A wooded 14.42-acre property behind Gotha Middle School will not become an eight-home subdivision after all. The Orange County Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously last Thursday to reject a rezoning request for the site at 9001 Gotha Road, siding with residents who argued the land's mature trees, wetlands and wildlife were worth more than new rooftops.
The applicant had asked the county to rezone the parcel from A-1, or Citrus Rural District, to Planned Development, clearing the way for construction, according to Orange Observer News. The property sits in District 1 and contains 11 developable acres once wetlands are factored out, including roughly 8.11 acres that fall within the Gotha Rural Settlement boundary. County planning staff had actually recommended approval back on Sept. 12, finding the proposal consistent with the property's future land-use designations.
Commissioners Push Back on Clearing and Retaining Walls
That staff recommendation didn't carry the day with commissioners, who questioned whether the development could satisfy county policies meant to protect Gotha's rural character and natural resources. District 1 representative David Boers said he opposed the plan specifically because of its impact on the property's tree canopy, which includes many mature oaks, pines and cypress trees, per the same report.
Boers argued that fitting eight homes onto the site would require clearing the property and building a large retaining wall to create flat building pads — construction he said would not actually preserve the land. He suggested a lighter touch instead, floating the idea that a few homes could work on the property, with as many as three potentially fitting at its south end, including land that falls outside the rural district altogether.
Consultant Says Smaller Footprint Still Under Review
Catherine Bell, a Kimley-Horn planning consultant representing the project, told commissioners the development team had not yet evaluated whether all eight homes could be built without major clearing given the property's topography. She said the team would continue evaluating the site during the subdivision process, including whether larger trees could be preserved through smaller retaining walls and changes to the site plan, the Orange Observer's account notes.
Gotha is one of five Rural Settlements in Orange County — alongside Christmas, Clarcona, Tangerine and Zellwood — that officials have designated for preservation of historic character, according to the county's own Planning and Zoning Quick Reference Guide. The Rural Settlement 1/1 future land-use designation caps density at one dwelling unit per acre, and county policy explicitly supports clustering residential units to preserve open space and maintain rural character rather than spreading development across a full parcel.
Residents Describe Wildlife and Flooding Concerns
Public comment at the hearing ran heavily against the project. Bradley Reese, a Gotha resident and parent of a Gotha Middle School student, told commissioners the property was not an appropriate place for new residences and said traffic in the area was already bad because of school overflow. Students take field trips to the property to observe wildlife there, including a bald eagle, deer and birds, according to the Orange Observer's reporting.
Theresa Schretzmann-Myers, a Nehrling Gardens board member, opposed the rezoning over concerns about the mature tree canopy, wetlands and wildlife on the site. She warned that removing mature tree species could worsen stormwater problems in an area residents describe as a closed basin — a concern with precedent in Gotha, where homeowners Juan and Yumeris Fernandez sued the county, the Central Florida Expressway Authority, the Florida Department of Transportation and a developer in 2020 over flooding tied to nearby construction, as reported by News 6. That lawsuit followed a $200,000 county-commissioned study into the causes of flooding in the area.
A Mixed Record on Development Pushback
The Gotha rejection stands in contrast to how county commissioners recently handled another contested project. Just weeks earlier, the Board of County Commissioners voted 4-3 to approve a modified version of the Tuscana mixed-use development near Shingle Creek after a special magistrate found the county's earlier denial of that project unreasonable, according to GrowthSpotter. That reversal came with conditions including a 25-foot wetland buffer and additional floodplain and stormwater studies, after the property owners had sought relief under Florida's Land Use and Environmental Dispute Resolution Act.
Whether the Gotha applicant will pursue a similar path, scale back to the smaller footprint Boers suggested, or walk away from the site entirely remains to be seen. For now, the unanimous rejection leaves the wooded parcel behind Gotha Middle School — eagle, deer and all — exactly as it was before the rezoning request landed on the commission's agenda.
