Appearance Review Board - Regular Meeting

I will call to order the appearance review board meeting on August 4th, 2026.

Let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Member Bauckham.

Present.

Chair Grimes. Present. Vice Chair Gill.

Present.

Member Kettle is absent. Member Rain is absent.

Is there anyone present who would like to speak?

I will close the floor.

Approval of the minutes from June 2nd, 2026. Are there any questions or comments on the minutes? Can I have a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of the June 2nd, 2026 meeting.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. The new business, this item is for ordinance 202605, Oakland Town Center rezoning development agreement and preliminary subdivision plan.

Yes. An ordinance of the town of Oakland, Florida, adopting a town official zoning map amendment from C1 commercial general within the urban corridor design district to PUD plan new and develop it within the urban corridor design district for certain real property owned by Oakland Town Center LLC, generally located on the north side of State Road 50 at the northwest corner of the intersection of State Road 50 and Catherine Ross Road. As more particularly described herein with an approximate size of 14.80 acres, approving a development agreement between the property owner and the town of Oakland and approving a preliminary subdivision plan, making findings and providing for conflicts, severability and an effective date.

Evening members of the ARB. It's good to be back before you guys again to talk about the Oakland Town Center. Before we get into specifics, we'll go into a little bit of background regarding the actual property itself. So without going through all of the actual numbers, this property is comprised of five distinct existing parcels of land totaling about 14.8 acres. It contains both a commercial future land use classification and zoning district, and it is located within the town's urban corridor design district. And as mentioned in the reading of the ordinance, the purpose of this is to an all encompassing package, but the first and foremost is to rezone the property from its existing commercial zoning district to a planned unit development. As part of that planned unit development is the development agreement, which governs and creates the regulations standards, what is and is not allowed on the property. And with that development agreement, then if we're going down to the third layer is the associated preliminary subdivision plan, which the purpose would be to serve as the template when if and when it comes through for final construction review by the town. So that's a little bit of a background of what we're here reviewing tonight. looking at the site location map the property is bordered on the east by Catherine Ross road and the little cut out here, you can see, is just for spatial references the tractor supply store there, you can see the current five parcel configuration. So what actually comprises the Oakland Town Center is 11 single storey commercial buildings that vary in size from approximately 10,000 square foot multi-tenant buildings all the way down to approximately 1,200 square foot drive-through building. In total, all of the buildings comprise of 84,020 square feet. and is accessed via five distinct points. And you can see one directly off State Road 50, two off of Catherine Ross Road, and one off the side street directly in front of the tractor supply parking lot. You'll notice here as part of, and it is indicated on the provided preliminary subdivision plan, part of this project would comprise of the construction of a connecting roadway here, you can see this red area to be constructed by the developer and eventually once constructed it would be dedicated to the town as public right-of-way as a transportation improvement So here is a general overview of the plan. It will become important in a few slides, but just take note of the specific location and orientation of buildings, because we are going to go building by building and discuss what each of these is to look like. So I'll jump back and forth if needed, but just get a general sense of the layout of and configuration of the buildings you see on the site plan. And tying to that we also have the associated landscape plan, and it is these two things together, including details such as drainage utility connections things such as that. All of this together comprise the preliminary subdivision plan that is before you and subject to this ordinance development agreement and associated plan development. So continuing on the overview. As mentioned, there is a governing development agreement which creates a specific set of standards and regulations that in some cases may differ from what the general land development code requires or can be more restrictive. As an example, specific uses that are permitted within The planned unit develop include, as you can see here, commercial, retail, office uses, restaurants with no more than one drive-through is all that's being permitted within this developed project, educational and clinic uses. So it is a full gamut of potential uses that could go into this project as governed by the development agreement. There is also a specific prohibition on a couple of uses, both tobacco, smoke shops, marijuana dispensaries. Those are in the agreement and baked in that they cannot, apologize for the pun, cannot go into the subject site. There are also, which are separate from the specific deviations that are being requested before you as the ARB tonight, certain standards as I mentioned that do differ slightly from what the general code requires and were negotiated as part of the development agreement drafting process. As an example, The development agreement does permit the maximum width of the commercial buildings to go up to 240 liner feet, as opposed to, I believe it's 150 as per regulated by the code. And that was negotiated and agreed to by the two parties. And that is in the development agreement that is included as part of your packet. And as mentioned, the entirety of the preliminary subdivision plan is incorporated as an exhibit to this development agreement and will be, as I mentioned, the governing reference document for final engineering and construction plan review by the entirety of the town review team. So I think that's an important thing to note is this is a preliminary subdivision plan. This is not... PB, David Ensign he or him, Final approval we if and when it gets through the sequence, it will still need to go before the town to ensure that all the design elements in regard to engineering. PB, David Ensign he or him, Landscaping are installed properly all of those elements, including any outside permits that are required, whether it be with the water management district and Alice. PB, David Ensign he or him, Sorry, it's my old life orange county fire and etc, etc. So as the appearance reviewer as the appearance review board, you are certain deviations can be asked of you from the specific standards of the town's design districts certain variances or dimensional changes and. As the ARB, you do review proposals to ensure that they conform to the intent and purpose of each of the town's design districts. The applicant group did provide a list of specific requests and specific deviations that they are seeking from the code. And as I did mention to each of you when you came in, The initial deviation letters that you received were a previous draft of the request, and the final version is what has been presented to you. The only difference is in terms of the signage, and we'll actually get into the next slide and kind of transition that better. So this remains the same. For the LDC, 60% of the building is required to be transparent, whether it be through doors, windows, et cetera, 60% of commercial buildings are required to be transparent and not just solid mass blank walls. What has been proposed by the applicant group is what's known as the pedestrian transparency method, which the stated intent is to really facilitate that more ground level design and change the way that that calculation is, I guess, is perceived more from a pedestrian level rather than somebody going by on the turnpike, for example. And now the next two are in relation to signage. So per the land development code, each developed piece of property is permitted a single ground sign. As part of the development, the applicant is requesting three ground signs and I have a rendering of one type of the sign. The applicant group is intending to have their own presentation. You will see a better layout than what is in my own presentation. And in addition to that, for each one of those, two of those ground signs, the requested deviation would be to take the minimum or the maximum sign area, I should say, from 48 feet per the LDC standards to a maximum sign area of 51 square feet. For the third sign, there is no requested deviation from the code requirements. Now we will go into architectural design. So as I mentioned, I will go back and forth if needed. So building B1, actually, Kathy, would you mind if I get the keyboard? That might be helpful for this. So this building type is one of, I go back to the site plan. So this building here is one of these. If you guys can see my mouse, it's one of the ones that do not have direct frontage on State Road 50 or Catherine Ross Road. It is tucked in behind the primary frontage buildings. And that one is the first elevation set we're looking at. And again, it should be noted that these are preliminary renderings. These are not the formal official elevations that would need to be reviewed as part of the building permitting process. So looking at this, this is building B2. This is one of the two primary building masses that are gonna be fronting along State Road 50. We have here building be three this one is directly adjacent to that first set of buildings tucked behind the primary hunting buildings on state road 50. This one is building before this is the building to the east, which is also directly fronting they wrote 50. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, This one here is building be five, which is another one of the buildings that will be tucked in to the tucked in behind those buildings that are directly fronting along State Road 50 PB, Harmon Zuckerman, This is building be six. This is the building. If you're looking at your site plan that is turned sideways and faces Catherine Ross road. Looking at building B7, this is, it's the only way really to show you is to go back to the site plan. So B7 is, apologize. Building B7, this is seven and eight. So just for reference points, these are these two buildings that are facing sideways with their sides facing Catherine Ross Road. I'll go back to those. Let me just get my number here. 60. Apologize, everyone.

