Orange County Board decides Winter Park should remain in District 5 in new map

Does Winter Park stay, or does it go?

It stays.

Orange County Commissioners voted 5-2 Tuesday night on a new district map that keeps Winter Park in District 5 with the rest of rural east county instead of moving Winter Park into a newly created District 7 with Pine Hills, Eatonville and Maitland^[1][2][3] — a change Winter Park city officials have been heavily pushing.

Where Winter Park ended up was one of the most controversial issues during the county’s redistricting^[4]. Orange County voters approved a referendum last year to grow from six districts to eight. Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings serves as the at-large member.

Winter Park^[5] is a small city of about 30,000 that’s home to pristine Rollins College, the upscale Park Avenue with restaurants and shops, as well as other theaters and museums.

The Orange County Board ultimately selected Map-7B^[6], the option that keeps Winter Park with the rural part of the county, over Map-1A,^[7] which sends Winter Park to the new District 7 with the urban areas. Tuesday’s vote ends months of meetings and passionate debate, as some residents sent emails and gave public comment.

Winter Park officials argued they wanted Map-1A since they didn’t have anything in common with the rural unincorporated communities stretching to the University of Central Florida and including Bitho and Christmas. Instead, they wanted to be redistricted with their neighbors, Maitland and Eatonville, cities they argued they more closely resembled and with which they shared the same priorities.

“Our communities are already collaborating in drainage and lake management, transportation planning, and public safety initiatives. These are all regional challenges and demand a unified voice at the county level,” Winter Park City Commissioner Craig Russell^[8] told the county Board before more than two hours of discussion Tuesday.

But an equally loud voice group of supporters wanted Map-7B.

Some feared that placing the affluent Winter Park in District 7 could disenfranchise the unincorporated Pine Hills, a predominantly Black and Hispanic community of more than 80,000 people that will also be in the new District 7.

“The real implications of that map, especially at this juncture right now, while Pine Hills is still a developing community, is something that’s going to affect so many community members in Pine Hills,” one resident warned.

And others argued it made sense to pick Map-7B for other reasons, like keeping the UCF, Rollins and Full Sail University in the same district to give young people a voice. 

To decide how to add the two new districts, the county turned to an advisory task force that met for months to draw up new map possibilities. The advisory task force whittled down its two final choices but did not pick which one it liked best, leaving that decision up to Orange County Commissioners on Tuesday.