The school district is in a hurry now?

The School Board is asking for the City to hurry up and make a decision on changing the zoning for the Sports Authority property. Of course these discussions are moving forward with no real public input and from what we can tell, no real thought.

The City of Kissimmee commissioned an outside consultant to develop a redevelopment plan for the 192 corridor. Residents, business leaders, and government officials met with the planners over several months to give input on how they would like to see the corridor come back to life, primarily through higher density and a mixed use of commercial and residential units.

Now, before the plan has even been finalized and implemented, the City Commission appears to be ready to admit defeat. The redevelopment of a large section of the city will take time, and commissioners seem to believe that they should allow undesired uses to creep into the corridor while the redevlopment goes on. Property owners in the area realize that "big box" retail is not going to locate in the 192 corridor when there is new retail development and energy along Osceola Parkway. But the solution to this occupancy issue is to move efficiently through the planning and zoning process, not to give interim approval to less desirable uses in the interim. We ask the commission: after you approve this zoning for the school, if a car dealer comes to you and asks for zoning approval for a dealership in the vacant parcel between the Sports Authority and K-Mart, will you approve it until redevelopment is complete?

As to the idea that the Sports Authority building will be a special needs educational facility for 5 years, and then magically become a traditional K-5 school, we simply don’t believe it. The school district builds different types of buildings for different uses, and we simply don’t see a retail building converted to a special use center ever being appropriate for a K-5 school. Where is the space for playgrounds or a gymnasium? A traditional school cafeteria? Space for the inevitable portables to expand the school? If the project goes forward and is surrounded by 3-5 story mixed use buildings five years from now, are we to believe that the school district will say: "yes, we spent all the money to build out this facility, but we got 5 good years from it, so we’ll tear it down and build a new building more in keeping with the newly redeveloped corridor"? Now is the time for the City Commission to show that rezoning is not a stop-gap measure to fix short-term problems faced by the building owner (needing occupancy) and the school district (needing a building, apparently any building) and move forward with the redevelopment plan for the corridor.