Commission approves Venice Crossing preliminary plat changes and a design‑alternative for northern buffer

The Planning Commission approved two interrelated items for Venice Crossing — a minor preliminary plat amendment and a design alternative affecting the project’s northern perimeter buffer.

Planner Britney Smith said the 82.81‑acre site (formerly the Hurt assemblage) is proposed in this amendment to adjust lot configurations, relocate and resize several stormwater ponds (including modifications to Wetland Area 3), and tweak internal access points. Smith said most of the revisions would normally be approved administratively but the northern perimeter buffer change required a design‑alternative decision that brought the matter to the commission.

The design alternative requests a departure from the code’s standard perimeter‑buffer treatments adjacent to the Casada Lakes neighborhood. Instead of the previously approved arrangement that would create back‑to‑back walls and include shrubs, the applicant proposes: (a) a 25‑foot‑wide northern buffer in most places (wetlands excepted); (b) canopy trees at approximately four per…