Protecting Mount Dora
What does history and change mean in 2022?
Mount Dora voters will decide Nov. 8 on amending the city’s charter to restrict building heights to 35 feet downtown and 25 feet on its lakefront in the so-called “building heights district.” A Yes vote would restrict any future changes to building heights in these areas to another citizen vote changing the charter, preventing city council from making those changes through its land development code. (In that process, changes are achieved through the ordinance process, which includes two public hearings and council vote.)
The amendment is the result of petition drive in summer 2021 which led to the formation of a building heights committee; with some modification for legality, the committee recommended to council that the amendment go forward, and council this year put it on the ballot.
Signs have gone up around town both in support and opposition to the measure, with extensive conversation on social media channels like Facebook and NextDoor. A forum on the amendment sponsored by Citizens For Progress (the PAC in opposition to the measure) will be held in the Community Center at 6 PM Thursday, October 20, and everyone’s invited to participate.
“Protect Historic Mount Dora” is a popular slogan in this town, but it’s not clear how well the underlying issues are understood. What is the substance behind the emotion?
This is what I found.
Fall slowly and almost imperceptibly comes to Mount Dora: night lingers into the early morning, and afternoons dim at dinnertime.
Summer was hot — July’s inferno was the hottest in years — a sear that seemed to ignite events. A 10-foot gator somehow lumbered up on the Palm Island boardwalk by Lake Dora to feast on some unlucky bird just as a walker was venturing by. Police closed the boardwalk overnight, reminding residents that a few things still belong to Florida’s wilder side of town.
A few days after a shooter in suburban Chicago opened fire on residents who had gathered for Fourth of July parade, Mount Dora police got into a shootout with an 18-year old Deltona resident on a three-county sprint from cops looking into his father’s disappearance (the young man was later charged with murder). The man crashed his pickup truck into the Traditional Congregation of Mount Dora synagogue on Donnelly and began shooting at the police cruiser that had boxed him in. Police returned fire, hitting the man three times. Residents up Ninth Avenue recall the shots — a dozen pop pop pops — before the skies filled with news station helicopters. The synagogue’s northwest corner is still wrapped in brown tarp from where the chase ended.
Inflation kept heating up all summer. Shoppers at Publix hunkered down to make their weekly purchases, trying not to notice six-dollar bags of potatoes and eleven-dollar packages of bacon. Gas prices at the pump shot to the stars, slowly circled back down and began rising again.
All that heat beating down must have affected roofs in Mount Dora, because on every block one and then two or three houses were getting new roofs. Insurance fraud by roofing contractors, some claim; others said their insurance companies were playing hardball on policy renewals. Whatever the case, 21-nailgun salvos punctuated many afternoons.
In August, residents got an awful dose of sticker shock when they received their utility bills. The cost of natural gas has skyrocketed, utility companies are passing the burden on to customers. After some very heated public comment from irate residents, council debated issuing a $50 statement credit for residential customers (and $100 for commercial accounts) for three months. But at their next meeting on Sept. 2, a representative from Lake Community Action informed them that residents with financial need can apply to them for relief of up to $5,000 for utility bills. Council took no further action — for now. For business and residents not meeting the criteria for aid were left to turn up thermostats or burn their bank balances. (1)
The Mount Dora Hurricanes got off to a rough season, losing to Mount Dora Christian in their season opener and again the next week to the Deltona Wolves. But they beat Leesburg in a squeaker 33–32, and came from behind to beat South Lake 48–47. Mount Dora running back Dante Johnson-Turner had 33 caries for 258 yards in that game, an accomplishment which got him named SBLive’s National Athlete of the Month. The next week he rushed for six touchdowns against Umatilla, helping the Hurricanes to a 45–36 win and a 3–2 season. It’s been a long time since the team’s three championship seasons in the 1950s, but fans can only hope.
For real hurricanes, the season was becalmed — flat, almost eerily so — all the way from June through August, with every developing system launched from the west coast of Africa spiraling up and off like one of Mary Poppins’ umbrellas. One finally reached Puerto Rico as Hurricane Fiona, but after drowning the U.S. territory and shutting off all the lights, more of that crosscurrent pixie dust lifted the storm up and away from us here.
And then came Ian, the hurricane Florida has always feared. It tracked like 2004’s Charley, first predicted to hit up in the Big Bend and slowly sliding down the state as descending counties issued urgent warnings. Tampa Bay was utterly freaked out, issuing evacuation warnings in the direst terms; then it was Sarasota; then it was Fort Myers. The storm finally locked horns with the state there with winds a breath shy of Cat 5 strength, sending in a 12 foot storm surge, ripping apart beachside condos and marinas and trailer parks before marching inland. Fortunately for us the storm stayed south. Our rainfall total of about 8 inches doubled not 20 miles away, and the wind field wasn’t big enough to knock over trees or take out power.
Blessedly, the passing storm ushered in a cool front, blessing mornings with 60-degree temperatures and halcyon blue skies. Halloween decorations began appearing behind mountains of yard trash.
It’s now election season. If you haven’t seen the ballot, it’s a doozy, four pages long and with races to decide at the local, county, state and national level. The tally which includes Florida governor, US senator, US house representative, state senate and house reps, county commissioner and Mount Dora council. Adding to the line-up are state supreme court judgeships to ratify and proposed constitutional amendments to decide.
Here in Mount Dora, two council members are unopposed for reelection (Cal Rolfson in District 2 and at-large representative Doug Bryant), and the District 3 seat is contested by newcomer Dennis Dawson and Mark Slaby, who was an at-large rep on council in 2015–17.
The very last item on the ballot is one most people in Mount Dora seem to be excited about, proposed amendment to the city’s charter that would lock in building heights downtown and on the lakefront. Signs in support and opposition to the amendment blanket Mount Dora (weirdly, they are about the only yard signs you see, except in the contested third district — none of the statewide or congressional seats.)
If you go on the count of signs urging a “Yes” vote versus signs in support of “No,” it’s easy to conclude that passage is a foregone conclusion. “Yes” sure has a winning slogan — Protect Historic Mount Dora. Who wouldn’t support that? But often times the substance behind slogans gets more complicated (think Make America Great Again). Since the amendment may lock out development downtown and is a vote of no confidence in the functioning of council, it does deserve a closer look.
