Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Call the August 4th, 2026 meeting of the City of Winter Haven Planning Commission to order. Jordan, if you would, please take roll.

Kevin Tyson.

Here.

Mario Manigault. Laura Leis. Here. Lorena Cadero. Here. Wendy Venters. Here. Colin Wells.

Here.

Ed Smith.

Here.

Tina Summerlin. And Craig Fuller.

Here.

We have a quorum.

If you would, please stand for the invocation and pledge. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this opportunity to serve the city of Winter Haven. We ask that you be with us and guide us. We ask these things in your name. Amen.

Amen.

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. All right. So everybody had a chance to review the previous minutes, so we'll entertain a motion.

Make a motion to approve previous meeting minutes. Second.

All right. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Okay. All right. I'll move into a brief explanation of the hearing. Cases will be read into the record. City staff will provide a presentation, and commissioners will then have an opportunity to ask questions of staff. Once commissioners have asked their questions We will close the planning portion of the hearing and open the public portion of the hearing Anyone wishing to speak for or against a case may do so We ask that you limit your comments to five minutes When everybody from the public has had an opportunity to ask questions we will close the public portion of the hearing and reopen the planning portion of the hearing and where we can ask additional questions or entertain a motion and a vote. If anybody thinks that you may speak for or against a case, if you would, please stand, and Jordan will swear you in.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give in this case shall be the truth?

All right, moving on to new business. Case number P-26-20, request by Advent Health Polk North, Inc. to amend plan unit development ordinance O-24-47, general location 6945 Cypress Gardens Boulevard. The area covered by this request is 41.4 plus or minus acres.

Heather Reuter, senior planner for the record. Before you on the screen is the future land use map. The subject property there is in the hatched area. It is a mixture of neighborhood mixed use hub as well as conservation where the river lake is located on the property. As you look at the zoning map, it is a planned unit development and then other areas within the north side are C3 and R4. As you look at the aerial, this is a dated aerial because we still do not have updated maps from the property appraiser because the AdventHealth ER is already located and developed on the property. But that is the subject area. This is a view looking at the subject property as you look to the north on Cypress Gardens Boulevard. This is more of the property as you go westerly from where I was originally standing and still looking to the north. And then there's some more as well looking to the north. This is looking to the east along the boulevard, to the south across the boulevard, and to the west. Again, AdventHealth Hope North, Inc. is the petitioner. They request the city amend Plan Unit Development Ordinance O-2447 The property subject to this request totals 41.4 acres and is generally located at 6945 Cypress Gardens Boulevard and consists of Advent Health Emergency Department and the River Lake Shopping Center. In addition to the current developed uses, PD 2447 allows for the future development of a hospital building and medical offices. The petitioner proposes to amend PUD Ordinance 02447 to address conditions related to hospital building height and parking requirements for the property. As there is no proposed changes to the permitted uses and intensities, the maximum development potential is unchanged. And staff's conclusion yields the following. The proposed increase in maximum building height is limited to a defined area within the interior of the property, which provides increased setbacks from the adjacent residential development to the north across River Lake. The proposed increase in hospital building height is consistent with the planned unit development zoning and height allowances established for other hospitals within the city. And due to the unique parking demands associated with hospital uses, eliminating the requirement to utilize pervious hard surface for parking areas when the total number of parking spaces exceeds 110% of the minimum required is appropriate as the additional parking spaces are anticipated to be consistently utilized. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission recommend approval of this with the PUD conditions in the agenda packet and it's forwarding to the City Commission for final action. This is the conceptual plan. The red outlined area is the maximum height zone that is defined in the PUD amendment. I see if there are any questions that you may have.

Any questions? No? All right. We will close the planning portion of the hearing and open the public portion of the hearing. Anyone wishing to speak for or against? You can come up. If you would, please state your name and address for the record, and Jordan will swear you in.

Hello, I'm Dan Adams. My address is 15 Lake Eloise Lane, Winter Haven. And if you would.

I'm just going to swear you in real quick.

Okay.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give in this case shall be the truth?

Yes, I do.

