WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. – For decades, Seminole County residents have fought to protect the line between urban and rural, what’s known as the rural boundary. Now, Winter Springs Mayor Kevin McCann is asking the city’s Charter Review Committee to help make that line harder to cross.
“There is significant pressure,” McCann said. “It’s not only the attacks from the legislature — and developers carry a lot of weight in Tallahassee and with the legislature — but it also comes locally.”
A city on the front lines
McCann brought two proposals before the Winter Springs Charter Review Committee this week, asking members to consider adding new supermajority protections to the city charter. Both measures would require at least four of the commission’s five members to agree — a 4-1 vote — before taking action, compared to the simple 3-2 majority currently required.
The first would apply before the city could sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of city-owned land, or release or materially weaken a conservation easement — a legal agreement restricting how land can be used to preserve its conservation value.
[WATCH: Oviedo council weighs new rule requiring supermajority vote for rural land annexation]
The second would require that same four-vote threshold before Winter Springs could annex any property within the Seminole County Rural Boundary, or extend city water, wastewater or other urban utility services into that protected area.
“I’m asking for a supermajority to act more as a guardrail than to block things,” McCann said. “Just need to know that people understand the decision they’re making — one that cannot be reversed.”
He described Winter Springs as uniquely exposed because of its proximity to the rural boundary, compared to other cities within Seminole County.
“Pappy’s Patch and Black Hammock — that is the beginning of the rural boundary that then extends east all the way out to the Brevard and Volusia County lines,” McCann said. “Winter Springs is on the front lines of those protections.”
McCann said the former Winter Springs Golf Course represents the kind of real, immediate threat — not just a hypothetical — that makes protections necessary for conservation easements too.
“Many times, different projects have come and entered into negotiations for large-scale developments on that property,” he said.
The property, located on the north side of West State Road 434, includes a public conservation easement that covers 133 acres. While the city does not own the underlying golf course property, it can decide whether or not to release any portion of the public conservation easement for development.
At the first meeting of the year, commissioners briefly discussed the closed course in The Highlands area as they consider what properties throughout the city are at risk of development, and how decisions made locally and in Tallahassee could impact what residents believe is best for their community.
McCann said residents who bought homes near the golf course did so with an expectation that the land would remain protected.
“Our residents bought their homes believing that they were going to be living on a golf course where even if they bought it more recently, they bought it with the understanding that the land was held in conservation,” he said. “We have a duty to our residents — our current residents, not necessarily developers — to protect their home value and to protect those values into the future.”
Decades of protection — and a regional precedent
McCann’s push is grounded in a long history of regional rural protection.
In 1988, Seminole County voters approved the Home Rule Charter, which serves as the county’s local constitution. In 1991, the Board of County Commissioners formally established the Rural Boundary in the county’s Comprehensive Plan, creating the Rural Area in eastern Seminole County to preserve agricultural land, protect natural resources and support a rural way of life.
In 2004, voters went further, approving a charter amendment that formally placed the Rural Area and Rural Boundary into the county charter itself.
Then, in November 2024, voters approved two additional charter amendments strengthening those protections — requiring at least four of five county commissioners to agree before removing property from the Rural Area or changing county-designated natural lands. Both measures passed with overwhelming support: approximately 84% supported the natural lands protection, and approximately 82% supported the rural area supermajority requirement.
McCann also pointed to a 1998 settlement process involving the Battle Ridge development dispute, in which Winter Springs, Oviedo, Seminole County, property owners and other parties negotiated protections for the eastern rural area. City records from that time describe a proposed settlement zone “where no one will annex.”
Winter Springs further formalized its commitment in 2006, adopting an ordinance which prohibits annexations east of DeLeon Street — a restriction incorporated into the city’s Comprehensive Plan specifically to protect the rural and environmentally sensitive Black Hammock area from future urbanization, according to McCann.
Oviedo moves first — Winter Springs may follow
Neighboring Oviedo has already acted. At its July 20 meeting, the Oviedo City Council voted 3-2 to place a charter amendment on the November ballot requiring a supermajority — a 4-1 council vote — before annexing any land within the Seminole County Charter’s rural area as of July 4, 2026.
McCann said Winter Springs should align itself with what its neighbors have already done.
“Oviedo has already requested the exact same thing,” he said. “We’re simply falling in line with our neighboring communities.”
What comes next — and when
Don’t expect to see these measures on the ballot this November in Winter Springs.
After the Charter Review Committee completes its review and makes recommendations, those recommendations go before the full city commission. If the commission acts, the measures could then be placed on a future ballot — but McCann said that won’t happen quickly.
“These two votes will not appear on the election ballot until 2028, unfortunately,” he said.
He also said he hopes residents see the importance of becoming involved in the process.
“I hope it gives them time to become informed — there’s a silver lining in that — and that they understand and will become informed on how important, how critical these protections are.”
McCann said his goal is simple: make sure the most consequential decisions require the most agreement. He framed the proposals not as opposition to growth, but as a commitment to responsible stewardship.
“The decisions that cannot be reversed — the decisions that will affect generations from now — should not be made without serious consideration and serious support,” he said.