First, some history.
Although building heights have been a contentious issue for years in Mount Dora, the city’s land development code has restricted them to 35’ downtown and 25’ for the city’s lakefront) for the past 30 years.
The original reason for the height limit, as I understand it, had more to do with safety than any desire to protect history, as 35 feet was the limit that fire ladders and hoses could reach.
Back in 2010, the city sponsored and Envision planning process, where citizen and city staff worked together to form a comprehensive look at how the city should grow in the next 10–20 years. (A downloadable copy of the Envision Plan can be found at http://www.envisionmountdora.org/)
Two things stand out in the study: the desire to have a dynamic and attractive downtown core, and a better way to link downtown with its lakefront. Plans for the downtown included a vibrant streetscape, pedestrian mall on 4th Avenue and improved parking. Preservation of the city’s historic character was a priority while also creating opportunities for mixed-use infill providing views of Lake Dora.
For the lakefront, the plan recommending developing the wooded 4.3-acre Pineapple Point property into a mixed-use destination for shopping, retail, restaurants, hospitality and the arts. An amphitheater and renovation of the marina were also in the plan. Current park use for the remaining lakefront, including the Gilbert Point boat ramp and walkway, Paradise Island boardwalk and Gilbert Park would remain as they are.
(Back the 1990s, a developer had tried to get clearance to build 30 condominiums at Pineapple Point, but operators of the Lakeside Inn fought it, saying it would violate a clause in the city’s growth plan protecting historic structures. The developer eventually abandoned the project.)
Other possible areas for long term development included a Highland Avenue business district, expansion of Grandview Avenue into the Northeast Community and development of the Golden Triangle Shopping area at the city’s western entrance.
Building heights were a contentious issue even back then, because while the envision plan saw the need for downtown development (and revising the code about building heights), it respected the sensitivities about the issue. This, from the final plan document:
Mount Dora should consider modifying its existing citywide 35-foot height limit in the downtown district and specific areas adjacent to the district. While this limit helps maintain the small scale quaint “village feel” that many people value, it presents a critical constraint on the ability of the downtown to sustain its long-term economic vitality. Downtown Mount Dora should not be home to very tall buildings, and the market is not likely to be there in the future for multi-story commercial office or medical buildings.
But the vision for additional residential development in and around the downtown core area cannot be realized with the current height limit, and the potential for waterfront views offer an attractive opportunity for new investment in the City. Therefore, a strategic and limited adjustment to this height limit appears warranted to promote new economic investment that would help City residents realize a more diversified downtown. The City should consider increasing the height limit to 50–60 feet in areas such as: Pineapple Point, the north side of the railroad tracks between Baker Street and Tremain Street and the former Grower’s Cooperative site on South Highland Street These areas represent potential market-driven opportunities for greater density of development and investment that could be key ingredients toward helping downtown Mount Dora capitalize on its unique location and iconic image. The height limits should remain in place for all other areas, with possible exception for the Golden Triangle district as part of the mixed-use zoning design.
A few years later, in late 2012, the city was considering mixed-use development in four areas — Pineapple Point, the property at the end of Tremain, the Golden Triangle Shopping Center and the property on South Highland that was the old Growers’ Co-Op. Based on direction form the city’s Economic Development Advisory Committee and Envision Plan (which was adopted by Council in 2012), the planning department under Mark Reggentin was going through the process of changing the Comprehensive and Land Development plans to allow for mixed-used development in those areas.
It was the Pineapple Point property which had some folks in town worried, as there had been talk of building a convention center there. During mixed-use workshop in January 2013, many on council voiced concern that building height provisions in the mixed-use designation was a slippery slope that could lead to a significant change in the complexion of downtown. Despite assurances from Reggentin and then-city attorney Cliff Shepard that such changes could not happen without legislation from council, the wary mood persisted. As a result, council changed the language in the mixed-use ordinance to restrict taller building heights to Highland Avenue and the Golden Triangle Shopping center, adding language restricting applicants from using adjacent land uses which differ from theirs as justification for a change.
Building heights came up again in 2015 with the Epix Theater development next to Target and Wal-Mart. The large screens in the buildings topped 50 feet. The developer requested a variance in the C3 zone (the US-441 commercial corridor) the site was located, and it went to council. Even though C3 zoning doesn’t affect building heights downtown, some members of council argued heatedly against setting a precedent.
As Mount Dora continued to grow as a popular destination, traffic congestion continually worsened. Consultants were hired to recommend fixes and all pointed to the need for some kind of parking garage. In April 2021, the city’s Development Review Committee approached the citizen Planning and Zoning Commission about options to enable increased building heights downtown to allow for a mixed use development that would feature a parking garage, some retail and a restaurant on the top floor.
Council debated and approved rezoning of a downtown parcel to a mixed-use category that would allow for a five-story structure, two of which were underground. Some residents felt that the city was acting against the historic character of the downtown, and several contentious meetings followed.
As a result, the city formed a 13-member Building Height Advisory citizen committee. They developed a “Business Height Impact District” including downtown and the city’s lakefront. In addition to recommendations for building heights, it outlined tests which must be met for a property owner to get a maximum five-foot variance. The variance, the committee recommended, should require a “supermajority” approval by the full council.
Meanwhile, a separate group led by then-mayoral candidate Crissy Stile sponsored a petition drive to put the current height limitation for downtown building and the lakefront in the city’s charter. They were successful, getting far more than the required 10 percent of registered voters’ signatures, about 2,100 in all.
It was up to council to decide whether to do so. There were lingering questions about the legality of the amendment (it takes away due process for business owners looking to expand in the covered areas), and the language itself required adjustments for a ballot initiative. Although supporters of the amendment wanted a ballot initiative in 2021 (an off year for most other ballot items), it was decided to hold the decision off until the busier 2022 election cycle.
