Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. We're going to call to order the Planning and Zoning Board meeting of Lake County for February 4th. If you'd all please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for a moment of silence after.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

If you'd all please remain standing for a moment of silence. And if you'll please be seated. The Lake County Planning and Zoning Board is an advisory board to the Board of County Commissioners. The board is responsible for reviewing proposed changes to the comprehensive plan, zoning, conditional uses, mining site plans, and making recommendations on these applications to the Board of County Commissioners. The recommendations of the Planning and Zoning Board are transmitted to the Board of County Commissioners for their consideration at a scheduled public hearing in the instance of the cases on our agenda today. They are scheduled to be heard on the March 3rd Board of County Commissioners agenda, which will be held at nine in the morning for that meeting. Okay, Janie, do we have any changes to our agenda or updates to our agenda?

Good morning, Janie Barone, Planning Manager with the Office of Planning and Planning. The agenda consists of two cases, and the cases have been duly noticed and advertised in accordance with state statute. At this time, there are no updates to the agenda.

Does anyone from the board have any need to change or modify the agenda? Okay. We will move on to the minutes. Does anyone have any comments, questions on the minutes of last month's meeting? If not, I'll entertain a motion for approval of the minutes.

Move approval. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Is there any need for discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed, same. Okay. Okay, at this time we will welcome any citizens who wish to speak on anything not on our agenda today. This is open public comment for anything that we will not be discussing. We have two agenda items. We have a consent agenda and then we also have our regular agenda. Each of those have one item on them. If you wish to speak on anything other than those two topics, this is the time when that would occur. Anyone? Okay, seeing none. We will move on to the consent agenda. This contains items that are recommended for approval by staff and have been determined to be non-controversial. Any item may be removed from the consent agenda for full public hearing. Is there any need to make changes or alterations to the consent agenda? Okay, seeing none, I would entertain a motion for the consent agenda.

Motion to approve.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any need for further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, signify by saying aye. All opposed, same. Consent agenda approved. All right, we will now move into our regular agenda, which is tab two, the barn at Southern Oaks conditional use permit.

Good morning.

For the record, Megan Bradshaw, a planner with the Office of Planning and Zoning. I'll be presenting tab number one, case number PZ2025-148, otherwise known as the barn at Southern Oaks. The applicant is requesting a conditional use permit to allow an enclosed barn wedding venue that will accommodate members of the general public. The parcel has received an AG exemption through the property appraiser's office for hay farming. The subject property is located in unincorporated Umatilla and contains approximately 21.49 acres. The subject property is currently designated with a rural future land use category in a zoned agriculture district. The accompanying concept plan. depicts the existing home site, agricultural structures, and the converted barn. The proposed ordinance does waive the road access requirements pursuant to Appendix A of the Lake County Transportation Planning, Design, and Construction Standards to allow the proposed development to access the property from La Grande Street, an unmaintained dirt road. This is this waiver is conditioned upon the owner assuming all responsibility to maintain the ingress egress easement recorded in the Lake County public records in compliance with NFPA 1 chapter 18 criteria. Staff finds the conditional use permit request for the enclosed wedding barn venue to accommodate members of the general public on the subject parcel is consistent with the land development regulations and comprehensive plan. The owner's agent is present as well as I for any further questions.

Okay. Just for clarification, this is actually tab number two on our agenda today. Does anyone have questions for staff before we hear from the public? Okay. Thank you. First of all, the applicant is not present, but their representative is. Is there anything you would like to say before we hear public comment or any information you would like to provide before that?

Do I give my name and my address? Yes, please. Jamie Blunt, 995 Vincent Drive, Mount Dora, Florida, 32757. Um, I just brought pictures with me, um, in case anybody didn't have a chance to go out, but, um, I don't have any, I don't have anything to address other than what was already stated.

Okay. Um, we'll go ahead and hear from the public then. Um, if you would like the pictures in the record, please provide them to the clerk so that they can keep copies and document those in the record. Let's see, so we have one speaker card on this item, Cindy Newton. If you could please state your name and address for the record.

