LAKE COUNTY, FL (352today.com) – A home on the lake, sounds great, doesn’t it?
It’s possible. The proposed Lake Yale Project, a development which would be on nearly 460 acres of lakefront property north of Eustis, will go before the Lake County Board of County Commissioners (LCBCC), Sept. 10, 2024.
The proposed eight phase development has gone before the Lake County Planning & Zoning Board. It has been reviewed and passed with a recommendation sent to the LCBCC. The idea for the possibility of the project began in 2021, shared Aaron Pool, Lake County office of Planning & Zoning senior planner.
The Lake Yale Project would be composed of 1,600 residential units, 1,150 of those being active adult homes and the other 450 being multi-generational housing units. It would also have 100,000 square feet of commercial space, a “Main Street District,” waterfront activity center, a marina on Lake Yale, recreational facilities, multi-modal streets, public parks, and civic amenities.
The proposed development includes an age-restricted component known as active adult. This designation applies to a segment of the project, not its entirety.
“They’re looking into ways to move the project forward,” said Pool, who has been active with the project for about eight months. “This is a large-scale development and where this stands with the state, large scale developments in the comprehensive plan need to go before the state review, also. This state actually acts as a concurrent reviewer with the county. At this point, the county is working with the applicant for the comprehensive plan and rezoning.”
“If they [the LCBCC] approve for transmittal, we’ll send it out to the various state agencies to look at the impact it may have on the area and then those state agencies, if they have any comments, will send them back to the county to take under consideration for adoption.”
But don’t expect to see any heavy equipment activity at the site in the near future; the proposal being is just in the preliminary stages.
“We’re at the state of the comprehensive plan amendment and the rezoning,” said Pool. “If that gets approved, once it moves forward there are a number of development steps that need to move forward with planning and the site plan prior to the dirt work actually moving on the ground. We’re not at that state yet.”
The area under consideration is predominantly open land, mostly agriculturally zoned property. Although there are some homes surrounding the property, the better part of the area is undeveloped farmland.
“At this point, we’re putting the entitlements in place as to how the property can be developed,” said Pool. “The concept plan provided to the county has eight phases. At this point, this early in the development, there’s no phasing plan yet.”
The start date for the groundbreaking is still unclear because there are many challenges and questions that haven’t been answered yet. This is stopping any work from starting, and the proposal is still being worked on.
“We’re in the very early stages of establishing land use and zoning entitlements,” said Mike Fitzgerald, AICP, Lake County Office of Planning & Zoning director. “It’s up to the board of county commissioners to approve that. Obviously, this will go before a public meeting for that consideration, and once that’s approved it’s up to the property owner to then start the due diligence for the next phases which would be engineering and construction. It’s a very lengthy process for a project of this size.”