In preparation for council’s final vote, planning director Vince Sandersfeld surveyed downtown business owners to gauge their sentiment on the issue. Out of 153 respondents (30% of which were business owners downtown) opinion was evenly split on such questions as, “Do the proposed restrictions on building height help maintain Mount Dora’s architectural uniqueness, historic character, and protect existing neighborhoods and views?” and “Do the proposed restriction on building height adversely impact architectural designs, land values and economic development in downtown Mount Dora.” Even in the question about the respondent’s preferred building height downtown, half voted for 35’ and half voted for None.
In June, council voted 5–2 to put the charter amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot. (Council members Doug Bryant, John Cataldo, Nate Walker, vice-mayor Marc Crail and mayor Crissy Stile voted to approve the ordinance; Austin Guenther and Cal Rolfson voted against.)
If passed on Nov. 8, the city’s charter will be amended to state that building heights downtown can be no higher than 35 feet and 25 feet within 100 feet of Lake Dora. By placing it in the charter, the normal process for revisions to the land development code by two readings and public comment by a majority vote of registered voters.
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To help inform voters, two political action committees have emerged with opposing positions on the initiative.
Protect Historic Mount Dora
Jay Smith is chairman of Protect Historic Mount Dora, the political action committee (or PAC) that is leading the charge to get voters to the polls to vote Yes on the charter amendment. He and I met on Sept. 20 at One Flight Up in downtown. With it too hot for coffee, he and I both sipped Arnold Palmers, a delightful concoction of iced tea and lemonade.
Jay is your Mount Dora citizen in action, passionate about historic preservation (he owns and has fully renovated a 1925 house on MacDonald) and earnest for passage of the amendment.
“I never got involved in local politics, but when the old orange grove across from the Christian Academy was sold for 28 houses (changing the code to accommodate smaller lots & more houses), I got interested,” he says. “What’s that going to do to traffic on 11th ?”
Then came word of the proposed change to allowed building heights downtown. He joined a core group of citizens in opposition to the move and helped lead a petition drive to place an amendment on the 2021 ballot to lock building heights downtown and on the lakefront in the city’s charter.
While he acknowledges that these limits are already in the land development code, “putting it in the charter solidifies it. The code can be changed by a vote of council. Then if anyone wants to put in something taller than the present limitations, it would take a citizen vote to change it. It puts the decision in the hands of the voters.”
The petition drive overshot its goal by a healthy margin. Although the charter amendment failed to make the 2021 ballot due to legal wrangling, the city formed a building heights committee and council eventually approved their recommendation to put it on the 2022 ballot.
It was the same core group who let the petition drive who created the PAC. “We figured we had to get the word out to get people to vote,” he says. “We found out that if you spend more than $500 in support of a ballot initiative, you have to form a PAC. You have to account for every penny that goes in and out. You also have to say what you’ll do with any remaining money.” (Protect Historic Mount Dora will contribute any money left from the campaign the Mount Dora Historic Society.)
They have printed and distributed yard signs and sent out a mailer; another mailer is planned.
”We’re a grass roots kind of group, figuring things out as we go along.”
Smith said it was a misconception that they oppose a parking garage downtown and any further lakefront development. “If it passes, there’s nothing in it that prohibits a parking garage, as long as its 35’ high, similar to Winter Garden,” he says. “And we can still develop the lakefront — it would be great to have shops or restaurants, as long as they don’t go over 25 feet.”
“Parking will remain a problem,” he says. “If there’s a big lot or parking garage, what’s to keep all the traffic from getting snarled there? All of the neighborhoods & historic homes close to downtown would be impacted by it.”
“You’re never going to stop progress,” Smith says. “Any of these developments are going to have an impact on downtown, which is already crowded. When you go down Donnelly now, it’s like a cul-de-sac, you get stuck there. Before we do any more development, we really need to look at traffic and how to get it in and out of town.”
I asked him if citizens already have elected representatives on city council to make these decisions, why bypass them in this case and put it in the charter? “Well, for example, I used to be in District 3 before redistricting,” Smith says. “To be honest, my representative did not share my views. Our elected officials don’t represent everyone’s views.”
As we concluded, I asked him what he thought the outcome would be. “Our job now is to try to inform the public as best we can and let them decide,” he said. “If we lose this, that’s fine, and if we win, that’s great — good on us for getting the vote out.”
Protect Historic Mount Dora has a Facebook page titled Preserve Historic Mount Dora.
Citizens for Progress
A second PAC called Citizens for Progress is taking the opposite position and asking residents to vote No on the amendment. With so much popular support for the Yes vote, Citizens for Progress is facing a long uphill battle, but they feel their position is important and voters should hear them out before making up their mind at the polls.
Joe Lewis, who owns the Mount Dora Boating Center on Lake Dora, leads the PAC, and former mayor and council rep Cathy Hoescht is the group’s treasurer. I met with both in to hear out their position.
Citizens for Progress argues five main points:
1. The building height charter amendment will foster stagnation of the historic downtown.
Renewal is vital to maintain relevance and remain a place where people want to visit and live. Mount Dora began a transformation in the early 1990s. It needs to continue. If a city does not grow, it decays and withers.
2. The amendment limits our ability to grow the commercial tax base, something which may cause individual property taxes to increase. Costs for city services continue to rise. Future city councils, faced with higher costs and a limited commercial tax bases, will have to raise property taxes. The amendment can make new construction financially unfeasible and allows elected officials to shirk their responsibility to decide what is best for Mount Dora on a time-sensitive basis.
3. The amendment leaves Mount Dora without a parking solution. Denial does not solve the problem and this amendment limits affordable solutions. Surface parking is not the answer. Lower structures require a larger footprint and enough well-located land is not available. With appropriate height and an aesthetic design, adequate parking can be attained.
“Winter Garden is building a two-story parking garage, but what you have to remember is that they have a lot of land to work with,” Hoescht says. “What people forget is that if you stand at Fourth Avenue and Donnelly and look around, where do we have any piece of land anywhere downtown that could even come close to being big enough to provide something like that and the mobile access needed for visitors and residents?”