Okay.

Then, as I said, that was B7. And then B8, very similar. These buildings are right next to each other, so they do have similar elevations. And then finally, we get to be nine and this is the building that has the most direct frontage directly against Catherine Ross wrote And if you notice on the site plan, there are the two smaller standalone buildings. These are the two listed, I believe, on the site plan as OP1 and OP2. This is the first building. You can see it's a two-tenant building. And this is also fronting State Road 50. And as mentioned, there is only one permitted drive-through per the development agreement. And this is the preliminary rendering of that singular drive-through facility. Thank you for bearing with me as we went back and forth with the elevations on there. I'm happy to go back and at any of those once we're done with this presentation. And as I mentioned, this was the sign subject to the original request that you received for two monument signs instead of one. These would be located if you're looking at the site plan on the primary entrance along State Road 50 and then the second one would be on the entryway to Catherine Ross Road, but The applicant group during their presentation will show you on their site plan where that third, I guess you can call it a keynote sign, would be located at the intersection of those two roads. So as noted, this project is proposed to be located within the town's urban corridor design district with the intent of which is to accommodate mixed use projects and larger scale developments. Staff did find during our analysis that the proposed development is consistent with the intent and purpose of the urban corridor design district. by creating large scale commercial uses with local and regional accessibility, given its proximity to a very busy commercial thoroughfare. Project would also facilitate the redevelopment of an underutilized vacant property with difficult topography and terrain, which I'm sure the applicant group might get into during their presentation. And of course, the development could promote remote economic investment and support job creation within the town relative to a vacant piece of land. So based on this, staff does find the proposed Oakland Town Center as presented substantially compliant with the Town of Oakland's Land Development Code and the design district requirements and do recommend approval of ordinance 202605 as provided with this agenda item. I apologize. It's really hot in here. And the applicant group also has their own presentation that they have queued up. But before we get to them, if you have any questions for me, that concludes staff's presentation. And thank you for your time.

