
Just weeks after the Orange City Council approved an apartment complex on the city’s east side, a developer is looking to take advantage of a new state rule to build another.
“The applicant has proposed a conceptual plan for an affordable housing multi-family development,” reads a summary of the request prepared by the city’s planners.
An Orlando developer, Ben Snyder, is eyeing 39 acres at the intersection of East Rhode Island Avenue and Veterans Memorial Parkway as a prospective site for an as-yet-unknown number of apartments. Snyder, president of Hanover Capital Partners LLC, appeared before Orange City’s Technical Review Committee Dec. 19 to get a feel for what may be required for such a capital project.
The land, situated on the northwest corner of the crossing, is just to the east of the GEL landfill, one of the highest promontory points in Orange City. The acreage has a future land use of Industrial Limited, and it is zoned I-1 (Light Industrial). However, according to a summary from Orange City’s planning staff, the developer intends to use a controversial state law that went into effect last summer to develop the project.
“Multi-family apartments are not a permitted use on this property,” the report said. “The applicant intends to develop the property under the Live Local Act.”
The Live Local Act is a new statute enacted last year by the Florida Legislature intended to address the state’s shortages of affordable housing by giving incentives to landowners and developers to build homes on property zoned for commercial and industrial use. The bill, among other things, “preempts local governments’ requirements regarding zoning, density, and height to allow for streamlined development of affordable multifamily rental housing in commercial, industrial, and mixed-use zoned areas under certain circumstances,” according to a Florida Senate summary.
“It is definitely an active recycling facility,” Orange City Development Services Director Becky Mendez said.
Mendez chairs the Technical Review Committee, a panel of municipal department heads and specialists who carefully scrutinize proposed development proposals for adherence to local, state and federal regulatory standards.
The property’s owner is Rhode Island Avenue Holdings LLC. It is also in an area with bustling potential, as Rhode Island Avenue is destined to be extended eastward over Interstate 4 to link with Deltona, thus providing another intercity connector intended to relieve some of the traffic congestion on Graves Avenue to the north and Saxon Boulevard to the south. The property, and surrounding parcels, may be ripe for infill residential and commercial development.
A prime requirement for the unnamed project to proceed is for the developer to pay to extend Trafford Avenue southward from Shadick Drive to East Rhode Island Avenue.
“We need two access points,” Mendez told Snyder.
One access point to the property would be along Rhode Island Avenue, and the other would be along the extended Trafford. The ingress/egress points must be designed and built to accommodate emergency vehicles such as firetrucks and ambulances.
Other requirements include environmental surveys, such as those needed to determine if endangered, protected or threatened species, such as gopher tortoises or sandhill cranes, are living on the land.
When asked when he may submit a formal application for development, Snyder declined comment.
Last month, the Orange City Council approved Hidden Oaks, a 109-unit apartment complex to be constructed in the 500 block of East Ohio Avenue.