“The parking garage proposed for Mount Dora’s downtown was five stories,” Hoescht continued, “but two of them were underground. The general public didn’t know that. The total planned height was 47 feet. Here was a footprint that would have allowed 500+ parking spaces plus mixed use — residential, retail, even a restaurant up top. Council passed an ordinance allowing 55’ height for the garage, and that’s when citizens got involved and discussion ended on the parking garage. The project was never fully vetted. It became a rallying call for those opposed to development downtown.”
4. The charter amendment will reduce public enjoyment — dining, retail shopping and residential living — at the waterfront. Ever since the city developed its Envision Plan in 2010, the city’s waterfront has been seen as a wasted opportunity. There isn’t much connection between downtown and the waterfront.
“Mount Dora is a wonderful town built on the side of a hill that overlooks a beautiful body of water,” Lewis said. “It’s the most unique place in Florida, there is no other place like it. Why shouldn’t our building codes be just as unique? We have a topography here that allows for taller buildings close to the water, because as you look up the hill you can see over the top. of them. Why don’t we utilize that?”
Where there is sufficient lakefront in the city’s parks department for walking and boating, the four-acre Pineapple Point next to Elizabeth Park and the Lakeside Inn has for years been seen as a candidate for some form of development. Mount Dora has no large scale meeting space since Lake Receptions closed, and a convention center there would help meet that need. Another development plan puts in retail, restaurants and condos. But neither of these is possible if a 25’ height limit within 100 feet of the waterline is locked into the city’s charter.
Ironically, structures already in the vicinity — the Lakeside Inn and Mount Dora Boating Center — already exceed the land development code limit of 25’ lakeside and under the charter amendment would be grandfathered in. But the marina is already at capacity and needs to expand. We’re seeing larger boats now on Lake Dora, but I don’t have the height capacity needed to store them,” said Lewis.
“I would love to see Mount Dora be able to take everything that’s happening downtown and connect it to the waterfront,” he continued. “It would spark a renewal and guarantee Mount Dora’s prosperity for two or three decades.”
5. The charter amendment is bad public policy. Mount Dora’s land development code has successfully regulated building heights downtown for 40 years. There has been no new building construction downtown since 1996. By putting building heights in the charter, it limits the ability of future city leaders to decide what is best for the city on a real-time, case-by-case basis.
“The way it currently works,” Hoescht explained,”if a property owner or business needed a variance that might exceed that 35 foot limit, there was a process in place with a lot of steps to go through. In doing it, you had to a chance to speak to peers (planning and zoning or the historic preservation board). You could make an argument why you need the variance, and because each circumstance is different, each level could make a decision. Only rarely has council ever acted contrary to those decisions, and I can’t think of any in the past 30 years. It provided the individual his rights as a property owner to take it through the process.”
“A city charter should never take away someone’s rights,” she said, “and this amendment takes away the right of due process for downtown property owners.
Lewis and Hoescht understand the widespread popularity of the Yes coalition and the uphill battle they face making their case for No. To that end, they plan a public forum on Oct. 20 starting at 6 PM in the community center to help make their positions more widely known and invite dialogue with their peers across the so-called aisle. (Organizers for Protect Historic Mount Dora have said they would not participate, since voters already know enough about the issue.)
What happens if voters decide No is the better course? “With a no vote on the amendment, we go back to council and say, you started off with a great process,” Lewis said. “You created this building heights committee to really study it. But you didn’t really give it the time to really do its work. It didn’t have the time to really vet the issue of 35’-25’. Why are they right, or why aren’t they right? Let’s really find out.”
If you want to find out more about Citizens for Progress, check out their website at <mountdoracitizens.com>.
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The building heights district is located in the Third District, so I contacted the two candidates running for the open seat by email for their positions. Both support the charter amendment and there isn’t much air between them.
Mark Slaby has been on council before, as one of the at-large reps in 2015–16. (Since, council terms have lengthened to four years, and the number of at-large reps was reduced to 1 as district maps were redrawn to make room for the new district 5, represented by Nate Walker.) He responded,
I support the decision the voters will make. My record shows very clearly that I have fought to preserve the character of downtown for decades — getting the parking garage project killed that would have been the end of Lawn Bowling as we know it, making sure the 60 foot height allowance for the Epic Theatre was not applied to downtown, or my efforts to ensure a future for our town’s tree canopy. My position on preserving the character of downtown is strong and has not changed.”
Newcomer Dennis Dawson lists a 25-year background in change management in his resume for the job. He responded:
When we bought our house in Mount Dora six years ago, it was the historic charm and character of downtown that drew us to Mount Dora.
I support YES. I have supported the building height restrictions since signing the petition last year. I currently have a YES sign in my front yard and contributed personally to the YES Campaign. As I go door to door for my campaign, I let voters know that I support the YES amendment and listen to their concerns. In talking to supporters on both sides and researching the history of what brought us to this point, I still support YES.
I think the people of Mount Dora should decide, not council members who are supported or swayed by one side or the other.
I support smart growth in Mount Dora. That means economic growth and development that has citizen input and is tied to a strategic plan looking at long-term priorities and needs of the community to move forward without damaging the character of Mount Dora. It also means we need to ensure we have infrastructure (streets, water, sewer, electricity) capabilities of the city and region to support the growth.
Asked how they differ from the opponent on the charter amendment, Slaby did not respond and Dawson wrote, “How does this I have stood firm from the beginning on the YES amendment. As someone living in Mount Dora for six years, I bring a fresh set of eyes to approach issues, I am not beholden to anyone and I am not associated with any special interest. Also, I feel residents may feel confident with my experience in conflict resolution and collaboration.”
I also spoke with Cal Rolfson, the City Council member who has served the second district since 2014 and begins his next term (now for four years) in November.
“This amendment is a solution looking for a problem, he says. “There have been no variances on the land development code restricting building heights downtown for two and half decades.”
According to Rolfson, there have been several studies seeking to respond to the public clamoring for a parking garage. “I believe the city dearly needs one. Virtually everyone to whom I have spoke and who has contacted me agrees with this need. The issue is cost to taxpayers to build one vs. keeping the status quo and letting residents and guests struggle for our limited parking space availability. The struggle is and will continue to get worse over time.”