I don't have anything. I'm going to wait for their presentation and then go from there.

Thank you, guys.

Well, good evening. Thanks, y'all. For the record, Logan Opsall, Lowndes Law Firm, 215 North Eola Drive. We brought the whole project team for you. And so really appreciate Taylor going in depth with staff presentation. We intend to do the same, hopefully kind of anticipating your questions. And so we can get all those answered at the forefront. But before I begin, I just want to bring up Alex Reese, the applicant who wanted to just introduce himself as well.

Hi, my name is Alex Reese and I've thoroughly enjoyed working with your town on this project. This project has been a long time coming. It has been a, a monster project really uh i think that we felt like there was a vision here off of highway 50 10 years ago and we saw the growth with winter garden and claremont and some of the towns that you're surrounded by we felt like that there was a a real possibility that this area could uh could grow into an area where people would want to lease product here and We went through this process with St. John's Water Management, and I digress here, but it was a very long, arduous process because we had to mitigate an acre and a quarter of land on the site. I tell you guys this because over the time period, this area has gotten more and more and more robust in terms of what we can build here now. So what kind of started out as maybe something that would support, well, something very much like Schmidt Construction has across the street. which was never really all that glamorous to me. The rents now in the area plus just the trips per day support something quite different, something that I'm very excited to bring to you guys today. It's going to be an incredible project. I mean, we're trying to do something very much like a winter garden feel or a winter park feel to this. It's a... I think the biggest thing that I'm the most proud of is the team that we've assembled. Okay, so Brent, who's with Kimley Horn, who I believe works with your town, is just incredible. He's an incredible partner for us. He's done an incredible job working with St. John's Water Management. Bobby, who works with Gemini, is not here tonight, but I think you guys know him through Steve Healy and some of the projects that he's done. He's another incredible, incredible asset. Alexi is just a leasing guru. I mean, she deals with a lot of different tenants that we think are going to fit very nicely here from an organic craft feel that I think is going to give you a luxurious kind of feel to the town center. You know, we're not looking to do a cookie cutter town center here. And then I would like to also point out Costel Benetoro, who is in-house design with me. He handles a lot of our in-house stuff and has done just an exceptional job working with this. Logan behind me works with a young woman named Tara Tidrow, who's also just an incredible part of our team, just incredible. And then Amanda Sheffield, who's our superintendent. So it's been a real process getting here. I've really, though, really enjoyed working with you guys, and I look forward to presenting the project to you tonight, and hopefully you guys will like it as much as we do.

Thanks, Alex. I hate it when that happens, right? We'll dive in. And again, appreciate the depth. Since we're here at ARB, wanted to give you some appearances and give you some of these pictures. So over the course of the next three hours, you'll hear from, I'm just kidding. Want to give you some renderings of the project itself. I think Alex did a great job of touching on the quality in which we're trying to instill, but this is the Oakland Town Center. I mean, Oakland has its own unique brand, and this is an opportunity to capture that. And so this is what we've done. We have an assemblage of 11 different buildings, almost 50, more than 50 tenant opportunities. And you'll see throughout these pictures kind of a thoughtful design of breaking up what we're used to seeing, providing courtyards, connectivity, the type of things that Oakland's become accustomed to. And here's some of those features that you have with the fountains and some gathering places. We're not just focusing on the proper traffic and vehicular safety and how those all interact with the buildings, but also walkability. And how we're doing that is having things like these unique lightings, umbrellas, you saw some of the water features designed around the movement and people utilize their golf carts, a lot of connectivity. with the town. And so this project really focuses on those characteristics that make Oakland special. We're going to talk a little bit about the signage, but I think this is a good place to just hand over briefly to Alexi. You can talk a little bit about the tenants and what we're looking to gather in this place. If you want to speak briefly about that.