Thank you. And it's not really for or against. I just have some questions. I thought this would be the time to ask the questions. If you go back a couple of slides, can you? Well. Okay, well, right there. We own that property right there, which used to be the Goodyear Monroe Tire. If you go back a few more slides. More. Okay. This little corner right down here, that's the property we own. And our access is through that. through the zoning change. And I don't know if that was going to affect our access to the property. And I'd love to know if you've got some plans, shows how the building's gonna be built and all, and how that could affect me. Because I don't know how that, property to the north of us, which is included in the zoning change. And this is a first notice that we've had of anything like that.

Sure.

So the amendment that's for you, the PUD zoning is already in place and has been in place for a couple years. This is actually the second amendment to it. So the uses and the development of the only changes that we're looking in this tonight is an increase in the building height that is allowed, as well as a change on the parking surface requirement. As far as access to your property, I mean, as long as there's legal easements that allow you to access through that, that would not go away. And we don't have any renderings as far as what the development would look like.

You have no drawings of the plans of the development. You're just wanting to know how high it can go.

Yeah, we have a conceptual plan. So as you see on the screen there, it shows the existing ER that's already been built through this PUD and then the area which would allow the increase in height. But there is no set plans. They just have to meet all the standards that are within the PUD as far as setbacks and development requirements and uses. Okay.

So will they be demoing the buildings north of us?

I do not know if there's any plans for that.

Okay. And you said as long as I will have legal access, but you aren't saying that it will change or not change?

I cannot speak to that. I do not know what documents are in place. I'll leave it to the applicant to allow. As you see on the PUD, it does show that there's cross-access showing there to that parcel. But I'll allow the applicant to speak to it. Their representative is here.

We'll have them come up. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. If you would, Tim, can she swear you in and then name an address for the record?

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give in this case shall be the truth?

I do. For purposes of your record, my name is Tim Campbell. I'm from Clark Campbell, Lancaster Workmen and Heirth, 500 South Florida Avenue, Lakeland, Florida. I'm representing AdventHealth in this matter. They've been extremely pleased with the, not that we want use of emergency rooms, but it has proved true that there was a need and they're serving a purpose. Their numbers are very good. Excuse me. So they have moved up their timeline for moving forward with the development and construction of a hospital. And so as architects get involved, we get into more detail. So we don't have a rendering, but you can see on the exhibit that the increased height envelope, that would contain behind the existing emergency room, probably connecting an original tower, regular hospital tower, and the width is because it leaves for the future potential if the need is there for a second tower. And so your staff has been very good to be protective of the neighboring properties and so we maximize the setback from the rear property line and we propose just an envelope Only within the envelope can we have this increase height and so we think ultimately it's a good plan as it relates to the neighboring property owners questions I Know that easements in place. We're not proposing to change that easement or change in any way his access to his property and I do not know the plans for the buildings that lie north of his property. I don't know that there are any plans presently. Ultimately, it's a medical campus that will also include medical office buildings. But at this point, there are no plans that we have for doing anything to the buildings that lie north of his property and absolutely no changes to his property. access to his property. So we thank you for your consideration and stand available for any questions that you may have. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Does that help answer your question in the back?

Yes.

Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak for or against this case? All right. We will close the public portion of the hearing and open the planning portion of the hearing. Any additional questions?

No.

I'd like to make a motion in favor of case number P-26-20, a request by AdventHealth North, Inc., to amend Planned Unit Development Ordinance O-24-47, general location being 6945 Cypress Gardens Boulevard. Area covered by the request is 41.4, more or less, acres, as presented in the fact sheet and by staff. Thank you. Second.

We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Okay. Case is approved. Moving on to case number P-26-03-S, request by VMAR Dev LLC for special use approval for personal storage in the Commercial Highway C-3 Zoning District. General location, the northeast corner of the intersection of Botticella Boulevard and Thompson Nursery Road. The area covered by this request is 2.31 plus or minus acres.