The city has spent thousands of taxpayer dollars in consultant fees trying to study the issue. Depending on issues like design quality, building height, and location, parking garage costs range from $20,000 to $30,000 per parking space. “It doesn’t take long to spend 10 to 20 million dollars for adequate space,” he says. “It can be done now under our current Lake Development Code — but likely will not occur with passage of a ‘Yes’ vote, unless the parking garage is located outside of the Historic District, and that means blocks of walking to get to downtown.”
One solution that was informally presented to the City Council for review a few years ago was a public/private partnership concept that would have involved NO taxpayer dollars (except for an initial donation of available land). It included over 400 public parking spaces, public meeting rooms, boutique retail shops and residential condos generating tax dollars for the city. However, before it was ever officially considered, it was pulled from consideration by the developer, because of the clamor that it exceeded the current 35' building height by about 7 feet.
“If the ‘Yes’ vote prevails in the November election,” Rolfson says, “it ls likely no parking garage could ever be build anywhere close to downtown.”
Rolfson had recently seen a rough draft of a proposed “Pineapple Point Village” development along the Lake Dora waterfront that would include shops, condos, boat ramps, restaurants and convention facilities.”
The current Land Development Code restricts building height to 25' along 100' of the lake shore. It takes consideration by the Council to waive that restriction. Everything would still need to be approved by the City’s Historic Preservation Board for compliance with Historic standards.
“Such an addition to the historic district would likely bring in millions of tax dollars for the city and tax relief for city homeowners,” he says. “However, a ‘Yes’ vote would permanently squelch that opportunity because any consideration of any variance is removed from Council under the election proposal.”
Long a proponent of home rule (he has been a member of The Florida League of Cities for 8 years and is a six-time recipient of the League’s Home Rule Hero award) Rolfson is an advocate of local voices making local choices. This has been an uphill battle in Florida, where the state legislature has worked tireless to restrict decision-making at the local level. To him, the charter amendment is another way restrict home rule, for it eliminates city council’s role in making changes to the land development code.
“The City Council has always been responsible in its respect for our downtown Historic Standards and our Land Development Code ordinances,” he says. “The Petitioners who have advanced this amendment may see a boogie man where one doesn’t exist and never has. The Petitioners want to turn the city into a type of New England Town Hall meeting concept of government, taking governmental development decisions out of the hands of their elected council representatives and requiring any modification of the Petitioner’s plans to go back to the voters on any development height decisions in the downtown area — a guarantee that any responsible development affecting height limitations will never occur without a further vote of the city electors. All at a taxpayer cost of nearing $25,000 per election.”
Development is coming meltingly fast to the city.
As city planning director Vince Sandersfeld reported to council on Oct. 4, there are currently 52 projects underway in the Innovation Center, downtown, throughout and around the city. Twenty-two of them are nonresidential commercial projects, eight of which are in permitting and will start building early next year.
Some of the big Innovation Center projects are huge. Last December, Richland Communities acquired 550 acres east of Round Lake Road and South of SR 46 for mixed uses such as medical office, commercial, warehouse/distribution, light industrial, higher education, and multifamily residential. In July, RH Development Group/Paramount Development LLC submitted a pre-submittal application to Lake County for the 14.10 acre Round Land Highway Project on the northeast corner of SR46 and Round Lake, to include 70,000 square feet of retail, a gas station and 280 units of multifamily dwelling. And in August, Amco Development annexed 36 acres to the city for the Mount Dora Hills project, a large complex for residential, senior living, multifamily residence, office, commercial, retail, commercial, restaurants, a boutique hotel and underground parking garage.
On the residential side, 1500 new units are in various planning stages and will take about five years to build out. They include Indian Springs (406 units), Wekiva Hills (442 units) Dora Landings (129 units), Timberwalk (367 units), Donnelly Woods (166 units), Juniper Townhouses (266 units) and Villages of Loch Leven (125 units).
For restaurants, we’re getting a Longhorn Steakhouse, Miller Alehouse and Culvers. Adding to the retail portfolio: a Dollar Tree, Christian Brothers Automotive, two Holiday Inn Express and a Hilton Home2.
With all these projects moving to the front burner, the city’s annual budget is ballooning. For the 2022–23 fiscal year starting in October, the adopted budget is $218 million and change, a staggering increase from the 2021–22 budget of nearly $158 million, which as up from $126 million from 2020–21. (Back in 2012, the city’s annual budget was $43 million.)
The bulk of the increase is due to burgeoning development projects and upgrades to existing infrastructure. But, as the city’s information officer Vershurn Ford put it to me, “Many factors go into the increase of a budget. While construction projects can increase a budget, it is important to note inflation, staffing increases, materials increases, and basic economic principals would all serve as normal accretion for budget growth.”
Significant increases are attributable to the wastewater 1 treatment plant project (paid for, in part, by a grant and a State Revolving Fund loan), a construction project for the Community Resource Center in the Northeast Community Redevelopment Area (paid for by NE-CRA funds), the big Public Works complex project (an $18.7 million increase) and extensive drainage project funded through grants and the storm-water fund.
Ford also reminded me that revenue comes with new development. “Each of the new developments in the city limits are required to pay Impact Fees which serves services expansions,” Ford told me. “This includes Park Impact Fees, Fire and Police Impact Fees, Library Impact Fees, Sewer Impact Fees and Water/Wastewater Impact Fees.” And as Cal Rolfson explained to me, added revenue from new property taxes helps the city avoid passing on the increased cost of doing business to residents via their millage rate.
There are also 13 planned Lake County projects for future city annexation. One of the doozies the Mount Dora Groves, an 800-plus house development that will straddle 441, occupying the remaining Simpson groves near the Loch Leven Publix. (It’s an area large enough, by square footage, to fit “73 Super Wal-Marts,” as city attorney Sherry Sutphen put it in at the Sept. 27 council meeting.) The city had first been approached by the Groves’ developer, but they withdrew their application to the city following harsh reaction to the proposed development at a town hall meeting. (The city’s strict and protective land development code may have also been a factor.) Some celebrated here in Mount Dora, but the Northeast CRA will lose significant property tax revenue as a result.