Good morning, Cindy Newton, 19025 Lake Salterra Drive, Eustis, Unincorporated. Thank you all for being on the board. I know it can be a stressful situation at times. I just wanted to thank you for your service. I have some questions. First of all, is this still being considered agritourism? And if so, I'd like to hear why it's being considered that. And that's really my only questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Newton. Okay. Would anyone else from the public like to speak on this matter? Seeing none, we will bring it back to the board for discussion. Is there anything that the applicant would like to say at this time after what you heard from the public? Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Well, I'm not sure if that's something that I need to address her question or if that's something that you guys

It's it's fine. You don't need to address it unless you just want to. Nope. That's okay. Okay. All right. So does anyone have any additional questions for staff before we move into motion? Okay. I would entertain a motion for the conditional use permit, and then we'll go into discussion after the motion motion to approve. We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

Okay. So is there a discussion? Anyone? Thoughts? Comments? So we have two things being asked. This is a conditional use permit for the use, the wedding venue barn, and then a waiver to the road access requirements under Appendix A of Lake County's development regulations.

It looks like the approved, they, they addressed the two issues that we had put to them last week in regards to them being responsible for the maintenance of that road and, um, putting down a more reasonable number of events per year.

So they are still asking for a waiver from the road requirements though. So this would just be.

I didn't see any note where any conversation was had with the two property owners that also accessed that easement room.

There is an easement. They're saying that the ordinance now stipulates that this owner is responsible for maintenance of the easement, but they're still asking for the road requirements to be waived. That would be the paving and the width and all that stuff. So I'm not sure what the requirement is that they would be required to adhere to at this point. Just says they would be in condition with the waiver conditions.

Um, if we fall under the site map, the site plan, because they still have to, they just have to do a site plan. Yes. Would that be, would the, uh, you know, any restrictions on what they can and can't do as far as what the road, would that be a part of that site plan?

They're asking us to waive the requirement.

Okay.

So if we waive the requirement, it wouldn't be a site plan requirement. So what is their current? They will be required to do a site plan. Right, yes. But what about other than the fact that the easement's there and the ordinance, you said, states that they're responsible for maintenance?

Yes, under letter A waiver. It states the waiver and then the waiver is conditioned upon the owner assuming all responsibility. It does list one, two, and three, adequate width, height, and travel service must withstand live loads of fire apparatus in all weather conditions. Those are the criteria that they would be required to still adhere to under the NFPA 1 Chapter 18. regulations to ensure that emergency access is available.

So which requirements are we waiving?

The paving of the road, the widening of the road. We do have public works here that could speak better to that. Okay.

I'm just trying to understand from the conditions where we're still saying it has to be 20 foot minimum unobstructed. Minimum 13 foot six inch unobstructed height. And it just says the travel service must serve surface must be able to withstand live loads of fire apparatus in all weather conditions. So what is that compared to the, what we're waving?

Uh, Seth Lynch with a public works department. So the county has for anything that requires like a site plan or subdivision has to have paved access. Since they're not fronting the county road. They're a little bit further back. They would have to have paved access So the request is to waive the pave the pavement of it, but they still have to meet fire standards which is 20 foot wide at least and be able to hold a fire truck That doesn't necessarily there's other ways than pavement To do that. It could be a stabilized surface clay or Gravel or you know, there's other different things their engineer would have to provide that what their site plan Achieving that and holding the fire trucks wait, so the surfacing is really the bigger component That's being the surface like it doesn't have to be traditional paved asphalt. Yes. That's what they're requesting the wave with what CUP okay, and it shows that the easement is is

On the map we have up anyway that it's a 50 foot wide easement.

It's 30 feet by the site plan there. I think.

Am I looking at the easement? Which easement are we talking about? The one on the left or the one on the top?

On the left. Coming from the county road is 30 feet in width, the easement.

then they have another easement at the top at the right above there is one on the north side of the property that's 50 that serves another site okay got it that doesn't serve this property correct that's what i was trying i'm like was that it or is this okay so the 30 foot easement this would be the 20 foot Roadway through there or a 30-foot drive has to be acid Yes, that's well it has to be able to hold the fire truck for the 20 feet 20 feet of width Okay, so it'll be a 20-foot Driving area with five feet on essentially additional five feet within that easement on either side or all 10 feet on one side something to that effect to be that yes So with that, if we did a 20 foot County road, like a paved improved 20 foot County road, what would be the typical right of way on a 20 foot paved surface?

Not necessarily County road, but it would be like a 20 foot wide, at least as a minimum. And it'd be asphalt typically. And you have something to handle the drainage from that hard surface for the storm water to go. So it goes into like a swale shallow ditch.

Got it. And so how far would the right-of-way extend out beyond the pavement normally for a county condition?

