The Apopka City Commission voted on Wednesday to stall progress on the third phase of The Ridge at Lake Bronson until August 5. The city is grappling with how to handle an increasingly overwhelmed local road grid along Boy Scout Road and Ocoee Apopka Road as it waits for federal funding for a road widening project.
The Ridge’s master developer Apopka Centerline Development LLC, an entity affiliated with Fort Lauderdale-based Centerline Capital Advisors, hoped to break ground on the complex during the first quarter of 2027. Centerline Capital Advisors President Craig Perry told GrowthSpotter in April he estimated the apartment complex would be completed by early 2029.
The Ridge Planned Development is a 367-acre master-planned community holding entitlements for up to 683 residential homes, 678 apartments, 350,000 square feet of commercial space and 1.5 million square feet of industrial space. The master site plan already features other large projects, including an industrial park by McCraney Property Company, a residential neighborhood by Lennar and other developments.
Perry noted the market-rate complex would offer smaller one- and two-bedroom layouts to target a different demographic than the nearby luxury Vue at the Ridge. Spanning 14.37 acres of the 30.49-acre Parcel 3, the design features 11 three-story buildings, a clubhouse, a pool and EV charging stations, leaving the remaining land for future commercial offices.
Gridlock on local roadways drives commission hesitation
The infrastructure concerns raised at Wednesday’s meeting follow earlier discussions regarding the project’s potential impact on local roads.
Apopka Planning Manager Bobby Howell noted that while the city’s Planning Commission cleared the plan on June 9 by a 4 to 2 vote, planning members Woods and Harrison voted against the project due to transportation, access and roadway improvement considerations.
Commissioner Sam Ruth was Wednesday’s most vocal opponent to the project.
“In the last decade, we’ve added 6,000 residents right in that area and nothing changed,” he said, pointing out that the complex would likely add roughly 1,000 vehicles to local streets. “The infrastructure is lacking at best.”
Paperwork stands between Apopka and its $17.4M road-widening cash
In August 2025, Apopka was awarded a $17.4 million federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grant to widen Ocoee Apopka Road, but the city cannot access the cash until it completes final approval documentation.
Apopka Public Works Director Vladimir Simkowski explained that the infrastructure cash will not be released until a mandatory multi-year regulatory pipeline is completed and said his staff is pursuing temporary fixes.
“We’re working right now with one of our consultants with Metric Engineering to perform a warrant analysis for an all-way stop,” he said to the commission. “So at least we can do something in the interim … like stop the bleeding right now.”
Claims of a hidden historical dump
The municipal debate took an unexpected turn during the public comment section when Leroy Bell, a local activist and a member of Apopka’s Brownfield Advisory Committee who frequently speaks at municipal meetings, stepped forward to present allegations regarding the historical usage of the property. Bell asserted that under a previous local administration, a portion of the development site was treated as an un-remediated dumping ground for hazardous materials rather than typical vacant land.
“Right to the right of it, that’s where people used to dump gas tanks … [and] motors and a while back up under the last administration, I asked the question, did they do the brownfield, did they do the flood study and all that,” Bell said. “And they said, ‘Oh no, it wasn’t a dump. It was just a place that people put trash.’ That was a lie.”
Developer points to a thorough regulatory history
The developer strongly defended the regulatory and technical due diligence performed over the project’s planning history. James Hoffman, an engineer withVanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. representing the applicant, explained that the property was an orange grove before freezing temperatures permanently halted operations.
“We have secured all necessary permits to date for the project from both the city of Apopka and the St. Johns River Water Management District for all development,” he told the commission. “Part of that standard process is environmental site assessments have to be done to identify new potential hazards.”
Hoffman added that the property had previously been granted a comprehensive mass grading permit, during which soil was actively moved and balanced across the entire site.
“Everything was done in the sunshine through all the required regulatory processes,” he said.
But Bell’s mention of possible historical dumping still triggered a reaction from the commission.
A legal debate over “undue delays”
Beyond the immediate civil disputes over traffic and environmental safety, a significant legal undercurrent dominated the second half of the hearing. During his address, Hoffman cautioned the commission that delaying the major development plan after years of compliance would create a financial penalty for the development team.
“I would proffer that a delay at this point would be an undue burden on the project and our timeline to secure those approvals,” he warned the dais.
Members of the city leadership immediately recognized the statutory weight of Hoffman’s choice of words, pausing the session to warn the commissioners about potential municipal liability. The commission was reminded that under Florida’s SB 180 law, demonstrating an undue burden allows a private developer to file a lawsuit against a local government.
Furthermore, because the item was quasi-judicial, the commissioners were cautioned that they were legally bound to act as an objective panel of judges evaluating code criteria, rather than voting their personal feelings or conscience.
“The developer just stated very specifically that if we delay this, it is an undue burden,” Mayor and real estate broker Nick Nesta cautioned the dais. “So … is this commission ready and prepared for litigation if we delay this in any capacity right now?”
A split vote puts the development in limbo
The commission initially voted on a strict motion to delay the development plan indefinitely until local municipal infrastructure could catch up, but that measure failed in a 3-to-2 split vote. Ruth and Commissioner Yesenia Baron voted in favor of the indefinite delay, while the mayor, vice mayor and Commissioner Nadia Anderson voted in opposition due to the legal risks highlighted by staff.
Seeking a legally defensible compromise that still slows development, Anderson introduced an alternative motion to table the project until August.
Under the precise terms of the approved tabling motion, the developer is required to provide the commission with the official environmental reports and soil testing data reviewed by municipal staff. At the same time, public works staff must utilize the delay to generate a more detailed and realistic timeline for the road improvements.
The motion to table passed by a 3-2 vote, with Anderson, the vice mayor, and Barron voting in favor, while Ruth and the mayor voted in opposition. Until those comprehensive files are delivered and evaluated on August 5, 2026, the apartment complex cannot move forward.
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