POLK COUNTY On Wednesday, the Polk County Planning Commission will issue its recommendation on a controversial rezoning application for the ImperiaLakes Golf Course.
If a requested zoning change is approved, over 900 homes could eventually be built on the property occupied by the ImperiaLakes Golf Course. While owner John Lennon has said that is not his intention, the zoning change to RL-1 requested by Lakeland-based company ECON South LLC would entitle a future owner or developer to one home per acre on the 188-acre property. From there, multiple processes exist to expand the potential number of homes to five houses per acre, totaling 940 new homes.
LAKELAND In its prime, the house ranked among the most distinguished in Lakeland, a Victorian treasure standing along a street whose very name signals prosperity.
The house at 1022 Success Ave., one of the oldest in the South Lake Morton Historic District, is a modified Queen Anne structure in a neighborhood dominated by Craftsman homes and bungalows. Built before 1910, it stood stately with such exterior features as a hexagonal turret, oversized bay windows and a wraparound porch.
On the inside, the home gleamed with sophisticated details: an ornate staircase, 10-foot ceilings, mahogany-stained crown moldings, broken-tile floors and three fireplaces, including one in the parlor lined with Delft tiles.
Lakeland plans new surveys of its seven historic districts
Lakeland contains seven historic districts, designated between 1985 and 2004.
The city is overdue to update its inventories of buildings with historic status within those districts, said Emily Foster, the city’s senior planner for historic preservation.
Lakeland plans to conduct new surveys of the districts that likely will result in many houses being added as “contributing structures,” Foster said.
“That’s kind of a maintenance thing that should be done really every 10 years, and we’re a little bit past that for most of our historic districts,” Foster said. “So we’re trying to just update that survey information, and that may possibly add more properties as contributing buildings. It will also look at what’s currently considered contributing, to ensure that it’s still contributing.”