Interoffice Memorandum
DATE: May 7, 2025
TO: Mayor Jerry L. Demings and County Commissioners
THROUGH: N/A
FROM: Tanya Wilson, AICP, Director Planning, Environmental, and Development Services Department
CONTACT: Misty Mills, Senior Planner
PHONE: 407-836-5435
DIVISION: Planning Division
ACTION REQUESTED:
title
Outstanding policy issues related to Vision 2050 and Orange County Public Schools. (Planning Division)
body
PROJECT: Vision 2050
PURPOSE: Chapter 163, Florida Statutes requires each local government to evaluate and update its comprehensive plan every seven years. As such, Vision 2050 satisfies Evaluation Appraisal and Review (EAR) based updates to the Comprehensive Plan. Both Vision 2050 and the associated Orange Code updates seek to repeal and replace the existing future land use and zoning maps to accommodate projected growth within the County through the 2050 planning horizon. Following transmittal of the draft Vision 2050 plan to the State Department of Commerce in 2023, Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) expressed concerns regarding the potential impacts to schools that could result from the highest density increases within the Targeted Sector, an area of the County not initially planned for residential growth and where entitlement changes could possibly increase the cost of land acquisition for new schools. Orange County and OCPS staff collaborated in joint meetings for over nine months to seek a resolution to these concerns. Initial agreement was reached related to policy language to limit new residential entitlements within the Targeted Sector to existing levels, provide a process by which new residential entitlements could be activated, and where OCPS would be engaged early in the development review process.
The current matter of discussion with OCPS involves the applicability of Section 704.B.2 of the Orange County Charter to the County’s Vision 2050 EAR Based amendment and Associated Orange Code updates. In November 2004, voters approved an amendment to the Orange County Charter that required certain rezonings or comprehensive plan amendments that increase residential density in an overcrowded school attendance zone take effect only upon approval by each significantly affected local government within the boundaries of the impacted school zone. This Charter amendment required an ordinance to become effective, and the implementing ordinance was adopted in 2006. Following a change in State law in 2019, the Board abated the 2006 ordinance implementing Section 704B.2 of the Orange County Charter in 2020, with concurrency by OCPS.
The purpose of this Work Session is to discuss the outstanding policy issues regarding Vision 2050 and the Orange County Charter. The presentation will provide a brief introduction to Vision 2050’s planning framework, the history of Section 704.B.2 of the Orange County Charter and implementation, and an overview of staff and OCPS’ engagements over the past year, including the draft comprehensive plan language. Staff will also share the proposed policy process and legal implications of the recent request by OCPS to apply the Charter to the County’s Vision 2050 and Orange Code updates. Staff will be seeking Board direction to finalize policy language to be considered as part of Vision 2050 and Orange Code adoption scheduled for June 3, 2025.
BUDGET: N/A