Soon after, the developer applied to Lake County for the Groves deal. (Lake County has a joint planning agreement or JPA with Mount Dora). Lake County Commission recently had a reading of the ordinance to annex property for Mount Dora Groves. As Cal Rolfson pointed out to me, the Mount Dora Groves development plan filed with county doesn’t include annexation to Mount Dora. Mount Dora council agreed recently to ask the city attorney submit a letter to the Lake County commission reminding them Mount Dora can proceed with annexation and allow them to work out their issues with the developer.
The Mount Dora’s land development code has an extensive checklist of standards for ANY development that are higher and more protectively restrictive than the county’s code, in order to protect the property values of all of Mount Dora. “That checklist is comprehensive and amounts to multiple dozen of comprehensive standards in order for developers to make it through the approval process,” Rolfson says. “Therefore it’s critical that we continue to empower our elected officials to make decisions relevant to it.”
Do citizens have a say in all this development? Yes and no. As Rolfson explained to me, landowners have every legal right to develop their property as long as they satisfy every applicable standard in the city’s land development code. If the Planning and Zoning commission determines that they have, they may recommend to council to approve the development. What then follows are two public hearings. Citizens have the chance to speak up in them, and if there are significant concerns — traffic or parking impacts, say — the developer can be asked to address those items before it goes to council for a vote. As long as every ordinance provision has been fully satisfied would be hard pressed to legally deny it.
Putting downtown/lakefront height restrictions in the city’s charter may feel like to bypass council decision-making in this, but desire for a future charter amendment capping growth in a similar way elsewhere in Mount Dora would face significant legal hurdles.
I’ve been out of circulation from city politics and events for a while, but back in 2015–16 former mayor Mel Demarco and I contributed to a hyperlocal news site named Mount Dora Citizen. When that effort folded, I moved most of my stories to this Mount Dora Topics site, named after the city’s weekly newspaper run illustriously by Mabel Norris Reese in the 1950s and Al Liveright from the mid-‘70s into the ’80s. The paper then slowly withered away and is now the Triangle News Shopper.
Back then in 2015, a streetscaping project in downtown that replaced some aging oak trees with palms came under fire from citizens. Some formed a coalition titled Save Our Oaks and rallied around a slate of candidates running for council office. They were committed to preventing the city from removing another oak tree, healthy or no. (One candidate showed his affiliation posing next to a big oak on his campaign website.)
It was a popular issue, and the candidates won all their races. But instead of launching an aggressive campaign to address the city’s aging canopy, they used their mandate to take a plate of grievances and hurled them against city hall. “Heads will roll,” as the new mayor told supporters. In short order, the city manager and city attorney were both out of a job. A number of department heads and staff also resigned, seeking sensible work in city government elsewhere. Chaos resulted, and it was years before the city could form a coherent (if poorly budgeted) policy on care of its canopy. A tree committee has been proposed to council, but it has yet to be formed. Meanwhile, the state legislature passed a law stating that cities could not prevent property owners from removing any tree on their property not on the parkway owned by the city.
“Save Our Oaks” was a powerful motto, but what resulted didn’t have much to do with the city’s trees.
I do wonder if “Save Historic Mount Dora” has the same potency for trouble. While the name is compelling, the issues are complex and voters are not as well-informed or motivated to vote as they were here years ago. Back in the 1950s, Mabel Norris Rees wrote lengthy articles about issues council was debating and lavished column inches interviewing candidates. Everyone read “Their Topic” — the weekly newspaper — and voted. In one council election in the late 1950s I read about in the newspaper’s microfilm archives (available at the Mount Dora public library), the turnout was more than 80 percent. Mount Dora will be lucky to see 20 percent show up at the polls this November.
And without any dedicated local news channels (Trish Morgan’s Mount Dora Buzz is more event- and business-focused, but she did a good job summarizing the charter amendment here), the bulk of the communication has been relegated to social media, primarily Facebook and NextDoor, the least trustworthy channels for reliable information. It’s hard to imagine the heyday of Mount Dora newspapering, back in the 1950s when Mabel Norris Reese wrote 8 broadsheet pages local news A to Z, or when the Topic led by Al Liveright had a staff of reporters, photographers and editors, routinely winning statewide journalism contests. Public policy by social media is not a good idea.
I asked former mayor Mel Demarco (and one-time editor of Mount Dora Citizen) for her take and she responded:
I strongly believe this type of limitation belongs where it currently lies, which is in our zoning and land development codes — not embedded within the city’s charter. There are already layers upon layers of protections in place to safeguard the scale, massing, and architecture within the downtown core. In the twenty years I’ve been in Mount Dora, I’ve watched those layers of protection, and the associated processes, work successfully. We have a beautiful downtown, one that every candidate for local office has sworn to protect if they are elected. They’ve done that well.
This charter amendment, if it passes, will not afford future leaders the opportunity to even discuss or consider something new, something we’ve not yet conceived of. That just seems fundamentally wrong. And, frankly, the scare tactics being used to push this forward, and the amount of misinformation being shared relative to the issue is startling.”
Accordingly, I’ve decided to come out from under my rock to write this piece just because of that. Maybe it’s pointless, a long blog post on an issue most people have already decided on and won’t do much to alter the outcome of the election — but like the Jan. 6 congressional commission, the good of our local weal depends on solid foundations for a steadily improving future.
In the fall of 2016, I became interested in an African-American church just outside of town near the intersection of Old and New 441. Mount Zion Primitive Baptist had sat unused for fifteen years and was tilting into oblivion; vagrants had broken windows to sleep in the sanctuary, squirrels were nesting in the piano and termites were eating everything else up.
Built in 1896, it was one the first black churches in town and sat up on top of the hill to the south of the Stoneybrook Publix. (Before that, “arbor” congregants worshipped in the adjacent woods.) It burnt down around 1920, was rebuilt in 1923, and for decades after a congregation worshipped in it two Sundays a month, filling the small wood church with Primitive Baptist song. In the early 1950s, expanding citrus groves encroached and the owners eventually forced the church to be dragged down the hill. Then came the re-routing of SR-441; the church was too close to the highway construction and was moved again to its present location. As change came to Mount Dora, Mount Zion parishioners slowly relocated to Greater Mount Carmel Baptist in Tangerine. The last service in Mount Zion was a funeral for Bobby Torrence around 2000.
