The latest workshop of the Tavares, FL Comprehensive Plan 2040 Committee was held on Oct. 30, 2019. This overview is based upon my fiscal conservative, reduced taxation philosophy.
If you have any proposed factual revisions, please submit them in the comments.
We made a video of the meeting which you can see HERE.
The Powerpoint slides are attached at the bottom of this document.
This is our personal opinion about the workshop, which is about the fourth meeting they have had.
- All the 25+ members of the Committee were appointed by one person, the prior Mayor, Lori Pfister who has a business downtown. In my opinion, it is heavily weighted to folks who SHOW UP that are in the real estate business, own downtown businesses or are land owners. There do not seem to be active members of outlying HOA's or areas that can be affected by this plan, which could change what their neighborhood looks like.
- Some liberal planning concepts like "complete streets" and adding sidewalks or bike paths to road requirements could drastically increase the need for increased taxes on homeowners if incorporated into the new plan.
- THERE WAS NO DISCUSSION OF THE POTENTIAL COSTS TO TAXPAYERS OF ANY OF THE CONCEPTS. So, new plans could require socialist goals (like reduced parking, bicycle paths or minimal road width to force people to use bicycles). Adding sidewalks and bike paths are not FREE, they require costly purchases of more right of way along the road, plus construction and future maintenance costs.
- The City already completed a new downtown plan, so this is for the rest of the city, including "growth" areas that can be annexed (called a Future Land Use Map or FLUM). It includes a defined "ISBA" or inter-local service boundary) which is currently County land (mostly in the South, around Shirley Shores Road), thus those people cannot vote for Tavares Council members and have no representation.
Of the 25+ members of the Committee, 15 or more did not show up. (see picture).
- The workshop is led by a professional land planning firm which in my opinion really wants Agenda 21 / Agenda 2030 concepts like "Complete Streets", high density, reduced vehicles vs bikes and walking, etc. Just watch the video and you will see them bring up "high level concepts" like reducing road capacity to make room for sidewalks and bikes.
- The consultant proposed to stop using "transportation" in plans but use "mobility" to emphasize non vehicle transportation like bicycles and walking. By giving priority to those areas over vehicle usage, convenience of using vehicles could be hampered.
- Tavares leaders have so inflamed nearby rural Lake County residents near Lake Saunders and on Shirley Shores with approving annexation of developments with high density plans that at least at this workshop, the planners included a new rural zoning definition for "estates" that allows "lower density" of 1 unit per acre, but will it make it into the new plan and where will it apply?
- The consultants showed areas where high density or commercial areas would be, but there weren't any residents from those areas to speak up, so any Tavares resident needs to inspect the detailed maps or sit with the City Planning office to understand what will happen to their neighborhood.
- Fortunately, the City Manager jumped up and acted as a facilitator to at least request audience feedback and discuss "both sides" of some issues. The consultants were just going through THEIR vision of what should be done.
- Sidewalks were discussed - there is a big difference between requiring sidewalks just within two miles of a school vs sidewalks on both sides of every road. Taxes will escalate.
- The consultants would jot down audience ideas on a flip chart to be considered for inclusion in the final plan. However, they didn't write down every comment (like mine) so they were filtering the result of the ideas gathered from the meeting. This is called the Delphi technique and is commonly done in "public hearings" to skew the final decisions on planning.
- If you watch the video, you will see several attendees keep defending the right of a land owner to sell and develop land, even for high density projects. There was minimal discussion about the rights of existing owners next door, and how that attitude affects the rural, unincorporated owner on 5-acres who is next to a proposed annexation of a high density development without traffic mitigation. I think it is dangerous to buy in rural areas around Tavares or within the ISBA area due to that philosophy. (The same for other cities in Lake County... it isn't just Tavares).
- They really needed a formal method to list proposals and actively ask for alternatives or negatives about the proposals so they are formally shown and discussed.
- The results assembled by the consultants will be presented to the Tavares Planning & Zoning Committee (and some of their members were at the meeting) for a final version that would then go to the City Council.
- Tavares citizens need to know this plan will be a legal plan that land owners and future developers can use to create developments. So, if you don't learn how they are changing the definitions of land in your areas and about the resulting increased cost or reduced road capacity, you won't have a legal basis to complain later.
Conclusion: In my opinion, since few outlying community or HOA members were there (for whatever reason), and residents of the ISBA had no representation, the results of this meeting process seems to be skewed to the opinions of those who showed up, which were realtors, developers, land owners, elected officials, City staff and the professional land planning consultants. The consultants framed the discussion around anti-vehicle and low density concepts. So residents who did not show up should not be surprised if they find a neighbor sells his farm or lot and a multi-story apartment or high density complex is approved next door without any mandatory traffic mitigation requirements (think Dead River Road or Shirley Shores Road).
Vance Jochim
Pictures are in the video, plus at the end of the video we have included the current city zoning maps plus the future land use map with pictures of the detailed schedules on them.
Here is the agenda of the meeting: View this photo
Powerpoint slides used at the meeting:
Download Tavares_Comp-Plan-committee_presentation_10.30.19
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