The Winter Garden City Commission voted Thursday night to approve the Johns Lake Urban Village PUD, a 613-unit residential development near Marsh Road and Williams Road that drew months of resident opposition and raised questions about how city planning staff handled the review process.
Orlando Shine reported last week that public records showed Planning Director Kelly Carson had asked the developer to write responses to resident objections, forwarded a resident’s formal opposition letter directly to the developer’s personal email, and that the developer’s attorney had submitted significant revisions to the city’s draft rezoning ordinance. At Thursday’s meeting, city staff pushed back on several of those characterizations.
- On the ordinance, Planning Supervisor Shane Friedman told commissioners that city staff wrote the draft ordinance and sent it to the developer as a courtesy review. He acknowledged the developer’s team submitted a redlined version with changes, but said staff did not accept all of them and that nothing material changed. “The developer did not write the ordinance. Staff did,” Friedman said. We’d ask for the two versions so we could compare, but we’ve already been told that staff is “unavailable to respond to individual inquiries.”
- On the school site (one of the key issues residents raised), Friedman said the removal of the 13.65-acre elementary school site was the result of community feedback at a January 2026 meeting, where traffic generated by the school was a primary concern. The school site was replaced with a park to be dedicated to the city. He said a reference to the school site that remained on one plan sheet was a clerical error caught after the Planning and Zoning Board hearing and corrected before the commission vote.
- On traffic, staff presented an updated analysis arguing that regional road improvements, particularly the New Independence Parkway connecting Wellness Way to Avalon Road, anticipated to open in early 2027, would absorb significant traffic that currently uses Marsh Road. The city’s traffic reviewer noted that Schofield Road, which opened last year, had already reduced Marsh Road traffic by an estimated 1,500 to 3,000 daily trips. The developer was made responsible for funding 100% of a roundabout at Marsh Road and Williams Road, upgrades to Williams Road, and contributions toward several other intersection improvements.
As a condition of approval, no certificates of occupancy will be issued for any homes until New Independence Parkway is open and operational, or January 1, 2028, whichever comes first. The development is also capped at 50 units per phase.
The project was approved. More than 60 letters were submitted on the project in total, with 17 of the most recent batch coming in support.
Some of our questions that weren’t answered include:
- On May 8, 2026, Director Carson forwarded a resident’s formal opposition letter directly to Scott Boyd’s personal Gmail and Heather Isaacs’ private email, without going through the City Clerk. What is the city’s policy on forwarding resident correspondence to the applicant? Was this consistent with that policy?
- Planning Supervisor Shane Friedman’s own email from April 21, 2026, states that the developer’s team “made significant changes” to the ordinance and that it was “more prescriptive” than intended. What changes were made, and did those changes require a new review by the City Attorney?