Before you on the screen is the zoning map. The subject property there is in that hatched area on the north side of Thompson Nursery Road. It is zone C3, and then all of the PUD is the Villamar subdivision. This is the aerial. It's again a little bit dated as there are homes on many of those lots that are shown there to the west and to the south across the road. This is a view of the subject property looking to the north. This is as you look to the east, the south across Thompson Nursery Road, and to the west down to where the future realignment will hopefully continue on and then connect, but it does dead end down there. Again, VMARDev LLC is the petitioner and requests special use approval for personal storage in the C3 zoning district. The property subject to this request totals 2.31 acres and is generally located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Botticella Boulevard and Thompson Nursery Road. Applicant proposes to develop the parcel with approximately 85,900 square feet of personal storage units in a three-story building. In addition to the personal storage, the petitioner also proposes to have a 900 square foot office and two 2,500 square foot retail spaces in the building. The site will contain no outside storage. Personal storage is permitted by special use approval in the C3 zoning district. Based on the non-intensive nature of the proposed use, minimal impacts on supporting infrastructure are expected. Additionally, the use of the property for personal storage represents a significant reduction in public infrastructure demands from the maximal potential commercial permitted by the C3 zoning district. Staff's review of the petitioner's request yields the following conclusions. The development of the subject property for personal storage instead of other more intense uses permitted in C3 will decrease the demands on public infrastructure and the proposed multi-story building containing fully enclosed storage units is designed for placement on smaller urban lots near potential users fulfilling the need of supporting services for the growing number of residential units in the southeastern portion of the city and potentially reducing the number and length of vehicle trips onto the supporting roadway network therefore staff does recommend that the planning commission approve this request subject to the conditions that are published in the agenda packet and this is the conceptual plan that was presented with the application i stand for any questions that you may have

Any questions? All right, we will close the planning portion of the hearing and open the public portion of the hearing. Anyone wishing to speak for or against this case? If you would, please state your name and address for the record.

Good evening. My name is Brian De La Cruz, address 3820 Georgio Drive. I'm actually a resident of the Villamar area. I'm... Against. Only because that area on Thompson Nursery Road, I don't know if we can kind of go back a few slides so I can. One more, I guess. The other way, facing that way. So if you look towards the far end, that area is enclosed. As it is, me just getting here almost didn't happen because there was an accident. There is no way for lights or anything. There's been consistent accidents happening in that area. Opening up a commercial section, which, I mean, I understand, you know, people have storage and stuff like that, will only create additional traffic that we already have, just us, ourselves as residents trying to get out. School is around the corner, so early in the mornings and towards the evening time when people are coming in, it is a very high traffic area, not to mention people coming back and forth. Posted speed limit is 35 miles per hour and we got people running almost like 50. So yeah, I definitely do not agree with the area unless there is gonna be something done to that road to open it up to alleviate traffic.

Thank you for your comments. I think that that intersection is going to be lighted, correct? Eventually, yes.

And also, just, I mean, the property is zone C3, so any use that's permitted in C3 could be developed through site plan approval without having to come before this body, and there are a lot more intense uses that could be developed on the site. The personal storage will be a lot less intense use and a lot less traffic generator as well, so... Just to point that out again.

I would add that the extension of Thompson Nursery Road, both to the east and the west from this site, is a funded Polk County project with portions moving forward, I believe, in the next 12 months. Okay. All right. Thank you. Anyone else from the public wishing to speak for or against? No?

All right. We will close the public portion of the hearing and reopen the planning portion of the hearing. Any additional questions? No? i will go ahead and make a motion in favor of case number p-26-03-s request by vmar dev llc for special use approval for personal storage in the commercial highway c3 zoning district general location northeast corner of the intersection of botticella boulevard and thompson nursery road the area covered by this request is 2.31 plus or minus acres as presented in the fact sheet and with conditions recommended by staff Second. We have a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, same sign. All right. Moving on to other business comments from staff.

Not too much tonight. Just want to give you an update on the items we heard. It seems like not very long ago, but the July meeting. The 2050 comp plan was successfully transmitted by the city commission on the 27th, so it's currently up at the state for review. We expect to hear back from the state probably in early October, which would put it on track for adoption in late October, early November. So that's the status of that document. The PUD request we heard at that meeting, that's moving forward to the city commission this month and should have its final reading, I believe, on the 24th. And that's it.

All right. Comments from planning commissioners?

Anybody?

No? All right. Comments from the public? Anybody? All right.