I mean, typically you have 50-foot easement to a site. If they did, like, lot splits and stuff like that, usually have 50 feet by code.

All right. Does anyone have any other questions for Public Works?

Just a real quick question. Since the travel service must be able to withstand the live moves of fire, How often is that then checked? How often is somebody going back to make sure that it is maintained through weather conditions? We have a horrible rainy season, something like that.

Since it's not public works maintained road, it's not gonna be public works checking it. It may be the fire, fire rescue, public safety department.

Just to clarify, because this is a CUP, they have an annual inspection. So the county will have to go out there. And if whoever's out there inspecting it sees an issue with the road, they would ask fire to go out.

Thank you so much. And one final last question. I know it says that the tree height minimum is 13.6 inches uninterrupted. Was there not a law in the state that it had to be a 14-inch canopy?

I am unaware.

Yeah, I'm not sure, but this information does come from the fire code.

Okay. Are there any other questions for staff?

Is there, I didn't see anything in there. Is there anything... in the future that would prohibit parking along the road and thereby narrow the width that might be available to fire equipment?

There is, parking is specifically called out within the ordinance, but that parking on the right of way would not be allowed.

Okay.

So there is a provision in the ordinance on page 3. It's D2. It says that there will be no parking allowed outside the property limits and that they cannot stack along La Grande Street to await entry to the property.

I missed that. Thank you.

Okay and it looks like they now have all the fire department has reviewed and they've added a good number of conditions and requirements for the site plan aspect?

Yes. They are not opposed to the conditional use permit on the condition that a site plan is completed.

But the conditions or the site plan, what needs to be included in the site plan, and then the please be advised statements and the stuff in bold from the fire department, I see all of that in the staff report. But other than being required to do a site plan, those statements from the fire department aren't included in the ordinance?

No. These will be the criteria that the site plan is held to specifically. OK. So the ordinance requires the site plan and then these are the criteria that will be required for the site plan. By fire specifically, the rest of us have other codes and policies that will be implemented.

The only other question I have about the site plan is on item 11 under where it says site plan will be required in the staff report. It says the narrative states existing conditions are primary residence and an event barn with proposed operation and activities to include an enclosed event venue, glamping, overnight accommodations, RV parking. I apologize. Where are you in this? It's under item 11 on page 3 of the staff report under where it says site plan will be required to include all items below.

Of the, okay, of the fire, yes, when the original plan came through that received these fire comments for review, there was a larger scope being requested of this site that has changed.

Okay, so we're not including... glamping overnight accommodations or RV parking any longer, correct? That is correct.

Only uses listed under B in the proposed ordinance. Okay.

And if I may tag on to that, the last statement there says there doesn't appear to be any water in the area for fire protection. Also on page two it says... fire protection, it falls under that site plan. Is there any clarification on what's going to be?

That will be up to the owner during the site plan process, whether or not they have a well that can pump at the rate that the fire department will need or whether they will need to install a tank specifically for fire protection water supply, but that will be addressed during site plan.

the site plan will not be able to be approved without that criteria being met.

The site plan will not be approved without adequate fire water supply.

So they don't have to build it first, right? That's what the site plan is for. They just have to say that we've engineered it and we can either use the well we have in the pump is gonna work to meet fire standards, or here's how we're gonna put a tank in, and here's how the fire suppression system's gonna work. I believe that is correct, yes. Okay. All right, are there any other questions for staff at this time? Okay, my only question is, they are not currently operating or using this space for anything, correct? cannot confirm if that is correct or not.

Our applicant agent might be able to speak more to that.

I have not asked or spoken to her about that. I'm not sure. Okay.

So at this time, let me clarify, they're not supposed to be using this facility for anything. Correct. That specific building. Or public gathering, I guess, is my point. They could be using it for their own personal purposes, but for the purpose of any type of venue or public gathering space, there should be no public or even private events that involve the public outside of the immediate family, correct? I want to make sure I understand what they can and can't be doing in the meantime.

They should not be using it, but that's a code enforcement issue, not an issue for this board. Got it. Okay. That language is also in the proposed ordinance.

Understood.

Okay.

Is there anything else for staff, legal counsel, or the applicant before we move on from discussion? Okay. We have a motion and a second to approve. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thank you. All right. And then that is the last item on our, or that was the only item on our regular agenda today. Is there any other business, Janie?

Other business, ma'am. Our next meeting is on March the 4th.

Okay. We will see everyone on March the 4th. Thank you all. We're adjourned.