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What’s up with Ravaudage at Lee Rd and 17/92?

Dear Fellow Residents,

Last year, your city commission unanimously changed our Comprehensive Plan to remove the possibility for rezoning land for high density residential use (greater than 17 units per acre) (see page 1). We did this exactly to discourage proposals for large apartment buildings such as that under construction in Ravaudage. We also agreed to remove Planned Development zoning from the Comprehensive Plan and to create yet to be defined Mixed Use zoning (think Hannibal Square). So then, what’s up at Ravaudage?

Ravaudage is a 54 acre Planned Development project approved by Orange County in 2011 (see page 279). It consists of approximately 12 acres of land that was de-annexed from Winter Park into Orange County in 2007 and 2008, and approximately 42 acres formerly in Unincorporated Orange County. The developer received entitlements from Orange County for the entire 54 acres in 2011 (see page 279), and then agreed to annex 51 acres into Winter Park in 2012 (see page 256). The annexation agreement calls for the development process to be governed under the Orange County Planned Development Approvals. Ravaudage is being developed under Orange County codes, NOT Winter Park codes. None of this can happen in the rest of Winter Park and your city commission has already unanimously taken action to make sure it does not happen by changing the Comprehensive Plan as referenced above.

The Ravaudage developer received approval from Orange County in 2011 to build certain things (with later minor adjustments from the city), including up to 576 residential units, 388,000 sq ft of commercial, 891,000 square feet of office, and 320 hotel rooms (see page 95).

The commission unanimously approved the 2007 de-annexation 4-0 (one member was absent).

The commission unanimously approved the 2008 de-annexation 5-0.

The commission unanimously approved the 2012 annexation 5-0.

City staff noted that Winter Park had continuously anticipated annexation of this area in our Comprehensive Plan starting in 1976.

The city commission in 2012 unanimously agreed to annex this project into Winter Park to receive the tax benefits, rather than leave this land in Unincorporated Orange County and have the impact of the approved development without the tax benefits.

Again, Ravaudage would have been developed as part of Unincorporated Orange County if Winter Park had not annexed it, and, the entitlements granted in Ravaudage by Orange County are not available anyplace else in our city.

Regards, Pete Weldon
Winter Park Vice Mayor

Posted in Development, Election 2018, Policy.


13 Responses

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  1. Rick Frazee says

    Pete
    That’s nice and with all the variances Ravaudage pick up by de-annexation and then re-annexation the current commission still felt it necessary to give away over $1,000,000. of Winter Park tax dollars to the developer. I think you claimed it was require by annexation documents yet 2 of the 3 commissioners didn’t agree with you, obviously there was room to interpret the documents differently. Why would you and Sprinkle and the Mayor give away our Cities tax dollars?
    PS I’ve still voted for Steve

    • Peter Weldon says

      I explained this in some detail before. The specific roads in question are plated public roads the city assumed responsibility for when the Ravaudage property was annexed. The city agreed to pay for half the cost of improving those roads (and curbs, and sidewalks, and parking spaces, and drainage, etc.) to a high standard, up to the dollar amount in the agreement. From the developer’s point of view, he is contributing half of what he thinks is the city’s full responsibility. In my view this was a reasonable tradeoff. Happy to discuss the details with you.

  2. Doug Palmer says

    Thanks for stepping up and giving us a complete story on Ravaudage.

  3. Michael Galyean says

    Let me get this straight… The Winter Park Commission de-annexed the property, now called Ravaudage, in order for the plans for the current development to be approved under Orange County’s more liberal mixed-use development standards. Then Winter Park Commissioners, 7 years later, have decided to re-annex the property into Winter Park to gain the benefit of the tax windfall from the future development. Do I smell a rotten fish or just shady dealings.

    • Peter Weldon says

      Not quite that simple. The developer acquired 42 acres in Unincorporated Orange County. The commission in 2007 and 2008 (click the links in the post for the minutes to see who was on those commissions) unanimously agreed to de-annex 12 acres. We got what we got, but keep in mind that the developer could have received the same entitlements for the 42 acres from Orange County and we would have been stuck with the impact of the same development, and gotten zero tax dollars.

      There is nothing “shady” about this. It was planned over many years and the entire process was public.

  4. Nancy Ponting says

    Last night after an event at the Farmers market, a friend and I drove thru Ravaudage, because I had shown her a Sentinel article from 2/26. The building there was amazing – in a bad way. I had no idea it was going to be so overbuilt. I live on Lake Killarney and suffer with crazy traffic already. This is going to make it almost impossible to have safe access to 17/92 from my condo because of the additional cars this will bring. I was glad to read that WP was not the one to originally allow this to happen. Although we will get some tax revenue, it will certainly come at a high price. We have a very “common” look now and nothing like what I think of as WP.

  5. Winter Park Serf says

    Meanwhile, in the real world, we sit in Ravaudage watching virtual skyscrapers blot out my view of… anything. Lovely. As a bonus, we get to be nagged on a regular basis by the developer who treats other owners like peasants on his royal lands.

    But it’s not the fault of anybody in Winter Park, they’re fighting against this sort of thing. Yay!

    I see nothing in this story that prevents this same scenario from happening elsewhere. De-annex property, let developer operate under Orange County rules, re-annex later in the name of tax dollars and claim hero status for bringing home the bacon to Winter Park while avoiding responsibility for avoidance of those nasty requirements under W.P.’s Comprehensive Plan. We watched it all play out once, I’m sure we’ll see it again…

    • Peter Weldon says

      Not quite that simple. The developer acquired 42 acres in Unincorporated Orange County. The commission in 2007 and 2008 (click the links in the post for the minutes to see who was on those commissions) unanimously agreed to de-annex 12 acres. We got what we got, but keep in mind that the developer could have received the same entitlements for the 42 acres from Orange County and we would have been stuck with the impact of the same development, and gotten zero tax dollars.

      You are correct that there is nothing in the scenario that could prevent a similar situation from happening again, nor is it realistic to believe we could permanently stop development around us unless we all pooled our money, bought all the property bordering current Winter Park city limits and declared it park land. Realistic?

  6. Anonymous says

    Hope we are getting big tax benefits from Ravaudage and from the townhouses going up seemingly everywhere. Otherwise, we are all being inconvenienced with traffic for nothing…

  7. H. Craig DeLongy says

    Thank you Peter for a great explanation of what is going on at Ravaudage. If we would have had a debate for mayor maybe this could of come out to help some uninformed citizens views (including myself).

  8. Tom Miller says

    Thank you for sharing the facts regarding Ravaudage!

  9. Michael O'Shaughnessy says

    thanks for this , as always very helpful- I think the city acted in the right direction helping to remove 57 = rat boxs ( slum lord houses) and an eye sore from our city- what is being developed theer is a good for business’s and the good people of Winter Park!

    MO

  10. Anonymous says

    I hope people take you up on your offer to discuss the details with you. It’s a long story that isn’t easy to describe in print. But it’s important to explain in light of the “diversion of tax dollars to developers” mantra some folks keep hearing. Thanks



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