Hi guys, thank you for your time. So we are really trying to, you know, bring tenants in that are going to be community centric, right? So not just all your national brands, but we want to create a really curated mix of tenants. So new to market restaurants, but then also local brands that are you know very popular that people know of um fitness health and wellness is a really important category i think for oakland in general but in general health and wellness category is a huge category now that's growing a lot um and then you know you're not just your basic coffee shop but something that makes you want to sit there and work for a couple hours and it's really community centric and where people meet and spend time and that's the whole idea behind oakland town center we're not just creating you know another shopping center but it's a sense of place right we're place making and so in order to do that we need those outdoor spaces those you know beautiful facades signage is super important for these brands that we're trying to bring into the market um and we've had to do that on several other projects too but to be able to get their attention on projects like this these are the things that we kind of need for example some of the tenants that we're talking to that we're looking at bringing is concepts like motec and mamon out of and puravita those are all out of south florida or new york but they're actively looking in Winter Garden right now. And there's very little space in Winter Garden. So Oakland is a great opportunity for them to kind of service that Winter Garden need and the Claremont need when there's very little space. Oakland fills that for these brands. And so as they're actively looking, this is our chance to present to brands like that. Health and wellness concept, you know, Solid Core Pilates is a great brand, very well known. They're actively looking in the market.

Barry's Boot Camp.

We just did a deal with them. So they're going to open their first location in Winter Park. And naturally, they're going to be looking for their second and third option.

And Winter Garden is hot on their list as well.

Paws is another one. It's one of those like hot sauna places, cold plunge. So again, catering to that health and wellness concept, that's another brand that's constantly looking at opportunities. And these are new to market, which is great because we're getting the attention that Oakland will get with these new to market brands and that they chose this location for their next store is huge for us. Um, glow 30 is a med spa facial space. Um, and then of course, you know, breakfast is huge with the church being next door. We know breakfast is a big deal. And so we want to bring in a really cool breakfast concept. I mean, of course, everybody loves the kikis, you know, and first watch, but we'd love to bring in something like snooze eatery. which has been looking in the market and that would be new to market. And they have not only, you know, a breakfast concept, but they're also a bar. So you've got more of that bar component. It's a little bit different and more of a full service versus a cafe. And then Pure and Simple is another one, which our team actually represents. And they're always looking in the market as well. And MoTeC actually fills that category. And then some healthier concepts like, you know, Naked Farmer and Pura Vida. Those are healthy salad bowl, you know, concepts, you know, organic you know brands and then some of our local favorites good salt group a lot of people know good salt group they did reyes mascarilla um they've got um uh in downtown um oh my god i just dribbled like Sparrow. Sparrow Wine Bar and a couple others that they own in town. Sushi. They've got a sushi concept as well. And they're always looking at opportunities. So and they really like to come into a market and they will create a brand like the Monroe that they did in downtown that's based off of the area and what the area was. So the Monroe, you know, is named after a professor that that was the first black school in downtown Orlando. And they created the whole concept around that. But they'll do things like that. Like they'll come into Oakland and see what Oakland's all about and create a concept that really feels local to the city, to the town. And then some of the dessert concepts we'd love to get in here, you know, salt and straw, May Day ice cream, Kelly's ice cream. I know they're already in Plant Street, but they could actually get, you know, their own brick and mortar location here. So those are some of the brands that just to give you an idea of what we're trying to target here for this project. Thank you.

So just a couple more slides and a couple more minutes. I just want to ground the important work in what we're doing today, and that is we talked about the PUD request, the development agreement, and the PSP. Of course, the PUD zoning designation is what they call a negotiated zoning district. So it gives a real opportunity to work with the unique challenges and constraints of this site to allow the flexibility to make something like this come to life while also making sure we don't have knucklehead stuff going on here. and allow for the type of design that can really see this thing effectuated. One of the things that came up in the discussion about how it's designed in the courtyards and the way the glass and canopies is, I'll show that in a few slides, that's a real opportunity through this vehicle of the PUD and the development agreement which will govern it. And so I just like grounding the pictures into what we're actually doing because it's important and allows things like this to happen. So this is just another view, and I think this says it all of kind of a conclusion of what we've been selling to you, which is this is a landmark. This is a welcome center of Oakland, and this is an opportunity to provide some really top-notch tenants and architectural detail in a way that Oakland, again, has come to be recognized for. And this is just a visualization of what I outlined. Varied heights, projections, allowing a uniqueness of each tenant's space and the buildings between them. And not just the outside pedestrian connections that we talked about, particularly in the opportunity to provide some off-site improvements, but also the sidewalks and the bicycle-friendly nature and just having that interconnectivity. Here's another view of the canopies and how those spaces are broken up. And so we'll end on this slide that has some pictures. I know we threw a lot at you and I'm thankful for your patience and for being here making quorum tonight. And we're happy to answer any follow-ups you have. Thank you.

i have a question um i think in one of the slides it says that it is pedestrian and bike friendly um how how does it how do you think it's bike friendly are there certain things that are going to cater advice

Yeah, so certainly infrastructure like the bike racks and things like that, but the wider sidewalks as well allow for more pedestrian access, allow the bikes to safely traverse in and out of the sidewalk areas. And then as you'll see here, this isn't just one big strip area that all looks the same. The fact that you have areas that are broken up with and you see some of the crosswalks and pedestrian safety features, that allows to break up these long alleyways of cars that can get up to a certain speed so all those types of things go into a shared space from pedestrian to bicycle and then of course vehicular as well and golf carts let's not forget the golf carts so would there be wide sidewalks connecting all of the courtyards amenity spaces yeah i think it's hard to see on the site plan

any of the sidewalks, but I would assume they're connecting all of the main roads. Sure.