I took the initiative to do something, writing a series of articles about the church and leading a fundraiser to rid the building of bugs and secure it for a later renovation effort could be undertaken. A condition report from a structural engineer specializing in historic preservation said the building is in terrible shape — walls falling out, foundation half eaten away, the well not working, the bell up in the tower too heavy for its supports. The report concluded that a big windstorm could easily collapse the entire building.
As we were putting together a non-profit to lead the needed fundraising, the pastor of a church in Deland approached the church’s owner — a sweet elderly woman — about installing a new congregation there. Seeing the best use for a church as a church, she readily agreed. My efforts were set aside. There were plans for renovation work handled by their church members and a pastor from Eustis to preach there twice a month.
Except for the grass getting cut regularly, nothing happened. Work was slow getting started and then COVID hit. Eventually the church in Deland abandoned the project, and there Mount Zion sits. The owner’s son is trying to do something with the building, but the issues are formidable. Aside from needing close to $300,000 in repairs, it has no property to speak of and no parking. It’s outside Mount Dora city limits and at the extreme western boundary of Orange County and way off the radar of historic preservation advocates there. Developments are sprawling up from Tangerine.
I tell this story this because Mount Zion illustrates the crossroads where history and change blur into each other. It’s a favorite landmark for those entering the city on old-441, a quaint old country church that has seen better days. If there was an essential relic of the city’s history in need of preservation, Mount Zion would get my vote. The white community has come out several times in support of saving the old church (I was grateful to be part of one of those). But times change, and now it looks like nothing will save Mount Zion from oblivion. Development is not far.
Other places in Mount Dora have been more fortunate. The city’s historic district, created by resident mandate in the mid-1990s, saved many older structures, both downtown and in surrounding neighborhoods.
I’m not sure that attention has been as deserving downtown. The city’s original black residents were forced to relocate from what became downtown when developers sized up the opportunities in the early decades of the 1900s, relocating them en masse to swampy ground in the city’s northeast, an area that became East Town and later the Northeast Community, next to what became the white shacks of Pistolville. Downtown was largely segregated through the 1950s, with the city’s black residents relegated to the upper balcony of the Princess Theater. Our sense of history is privileged, with great emphasis on downtown and older houses built up through the land boom of the 1920s.
Nor does it seem that downtown merchants embrace the city’s historic character as much as residents who have invested time and money restoring their older homes. I sat on the city’s historic preservation board for several years, and the thorniest issues had to do with businesses looking to expand with an outdoor seating area or new windows who got tangled in the preservation code. My take is that the charter amendment is much more popular outside the business district than within.
Personally, I never sensed much history downtown, just evolving business — small town, yes, but not Old Florida in any recognizeable way. So the ongoing concern (which bewilderingly borders on outrage) about building heights downtown seems to have less to do with history than with preventing economic growth and a growing distrust in city government.
Equally strange to me is why there must a restriction of 25 feet on any lakeside development, what with Pineapple Point the only real candidate for that development where the adjacent businesses (the Lakeside Inn and Mount Dora Boating Center) are both in excess of 40 feet.
And what is so untrustworthy city government that it is necessary to bypass its normal way considering issues like building height through land development code ordinance, a process which has limited heights downtown at 35 feet for three decades? Mount Dora has land development code that is exceptional to a fault, allowing only the best quality new development in its borders. Why degrade council’s ability to maintain it?
Still worse, an amendment restricting how city councils conduct their business comes at a time when the state legislature is doing all it can to inhibit decision-making at the local level — cutting into ordinances on gun control, masking during the pandemic, regulation of business, even tree maintenance. Heck, city governments are even forbidden by state law to explain their position on ballot initiatives like charter amendments. California has become the land of citizen initiatives, beset every election cycle with them. (The 2016 ballot had so many initiatives in it (17 in all) that a 224-page voter guide was mailed out explaining them. The problem with these initiatives is that they are decided by those who least understand them, as was explained in this Nov. 2020 Vox article:
A system that funnels lots of issues, both big and small, directly to the voters leads to bad policy judgments, because under-informed voters don’t have time to research and form opinions on all the issues. It leads to a handicapped legislature that can’t do its job, because large sections of state law are untouchable. (In California, for instance, the legislature has to send many propositions to voters because other propositions have prohibited them from legislating directly.) When a voter-approved initiative is unclearly worded, it can cause years of uncertainty — because the issue can’t easily be sent back to the voters to adjust the wording.
Will this charter amendment set a precedent for future attacks on council functioning, making trees and parks into constitutional issues? (With massive housing development expected on the city’s east side, the power balance on council will begin to shift toward an electorate more sympathetic to issues like infrastructure and schools than Mount Dora’s historic charm).
What is the economic cost to downtown, the lakefront and the city at large by locking its central development in a time capsule that can’t change? Without a parking solution, how much more difficult will visiting Mount Dora become? (No alternative solution has been proposed by advocates for a Yes vote.) With Tavares and Eustis carefully developing carefully their lakefront property, Mount Dora is getting further behind. Do we want downtown to become only historical — not renovated, dated, stuck in time?
These questions make me wish that the proposed charter amendment was given more time for vetting by council and public discussion. If it passes — and social media-fueled public sympathy sure seems like its trending that way — then, as Cal Rolfson put it to me, we are being fitted with a solution in search of a problem. That’s a terrible way to conduct the city’s business, at a time when the focus should be how to better manage the roaring kettle of development projects underway all at once. How do we welcome all the new inhabitants to this city, how can we come up with an inclusive vision for our future? How can Mount Dora deliver best-in-class service to its residents and businesses alike? How to protect its sensitive environmental resources in the face of this development?
Asked to comment for this story on all the development underway throughout Mount Dora, Mayor Stile replied, “Lake County is the third fastest growing county in Florida. Mount Dora is no exception. We are seeing a tremendous amount of both commercial and residential development citywide. Like it or not, the secret is out.”
