Shutts & Bowen attorney Paul Sladek emailed Winter Garden City Attorney Kurt Ardaman with a “heads up” about the “revised draft”:

"… a head’s up, we had a fair number of changes. That said, in the overwhelming majority of cases, we weren’t try (sic) to “change the deal”, but add clarity as to what something meant based on our prior discussions with the City, resolve places where the ordinance appeared to be internally consistent, or, in the case of the transportation conditions that will later be documented in the Development Agreement, add “meat” to the City’s bones."

Seeing the changes, Shane Friedman, planning supervisor, emailed city staff:

"Scott’s group made significant changes to the ordinance I sent them. To get them to the May meeting it was understood, at least on my part, that the ordinance would not be as prescriptive as a DA. That does not seem to be the case. I have very limited time on this now for turnaround. So, either we are good with the changes, or I request they table this at the Planning & Zoning Board. Please review their changes and let me know if there were any glaring problems we would run into. Thanks."

District 4 Commissioner Colin Sharman told VoxPopuli Thursday that while he was unaware of the extent of Boyd’s involvement with crafting the re-zoning ordinance, it was not unusual for an applicant to request changes and for there to be a “back and forth” with city staff.

“Pretty darn normal”

Officials in other municipalities said that’s not necessarily the way it happens with their boards.

Developers drafting their own zoning ordinances has not been “my experience,” one official who requested anonymity to speak freely said in a Thursday text message to VoxPopuli.

A commissioner from another city who also asked for anonymity to speak candidly, told VoxPopuli that they would be angry if it were not disclosed that an ordinance had been substantially crafted by an applicant.

“It is implicit that what is presented to us is staff work product,” they said via text, adding that “applicants don’t have an express duty to the citizens that staff and the commission have.”

Even so, board-certified government law expert Cliff Shepard, founding partner of the Maitland law firm Shepard, Smith, Hand & Brackins, told VoxPopuli in a phone interview on Thursday that there was nothing wrong with the practice. He added that for smaller municipalities, it’s often easier and less expensive to have developers’ attorneys do the legwork.

“Then the city lawyer puts in whatever protections need to be done from the city position,” he explained. “It’s not going to be the same everywhere because not everybody does everything the same way, but it’s certainly not unusual … It’s actually pretty darn normal."

Resident concerns

Boyd’s influence on the ordinance became an issue after Winter Garden resident Adam Garcia posted a commentary on Nextdoor, explaining what he’d learned about the project through public records requests and urging people to attend Thursday’s commission meeting.

Garcia, 36, who publishes newsletters about the stock market, told VoxPopuli that he began getting vocal about the Johns Lake Urban Village because his neighborhood Waterside is right next to it. He and his wife moved in three years ago, and he worries they will see a dramatic increase in traffic from the 613 homes and townhomes Boyd plans to build over the next 10 years.

“Since this development will be using our neighborhood as a cut through, should it get approved, it will diminish quality of life for the people that already live here,” he told VoxPopuli in an email on Wednesday.

Garcia wrote four of the 25 opposition letters the city received, urging the commission to reconsider approving the re-zoning ordinance and sending it back to the Planning & Zoning Board. In his letters, he said the scope of the project had changed: a planned elementary school has been scrapped in favor of a park; the city’s traffic consultant identified significant traffic problems; and there appeared to be questions about private property being used to count toward the Wekiva Study Area’s open space quotient.  

Garcia was particularly peeved the city didn’t acknowledge his concerns, especially when he discovered during a public records request that his letters, along with others written by residents also opposed to the project, had been sent to Boyd and his team with a request from Planning Director Kelly Carson for assistance in putting together the city’s rebuttals.

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While Carson did not respond to a call for comment by press time, Sharman told VoxPopuli that sharing resident criticism with developers was typical.

“Staff should be neutral and commissioners should be neutral,” he said. “The correct course of action is Here are the concerns. How would you answer them? Why should the city try to solve the problem for the developer? It’s the developer’s problem, not the city’s.”