If you look at the the area of Catherine Ross, right? Because we know we're in about a half a mile, not even to, let's say, Orange Trail, right? And that's just the main bike. So there's a couple of things. First of all, if you would make it here to Catherine Ross on a bike, we would provide in just about every amenity and courtyard, you'll have bike racks so you can place your bike. From there on, the sidewalk actually has connectivity all the way, really, well, I wouldn't say to the church, because you'd have to cross that street, but certainly to the far end of the property. And I know it's hard to see on the plan, but everything that's kind of sort of dotted, that's around the buildings. And if you start at that point of Catherine Ross, you can walk along building seven and eight and then six and four and two. Of course, there's going to be a couple of crosswalks, but you can certainly walk that whole entire center. And those are the wider sidewalks that we're talking about. Of course, we don't think the traffic in the center is going to be insane because it's very well laid out and everything. And we thought of that because Oakland's known for biking. So whether you come on a bike or on a, you know, whether you want to leave your bike at building seven or you want to ride it all the way to perhaps buildings one and three, you'll have a little position there where you can put your bike. So I don't know if that answers your question. Yeah. Okay.

Question. In some of the renderings, there's a retaining wall along 50.

Yes, and that's a Brent. That's a Brent.

So it's Brent Linsden with Kimley Horn, 200 South Orange Avenue, Suite 600. But as Taylor briefly mentioned before, the topography of the site's a bit challenging. We had some stormwater nuances with St. John's as well. you look at the plan the northwest corner where that large dry pond is it's like elevation 114 and the bottom right southeast is about a 97 so there's at least 17 feet of fall across the site from northwest to southeast And that's really happening along the State Road 50 frontage, which made it really difficult from an overall master infrastructure grading and drainage standpoint. And then on top of that, unfortunately, the initial development that happened within that affects these parcels was the tractor supply. And they built a large dry pond immediately adjacent to it. Several of the parcels included within this project are benefited by that stormwater. The negative is the stormwater's at the top of the hill. So physically getting the water to the dry pond is not achievable without raising finished floors and hydraulically being able to drain the water. Oops, I did that, I'm sorry. So with the dry pond up there, we have Apopka Basin for stormwater, Wekiwa Recharge, which requires dry pretreatment and infiltration before you get to a wet pond. Sorry for the stormwater jargon, but all that to say, Based on stormwater, it demanded the buildings being set at a certain elevation and what's being set at a certain elevation, which had to drain to the dry ponds first to get to a downstream wet, which is why you kind of see a cascading deal with that large rectangular white space as a dry pond. A lot of our basin goes to it. The basin that can't get there goes to that boomerang, we'll call it, around the wet pond. That's kind of a dry upstream pretreatment, which then goes to the lower wet pond that's at that bottom southeast corner. So with all those nuances, we have a retaining wall near that stormwater pond along 50 that's about 10 feet tall. So a little bit of site constraints kind of drove that design. And that's kind of what you'll see within the waiver request. Some of the building separation from 50 was due to that nuance of having to build a wall, having the structural integrity of a wall and the building adjacency, and really trying to centralize the focus of the development more internalized because of that elevation change off 50.

What's that with basically the retaining wall and then sidewalk and 50? Is there a landscape up there?

It's going to be basically State Road 50, like their travel lanes. You'll have a sidewalk running along 50 that's still at road grade. Then you'll have an elevated wall. And then there's going to be landscaping up above on top of the wall and then the building facade. I think the best picture, I don't know where it was in the presentation, was the one that showed the pedestrian down at the street level with the monument sign there. Probably the best example.

Is this going to be a good example of what the landscaping is going to look like on that corner? That intense?

So obviously, you know, the renderings and everything. So our landscape architects are going to work very hard and everything.

But our goal is to have, because that's going to be the way we see it.

It's certainly our main entrance, right, for most of the vehicles. And we want that to look very nice. And that's why we created even the monument. You know, we made it a lot more architectural to actually integrate with the center rather than just be, you know, a little billboard looking thing. And the intent is, yes, to landscape it as nice as possible. Is it going to look, you know, tit for tat like that? Probably not, but it's going to be the same exact feel. So that's really the intent of the renderings. And we want to make that wall as pretty as we can. Good news is that wall is not 10 feet everywhere, but that's just what we had to work with. So I don't know if that answers your question.

