Oldsmar work session yields more design talks as residents press developer on height, traffic and parking

Oldsmar, Fla. — At a Nov. 6 Oldsmar city council work session, developers from Stanbury Development Group presented a conceptual site plan for an eight‑acre parcel the city has identified as the seed of a future downtown, prompting residents and council members to press for changes on building height, traffic and parking before the project advances.

Mayor (Unidentified) opened the session and introduced the agenda item, noting the council had previously authorized the city manager to negotiate with Stanbury. City Manager Felicia Downey introduced developers John Meyer and Mark Hayes, who described the submission as a schematic and said the team was seeking guidance before investing further design resources. "This is all... a schematic. It's an idea," Mark Hayes said, adding the developers had struggled "to make the numbers work" and might be "about eight units over" code in the current concept.

Residents who spoke during the open forum and the work session urged the council to limit the project's visual scale on State Street and address infrastructure impacts. Tom O'Shea, a resident, said, "my understanding is a high rise building is anything over 10 stories, and the code would allow up to 6 stories." David Pratt, who identified himself as a candidate for City Council Seat 4, warned of traffic and parking pressure, saying, "we could be very easily talking about 3, 400 cars moving in and out of there at any given time." Jerry Beals asked the council to "protect those residential areas" and avoid placing taller buildings adjacent to single‑family neighborhoods.

Council discussion focused on tradeoffs among height, density and public amenities. The vice mayor framed the conversation around smart‑growth principles — "encouraging development to grow up rather than out" — while others voiced the so‑called "marshmallow effect," where reducing height pushes building footprints outward and may consume more ground‑level space. The developer acknowledged both design and financial constraints: using density figures mentioned in the meeting, "30 units per acre" on an eight‑acre site would translate roughly to 240 units, a scale that factors into parking, traffic and school‑capacity concerns.

Councilman Buchanan said a key objective remains delivering a usable downtown and praised the team's allocation of public space: "20% is the percentage that you all dedicated to... the community," he said, calling that element "encouraging." Developers said they would take the council's feedback back to their architects and engineering partners, including conducting traffic and modality studies and exploring design mitigations such as step‑backs, setbacks, rooftop public space or reconfigured parking.

No formal vote or regulatory action occurred at the meeting. Instead, the council and Stanbury agreed to continue working with City Manager Felicia Downey and staff to refine the plan, identify required traffic and engineering studies, and return with revised options. The meeting adjourned with the council signaling readiness to pursue additional work sessions rather than immediately approving any change to zoning or design.