comp plan in this section. The word “recreation” remains but does “recreation” have to mean parks?
Roads and the impact of development on our roads should certainly remain a stated priority, in my opinion.
Some other weakening of parks protection appears elsewhere in the revised comp plan.
The weakening is evident in:
Removal of the word “guaranteed” when discussing the minimum level of 10 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. Policy 6-1.1.1
Requiring a “majority vote” by the City Commission as opposed to an “extraordinary vote” to convert publicly owned parkland to other uses. Pol. 6-2.4.1
Substituting the words “should” and “should not” for the words “shall not” in Policy 6.2.4.2 which governs the City’s ability to enter contracts or agreements that would allow land not owned by the City to count toward the park acreage level of service. The Ten Commandants don’t use “should” and “should not” because these words just aren’t strong enough.
Good news. I was wrong ! “Parks” IS in the revised concurrency policy.
In reviewing the Commission Agenda Packet again last night, I see that the former concurrency Policy 1-3.1.4 has now changed. This change happened AFTER transmittal to the State for their review.
In the revised comp plan this is Policy 1-3.1.3. (I was actually present at the coffee talk where this was clarified. )
Now the word “recreation” is removed and the word “parks” is back. Unfortunately, concurrency for “roads” is still not being included.
I stand by my comments that I see a weakening in the level of protection for parks in
the other 2 sections which I noted.
I am reminded as I drive around town, I am not seeing any signs or bumper stickers that say “Winter Park-we want to be more like Maitland”