So the wall, the retaining wall.

Yes, sir.

The corner will be about 10 feet high?

Yes, sir. western end of the property does it go it goes lower yeah that's the highest it ever is so it gotta go sorry it kind of goes both ways that way so it's not going to be as high as possible but uh that's why we you know we try to make it as pretty as possible you know we have the buildings that are very nice you know in the elevations but we haven't really skipped on anything so we can i don't want to say distract from it but you know just really make the best of it

All right, so one of the things that I just wanted to ask about was being able to see back of house from all three roads. So the renderings show a lot of architectural detail.

Yes, sir.

So that's going to be pretty.

Yes, sir. Yeah, we did that intentionally, and we wanted to offer, obviously, even on the.

Not a blank wall.

Correct. Yes, sir. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, we'll do the best we can with landscaping as well. Just we'll try to make it as, as obviously as nice as possible. The idea was that it was elevated. So, you know, it's a little less visible to begin with. We're going to add some landscaping, but we added the articulation on purpose. So it's not a flat wall like you would see normally.

Just to touch on that, just to expand upon that too, John, you know, Once it gets through this portion of its review sequence and it goes to the final instruction at that point, that's when it goes beyond just renderings. We have the actual architectural elevations to show even more detail than what you're seeing here to ensure that that, you know, the breakup of that massing does occur and you're not, as you say, looking at the back of a house or essentially a cinder block wall.

Well, don't go.

As a developer, right, when we saw this, we were like, this is horrible because it's very expensive to build. This is extremely expensive. This isn't something that you would go out and buy a piece of land and start building walls and building, raising land. That's crazy. There was really no way around it in order to develop it. But the takeaway from it, from our perspective, is it gives a real intimate feel to the center. It's going to give a very private, intimate feel, almost like an oasis in a way, because you're raising the center up and you're kind of buffering out 50. So from a perspective of being in the center, I think it's going to make the center quite attractive, to be honest with you.

So you would have a tent all at the highest point and then a railing on top of that. Maybe like 1314 feet tall at some point.

At the highest point, which is at the far eastern near the stormwater pond, it is about 10 feet.

And at this entrance, it was around 7 or 8 feet here.

If the fall distance is more than 30 inches, you need to have a railing on it for safety reasons. So yeah, it'll have at least a 42-inch railing on top of that. Obviously, we want it to look good. We'll pick some material and color and product to look as good as it can.

So I do like that it's gonna be like one story, the whole complex. Is that by design or is that by the land development code? Okay, so you could actually go up, okay? Because, I mean, to have some of the eateries that y'all want there, wasn't like a second story open patio for some of the restaurants proposed but this is an actual total second story just like the patio more of a yes

We all love rooftops, but here in Orlando, central Florida, it's just not as common yet. It's not like people can't think like, like the consumer doesn't think, you know, like vertically, right. So like, I'm going to go to a second floor. It's just, you know, they want to be able to park right in front of their space and go right into the business that they're going into. I would love to get rooftops in here or like a second story patio, but it's just not, you know, it's also very expensive. So even for these restaurants, for their build out, like we're delivering, let's say a shelf space, right. then they have to do their build out they have to then account for vertical transportation so an elevator and stairway and it's just very expensive and with the construction costs right now it's just not you know it's not as as possible to get something like that approved although we would love to see it i guess this question is for elise um

Oakland's name like this is that allowed to be put on any business like the Oakland town center so so you're going to have your own rendering or can they incorporate.

They cannot without our permission because it's actually a protected logo.

Okay.

But, I mean, what they're doing is it's showing it's not a town space, right? But it also serves... So it's a private it's a private development it, but to me it also serves as an entry way into the town of oakland right so it's going. I appreciate them using oakland town center because it's you're entering and we've been we've been having a hard time with this for a long period of time, our place making or for our town. Is when do you know when you're in oakland and to me this is like perfect right, I mean there's one other little development on the on the east side, but other than that you're coming into oakland and so this this shows you you're in oakland now. City Council Chambers, And I just want to say they've worked like Alex said a long time with us to to get to this point so we've talked through it a lot of times internally staff with staff to get to this point that they've that they've been able to come forward with.

I like it a lot actually.

City Council Chambers, We talked about the administration.

Yeah, is there a question in particular?

Yeah, so the way that I understand it is that the town code is 60% administration on all public paths. Is that right?

Correct. Yeah, your land development code. Yeah, I believe it's written that way.

