Oviedo Land Development Code overhaul continues

Emergency temporary shelters after disasters took the forefront of a discussion Oviedo’s land development code on March 13. 

The Oviedo Land Development Committee meeting, which lasted over four hours, featured a second round of discussion on adjustments to Article IV of the city’s development code, which pertains to zoning and regulations. The first round of the Article IV code discussion took place at the committee’s previous meeting on February 21.

Oviedo Community News previously reported on updates to the city’s code in October of last year in which items such as introducing Florida-Friendly Landscaping standards  and reducing parking requirements for developments were addressed. Florida-Friendly Landscaping was a standard established in 1993 that, among other things, sets establishes standards for proper planting, plant types, water requirements, all to and attracting and helping native wildlife. Reducing parking requirements is part of a nationwide push to make cities less car-dependent, with the reduction in minimum parking in new developments ideally supplemented with improved walkability and bike-ability, such as adding bicycle lanes and safer road crossings. 

Prior to this point in 2023, the last time the Land Development Committee had received a major overhaul was in 2006, though amendments had been made as needed over the years. 

That overhaul stems from Kimley-Horn, one of the city’s public works consultants, who previously proposed various updates to the code during Oviedo City Council’s Work Session on Oct. 23, which included changes within zoning districts and regulations.

Code versus emergency plan

The committee also discussed the definition of “temporary residences,” suggesting it potentially include model homes in the case of possible emergency situations such as destruction to homes from natural disasters. 

“We also need to plan, and that was a request from Seminole County, to account for disaster mitigation,” said Oviedo Development Services Director Theresa Correa. “If we had a major disaster, our zoning should allow some temporary shelters so that an emergency order would kick in when approved. Then we would be able to allow that.”  

Correa responded to comments about the location and scale of the hypothetical emergency residences and said that they could be allowed in areas zoned agricultural or industrial since the shelters would only be “temporary” rather than permanent. 

But committee member Stephen Schenck disagreed with the change. 

“This really doesn’t need to be part of code,” Schenk said. “It’s part of the emergency management plan … and putting this all in the plan that says if these things apply, if there’s mass blocks of uninhabitable houses then these areas can be allowed for both public and private …this becomes part of the emergency management plan.”

After some debate, the committee carried a motion unanimously to forgo language in the code pertaining to the issue of mass sites and to address the matter as part of an emergency management plan as opposed to being encoded.

Potential changes to land use designations 

The committee devoted a majority of the first part of the meeting to examining updates to the code’s Table of Permissible Land Use, which shows the standards set for certain land use designations within zoning districts.

According to the Land Development Code, the table’s value of “P” represents that the “use is permissible with a zoning permit issued by Land Use Administrator”, while “S” represents the “use is permissible with special exception permit issued by the City Council.” Any blank section within the table means the use is prohibited. 

For example, the committee considered the idea of switching outdoor recreational activities to special exceptions rather than permissible use, so that organized outdoor group recreational activities would require City Council approval, which is a much longer process than typical permitting. 

Additional potential changes were the inclusion of electric vehicle charging stations in the fuel service station category, allowing for crematoriums in industrial and office commercial zones and even allowing for bed and breakfasts within certain zones. 

The committee also reexamined prohibited uses in the city, including the removal of standalone bars or cocktail lounges from the prohibited list to allow it in some of the zoning districts. 

For now, the final draft remains under discussion as the committee continues to examine the finer points of the city’s code. In her email to OCN, Correa said it’s estimated that the adoption of the new Land Development Code “will occur sometime in August or September 2024”.

The committee will meet with the consultant Kimley-Horn to discuss a list of items pertaining to the new code developments on March 26, which will take place during the committee’s next regular meeting.