We call ourselves Someplace Special, but that doesn’t happen by accident. A lot of behind-the-scenes, best-of-class planning is required — now perhaps more than ever.
Back in 1959, Mount Dora was dealing with a host of development issues — better housing was needed in poorer areas of town, sewage treatment was a big problem, drainage was terrible around Lake Franklin and in East Town, parking downtown was insufficient, zoning variances were being sought for new businesses along Fifth Avenue (ticking off nearby residents) and residents of Sylvan Shores were fighting annexation by the city. To top it off, SR-441 was about to move to a belt outside of town, unsettling many downtown business owners. Council needed to act in a big way, and began mulling its first master development plan.
In the Mount Dora Topic’s June 25 issue, editor Mabel Norris Reese wrote about what is important to keep top of mind with development:
Municipal planning, if it is followed logically, does not involve the subject of zoning. It does not provide recommendations only for the best places to establish future businesses. It does not cite only the most logical place for industry.
Municipal planning involves also following through with elimination of eyesores, delapidated housing, unsightly business establishments and misplaced recreational facilities. It involves providing adequate parking where it is now deficient. It recommends steps for beautification.
If municipal planning is to be worth the initial cost of hiring a planner, then it must be prepared to accept the cost of following his recommendations.
Back in 1959, Mount Dora’s population was about 3,000. A small Florida town looking at the spectre of growth on its horizon. Council was looking at economic growth, Reese’s editorial makes it clear there were other, perhaps even more pressing concerns by its citizens.
Today, the Mount Dora Groves development is another example where the city’s interests may seem out of sync with its residents. And as the city builds out toward the Innovation District, the complexion of Mount Dora will change vastly. Do residents have a say in that? Are they even know how much city life is changing? Is the gap growing between what they love about living in Mount Dora and the ways the city benefits from outgrowing that? Locking in building heights downtown may be a pyrrhic victory for those who have deep misgivings about so much change at once. Somehow those who run this town need to figure out how to address that widening gap.
I hope our present or next mayor will revisit the 2010 Envision plan and commit to assessing how far we’ve come and what we need to do next as a city. Because if that work continues to be slighted, eventually we’ll kicking the can down the road to nowhere. Mount Dora won’t collapse into oblivion like its stepchild Mount Zion, but it will fade into another background.
There are many reasons to vote in the upcoming election.
If you aren’t happy with how the Florida State legislature failed to address the property insurance crisis that left so many policy holders in deep water just as Hurricane Ian barreled through, Dennis Baxley is our incumbent Republican state senator running for reelection, and freshman Republican Keith Truenow is running for reelection in the state house. On the other hand, if you support the Republican supermajority in our state legislature, they can always use your vote.
Also running for reelection is Republican governor Ron DeSantis, against Democrat Charlie Crist. Aside from keeping up a spirited culture war to energize a base which includes a future run for the presidency, DeSantis has also taken huge campaign contributions from the energy companies responsible for the spike in your energy bill.
His attorney general Ashley Moody, who’s also running for re-election, has been endorsed by Donald Trump and is actively trying to reverse the state’s privacy clause so abortion can be completely banned in Florida. But then, maybe you aren’t comfortable with the idea of progressive policies returning to Tallahassee — a good reason then for your to vote for her.
If you are unhappy with the Supreme Court ruling on abortion, remember that one of Florida’s US senators Marco Rubio, who is running for reelection, has expressed staunch support of a nationwide ban on abortion.
If you’re angry about the false claims of a stolen presidential election in 2020 and the events leading to Jan. 6, remember that our Republican Congressional representative Michael Walz, who is running for re-election, joined a case just after the election to throw out all the votes for president in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that were cast by Democrats. (Walz and all the other congressional Republicans also voted against increasing FEMA’s budget to deal with Hurricane Ian impacts.)
If you agree or disagree with The Orlando Sentinel’s recent portrayal of the state supreme court “as a political instrument of right-wing ideology that cannot be trusted to uphold the rule of law,” your vote has a say in the retention of five of the state’s supreme court justices. (Three appellate justices are also up for retention on the ballot.)
If you think citizen initiatives are important, know the three statewide ballot initiatives this year all come from the state legislature, which has worked hard to eliminate citizen-led initiatives promoting progressive laws. One of the amendments would eliminate the Constitution Revision Commission a 37-member body which meets every 20 years to propose revisions to the state constitution and is seen by the legislature as another source of citizen ballot initiatives.
Maybe you’re fine with all of that, or don’t care. But if you live in the city’s Third District, you still need to choose who will serve your interests on the next council by voting for Mark Slaby or Dennis Dawson.
And if you care about the ongoing conversation about the balance of history and change in Mount Dora, you will want to work your way all to the end of the ballot and vote Yes or No on the proposed charter amendment.
I hope we are all taking the job seriously. OK, seriously enough.
— David Cohea (djcohea@gmail.com)
Notes
(1) Here in Mount Dora, the power cost charge increased from 6.3 cents per kilowatt hour to 11.5 cents; for an average house using about 1,500 hours per month, that’s an increase of $109. It certainly didn’t help that we had one of the hottest Julys on record, so consumption was already up. According to Steve Langley, the city’s electric utilities director, the city saw an increase of $2-$3 per million BTU in 2021 to about $16 mBTU now. There’s a reserve fund of about $500,000 to absorb the usual increases, but this increase put the city about $1.3 million in the hole. They had to pass the cost on to customers. For the rest of residents and commercial customers, you can a) turn up your thermostats or b) contact utility customer service and request and energy audit to see if there are other ways to save. Come January, the city’s solar farm is expected to come online, providing a savings of about $2 on their power cost charge. Not much; but the city is looking to source larger solar farms in North Florida to add to that supply (and savings).
2. I wrote about Mount Dora’s love of its trees in “A Timbered Choir.” For the chaos that resulted in city hall after the 2015 municipal election, see “What The Sam Hill Happened to Mount Dora?”). For a look at the growing impacts of climate change in Mount Dora, see “Climate Change is Climbing Mount Dora.” And for more about Mount Zion Primitive Baptist, see “A Church n Need With A Yearning Pedigree.”
