WINTER PARK, Fla. — Wednesday, the Winter Park City Commissioner voted for a new housing development that would bring more apartments and townhomes to the area, but not everyone is excited.
Residents told Eyewitness News the project is another way to push the Black community out of the city.
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“At one point, you couldn’t get them to cross the street. Now they think they own the street,” said Ruben Paige, West Winter Park resident.
The city plans to move forward with a two-story, 53-unit multi-family project on nearly 5 acres along West Swoope and Webster Avenues.
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The project will replace the land The Patmos Chapel Seventh Day Adventist Church has sat on since 1978.
In 2019 it was sold to Metro Winter Park LLC. The site has been zoned R-3 since 1971 but has an Institutional future land use designation based upon the previous church sanctuary use.
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Residents said they aren’t against change in the neighborhood, but not at the cost of them getting priced out of the city they grew up in.
They also said the new project will promote traffic congestion problems.
“The history that we had we no longer have. On New England Avenue the barbershop used to be there, and a lot of other black-owned businesses used to be there. We have nothing to show for it,” said Paige.
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