So I guess I'm wondering, as I'm looking at it, The building to and the building for the faces that are towards highway 50 that I can understand because it's going to be like 10 feet in the air. But building eight and nine. The faces that are Catherine Ross road. Um, they say 0% penetration, so it would look like a backup house. But to me, that would be a public public primary frontage. I'm wondering, like, why... Sure.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's a good question. So, Building 8, for instance, you know, it's only its side that actually butts up to... And then we do have some fenestration on that side. And as far as, you know, Building 9, which is the one on Catherine Ross, right up on the top right corner, there was... there were several several reasons right and one of them was you know we wanted to stay consistent with the center the second is you know we found that tenants and also guests you know if they park in the back like if you look at this one and if the access is on both sides in other words they will look the same on both sides where we would have same type of fenestration on each side when it gets a little bit confusing you know second The tenants, you know, they want to have a little bit of a delivery area, right? Because, you know, they're bringing in whatever they're bringing, so they might just want to keep it out of the site. Or you might have in a restaurant, you know, employees going out back and, you know, have taken a break and stuff like that. So they kind of want to, you know, they want to use those areas. So as, you know... to keep with the consistency and to make it, you know, flow. And actually it's a matter of cost as well, you know, because we really do have to stay. But the reason what we thought was a nice thing is if we did not provide, you know, that flat wall in the back. So we actually kept the front and the back of the building look completely the same when it comes to the articulation. So we're spending the same exact money and, you know, um, and we're going to put the landscaping buffer behind it. And that will allow us to save a little bit of money, provide a tenants, you know, with an actual space that they can use. And our guests, you know, we believe that, um, they're going to really come in from the center, um, whether on a bike, whether, you know, they're going to turn that corner, come on in and they're going to access it probably through the parking lot. So, um, We wanted to make it as beautiful as possible because most centers, and that's why I think the gentleman asked, is it going to be a flat wall? Because that's what you normally see on the back of the house. So I hope that answers your question. We try to stay consistent. We try to keep our costs in line as well, but still provide you with something good.

And I understand you have the tenants and the functionality of the space. I live on the other side. So I love that we're connecting to 50 here. I do wish or I hope that there's a focus for the pedestrian traffic on Catherine Ross Road and how those buildings interact with sidewalks.

Well, yes, and we do have, and of course, you know, the city sidewalk, it's a little beyond our control. But as far as our center, walkability and pedestrian, everything was designed to pedestrian scale. Our fenestration, our everything, you know, the articulation, everything, everything, everything. So, you know, we want you to feel good in there. And that's what's Alex's point. I think we made that wall work in our favor because not everything faces inwards rather than, you know, 250. And as much as we love 50s, really not that pretty regardless. So now you're going to have this walkable, and that's why we sacrificed a lot of square footage for open areas. We split up all these buildings, and even to the variance that Taylor spoke of, up to, what was it, 250 feet. Actually, if you look at it, I don't believe any of our buildings are even close to that. I think our largest one, it's 170, because we've cut them up and we've added 17,000 square feet of green space. Yeah. That's the long and the short of it.

With the fenestration, like Building 1, 3, and 5, there's a lot of parking behind that. So it's not a closed book right now. There could be entrances to some of those buildings back there? Or when you're back there, do you have to walk around?

No, if you park there, you would walk, well, if you look at buildings one and three, they have that courtyard. So that's specifically designed for pedestrian access. I think it's a 25 or 30 foot wide courtyard and the same length because we wanted guests when they park back there to be able to walk. Building five, yeah, sure, they'll have to walk a little bit around it. But yes, and even in those buildings, just so you'll know, although they were facing the dry retention, we still have the pretty, same articulation on front and back. So even if you park back there, you're still not looking at this ugly flat wall.

No, I didn't. I missed that, definitely.

I don't know. Also, looking at the map, it looks to me that this is at the rear of the school. And I don't know if this is on the town side or the developer side, but I do think there should be more vegetation because from the rear of the school, you would be looking into this commercial area. And I think it kind of kills the courtyard of the school.

I believe there's a road between us two. Perhaps you can...

So all of the fields are between the school and Saddler, and Saddler eventually will go through, and we want to use that potentially to loop the cars around a bigger loop to get some of that traffic off of the other roads. So this is kind of a master plan, right? So there will be probably some vegetation more on the school side, but we'll be working on that.

That makes sense. I think I'd like to see like more of a visual barrier between the school and the commercial space.

Yeah, naturally, I think we'll have, you know, the required, you know, trees and everything that's for code. So there will be it's not like it's going to be bare. So don't picture that. You know, there are requirements, and I don't know off the top of my head, because I don't specialize in landscaping, but, you know, you have to have trees every certain feet, and you have to have, so those obviously will be in place, you know, as part of our agreement and everything. So it's not like it's going to be like a, you know, like a bowling alley or just an empty field in any stretch. And that goes for the center in general, you know what I mean, as a whole.

