Overview

The City of St. Cloud, FL is a fast-growing suburb of Orlando located in northern Osceola County. Much of this growth has been in the form of single-family residential, two-family residential, and townhomes. As part of its zoning authority, the City has established standards to regulate the design and layout of residential buildings. However, the City believes additional standards are in order to achieve the desired effects for new development. Klavon is tasked with revising St. Cloud’s Residential Design Standards (RDS) to strengthen it while not creating an undue burden on the City’s Comprehensive Plan provisions for affordable housing. In addition, the new regulations are to be flexible and compatible with those of the Osceola County.

Klavon’s tasks are to first review both the City’s and County’s existing Residential Design Standards followed by a review elsewhere in the region and across the U.S. for similar standards that may be incorporated into the City’s RDS. Klavon will draft a report based on this research with recommended modifications to the existing regulations. This draft will be presented to City staff and stakeholders for input. The recommendations made in the report along with input from staff and stakeholders will then be synthesized into an ordinance to be adopted by the City. The team’s architect will review the ordinance to ensure that they make sense from a design and constructability standpoint as well as to determine potential impacts to affordability.

The proposed ordinance will contain various provisions including stipulations on the variety of architectural elevations and facades, variety of housing types in planned unit developments, limiting the visual impact of front-loaded garages, and a number of other standard design elements for residences. Visual graphics will be included in the ordinance to graphically represent and provide clear understanding of the ordinance language. Additionally, Klavon will work with the City to establish a reviewing authority and accompanying regulations to ensure compliance with the Residential Design Standards.

Year: 2023

Status: Ongoing