Year: 2022

The Winter Park City Commission is scheduled to vote this coming Wednesday, December 14th, on modifications to the “backyard chicken” ordinance. If you want to approve backyard chickens next to your home I suggest you let the commission know now: mayorandcommissioners@cityofwinterpark.org. The revised ordinance as proposed REMOVES the requirement that applicants obtain written approval for the keeping of chickens on their premises from abutting property owner(s). There was significant push-back when this ordinance was proposed in 2020 that resulted in adding the neighbor approval requirement. Removing it now does not seem wise. Let the commission know your views on this…

The city commission will soon be voting on a proposed lease of the city owned former library building at 460 E New England Ave. The lease terms discussed are 30 years at $250,000 per year for use primarily as office space, this is roughly 2 to 5 times less than tax-payers should be receiving for the property, and neighbors will be severely impacted by increased traffic. The existing building is 33,000 square feet and the property has 68 parking spaces, while our code requires 132 parking spaces for office use. The commission’s request for proposal for the old library property was based…

Your ballot for the November 8, 2022 election includes an Orange County Rent Stabilization Ordinance for your decision. The smart vote is NO. Approval of this ordinance will not result in more affordable housing. It will result in LESS HOUSING. This article provides a real world example of the implications. Recent economic realities make it clear that restricting supply drives competition down and prices up. There are practical ways to realize more affordable housing in central Florida. These include expanding apartment friendly zoning, reducing building fees and regulations, and long term leasing of publicly owned land for private apartment development….

Commissioner Weaver’s initiative to enable short term rentals failed to move forward at yesterday’s commission meeting. Below are thoughts I shared with the commission. Please extend your thanks as well to: mayorandcommissioners@cityofwinterpark.org. Mayor and Commissioners, Thank-you to commission members Cruzada, DeCiccio, and Anderson for declining to pursue a change in our short term residential rental policy. Most telling were the comments by those in support of the changes. Each of them, including Commissioner Todd Weaver (2 years of forbearance is meaningless), has a significant, and some, a professional financial interest in enabling short term rentals in Winter Park. Well, its…

City Commissioner Todd Weaver supports short term AirBNB rentals in Winter Park. This from the July 27, 2022 commission meeting: “Commissioner Weaver – Said he conducted research on short term rentals and found that a Chamber survey revealed the need for more hotels, but he feels more rooms are needed and would prefer that city residents get revenue from room rental versus hotels. He provided information on other agency’s regulations which he consolidated and prepared a proposed ordinance which he provided to Mr. Knight.” Astute observers may recall that Weaver was an “AirBNB Superhost” when he decided to run for…

I was wrong! There is no way Winter Park can have smart, honest elected leadership. The ship of fools is an allegory, originating from Book VI of Plato’s Republic, about a ship with a dysfunctional crew. The allegory is intended to represent the problems of governance prevailing in a political system not based on expert knowledge. The latest confirmation of this reality in Winter Park is the “electric non-rate increase” coupled to an expected four year delay in completion of the city-wide electric undergrounding program. This delay will mean about $20,000,000 in increased undergrounding costs, $10,000,000 of which is a…

The latest issue of the Winter Park Update is a PR masterpiece. We now spend almost $1 million each year to promote the city and the “achievements” of the city commission. I can’t compete with a million dollar PR budget but I can offer a more sober assessment of the “achievements.” This commission has spent or committed over $25 million of new spending, just in the past year. Add to this another $10 million in new electric fees to fulfill their sense of aesthetics and the $12-15 million they project to build a new building for the US Postal Service….

Please ask your city commission again to reverse their vote to impose an electric rate increase to be effective April 1st. They next meet Wednesday, February 23rd at 3:30 PM. They avoided the issue at their last meeting in spite of your prior emails, and there are only three more meetings before April. After further analysis of this 8% rate increase it becomes clear this is a vanity project at the expense of all residential rate payers, including renters, those living in low income housing, and the many thousands of homeowners who already paid to underground their service line. Those…

This question was asked of me in a Facebook post and is worthy of a complete response. I think Progress Point Park would be a great idea if it had a point. They should have named it “Pointless Park” and here is why. Think of Park Avenue and Hannibal Square where there are apartments and condos housing people who frequent the retail, restaurant, and service providers in those areas. What pulls it all together and makes these areas a civic and financial success? The answer is Central Park and Shady Park, providing the open and green space that adds value…

The city commission just approved an average 8% increase effective April 1 for all residential electric customers for the foreseeable future. They did this to pay to underground those private residential electric service lines on private property not already undergrounded. Every residential customer is to pay the added fee, including renters, low income housing residents, and the roughly 65% of residential electric customers who already paid to have their service line undergrounded. The annual increase in the average electric bill will be about $170.00. If your residence already has its local service line undergrounded, you will be paying again to…