Matthew, would you actually mind switching over to the landscape plan? Just to get a sense, there are particular requirements for buffering of commercial properties. And you can see every circle, yeah.

That's a 12-foot wide landscape buffer there between that dry vial and the proposed public road. Then we clustered plantings within the dry pond in those pockets. Is there a particular area that's missing in your vision on this?

No, I just think along the north side, to me, like I would prefer like a full row of trees, you know. And from what I could tell on the agenda, it looks like you're taking out all of the existing trees. So these would be new planted trees. So I guess when I see this, I'm picturing like smaller trees, you know. Yeah.

And the tree removal is, the topography we talked about earlier is just physically impossible to save the tree. Changing grade 20 feet. I don't think there'd be any issue with us continuing the planting row there. See where there's a gap before it gets to where the driveway connection is by that L104 label. I think we could add a few there when we move towards final design. Just obviously site visibility, there's a driveway entrance there, but beyond that, I'll see.

And certainly something we would have to, during a final engineering review, be mindful with our landscape architect team, because there is a point where you saturate too many trees to create a row and now all of a sudden none of them can survive because they're competing for similar resources. So it is something we can consider if the applicant group does propose a more robust tree line along that northern boundary, but it would be done in a way to ensure that the survival and the function of that area reaches its full potential.

Like you to consider the view from the school from the playground from the courtyard. I think their main parking is at the north west of this site. So yeah, I think just as long as you're mindful of their view.

Certainly good.

Just one question about the signage. When I was reading through it, having the two signs made total sense, because they're two different roads. You're coming in from Catholic. Yes, sir. You're coming in on 50. But the third one, I'm not opposed to it, but we haven't really heard any reasoning why, other than just, is this going to have tenant names on it also, or is it just going to say Oakland Town Center?

So the way we have it proposed, it only has four tenant names. And we thought if we have some anchor tenants, and I'm just throwing a name here, like let's say Trader Joe's or whatever, I don't know, something like that, we would offer that. But the main reason we actually put that there is to be more like a gateway. it's more of like, you know, welcome to, it's like, welcome to the, to the town center, to Oakland town center, and also welcome to, to Oakland because of the point made earlier, I think, you know, you could probably agree that that's going to be one of the main access points into Oakland once Catherine Ross is completed. So it will announce our center, but it will announce your town too. And, you know, we wanted to put something that you'd be proud of, that we'll be proud of. It's not something that's going to bring us a lot of, you know, what should I call it? Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, not assigned it. Right? Sign. Okay.

Just thought of that sign. And it's going to be at a 45?

That's the plan, yeah, at about a 45. And it'll be set back a little bit from the intersection. And that's why we want it to be a little more prominent, too. So when you drive there, you can see it. And it's a reference point as to Oakland, a reference point to the center. And we thought it would be a benefit for all of us.

Well, it would sit back. Yeah, back.

Yeah, exactly.

That's where the retaining wall that runs along 50 it turns north and then heads east to connect the Catherine Ross So that keeps the whole site and that dry retention up high but that triangular ish stormwater pond that's really down at great because that is an actual wet pond and When you get to that corner where Catherine Ross meets 50, all those improvements in that wet pond are going to be down at grade. Yeah, basically, yeah. So when you come in, yeah, you'll see as you're heading westward on 50, you'll see Catherine Ross intersect. You're on 50 at grade. You'll see a pond at eye level, signage at eye level.

Then you'll see the pond bordered with the retaining wall and the site above it.

Anybody else have anything? Thank you.

Do any members have any questions or comments? Is there anyone present who would like to speak on this item? I will close the floor. Do any members have any further comments?

I guess, yeah, one, but this is more for Elise.

So it's going to be Sadler Avenue?

Yes, yes. So is it going to stop or is it going to connect to Sadler Avenue, West Sadler?

I don't think it can go all the way there. I think it'll stop, but it'll pick up on the other side then.

Okay. There's no way to get them connected?

I don't think we have property to connect it over there. We'll continue to look at it, but right now I don't think there's a way to do it. I still would like to see a hall connected. Yeah, I understand.

It makes total sense for everything we're trying to do in that whole corridor. Yeah. It makes total sense.

Okay.

I have nothing else. I like it. I like everything.

Thank you.

Can I have a motion?

i'll make a motion to accept ordinance number 2026-05 the oakland town center rezoning development agreement and preliminary subdivision plan as presented all in favor aye any opposed motion passes this meeting is adjourned at 7 30 p.m