Up-and-coming Polk County cities: what the Radar's agenda data shows

What was counted, and what was not

The Development Radar is Flexway's monthly digest of what local governments are about to discuss. An item enters an edition only after it has been checked against the government's own agenda: the link has to open, and the item's status has to appear on that agenda word for word. This guide counts what the three Polk County editions published so far contain: July 2026 (published July 12 and updated August 6), August 2026 (published October 7) and September 2026 (published October 7). Together they list 67 items from meetings dated June 3 to September 24, 2026; six of Dundee's items carry no meeting date on their agenda.

The three editions carry items from five governments in Polk County: the county's own Board of County Commissioners and Planning Commission, Haines City, Lake Wales, Dundee and, in one edition, Auburndale. They carry none from Davenport, Winter Haven, Lakeland or any other city. A government with no item here is not a place where nothing happened: an edition lists the items that were verified, not everything that was on an agenda, and it does not say which agendas were read and had nothing to list.

An item is a line on an agenda: a hearing, a reading or a vote that was scheduled. It is not an approval, and it is not construction. Each edition gives an item's status in the agenda's own words, and this guide does not report how any vote went.

An item is counted each time an edition lists it. The county amendment the editions call Organic Matters is three items: the setting of its hearing, and the hearings of August 4 and August 18. Two Dundee items from the September 1 agenda are listed in both the August and the September editions and are counted in both. Each edition after the first says, at its top, how its items compare with the docket of the edition before: of the 26 items of August 2026, 18 are new to the docket and 8 carry over with a different hearing date or status; of the 12 items of September 2026, 9 are new to the docket, 2 carry over with a different hearing date or status and 1 carries over unchanged. By the editions' own count, then, 11 of the 67 listings are matters carried over from the edition before; an edition knows a matter by its case or ordinance number, or by its wording when it has none.

Three editions are a short record. They show where the paperwork was between June and September 2026, not a trend, and this guide draws none.

By type: what the items ask for

Each item has one type, the first of these that fits it. Annexation: the item asks to bring land into a city or town, alone or with the land use and zoning for the same land. Land use map: a change to a comprehensive plan's future land use map, small or large scale, or the setting of its hearing. Rezoning or planned development: a zoning map change, or a change to a planned development. Plat or subdivision plan: a preliminary plat or subdivision plan, its amendment, or the vacation of a plat. Site plan: a site development plan or its modification. Rules text: a change to the text of a comprehensive plan or of a land development code, with the periodic evaluation of a plan and its capital improvements element. Permit for a use: a conditional use, a special exception or a variance. Agreement or other: a developer's, water or impact fee agreement, and anything else.

Four items are annexations, for three requests: Hunt Bros Mixed Use and SR 60 Industrial in Lake Wales, and Central Florida Outdoor Storage in Dundee, which is listed twice.

The types are this guide's, not the governments': the last table on this page lists all 67 items as the editions title them, each with the type it was given, so every count here can be made again.

One title that this rule has typed could be read two ways, and it is not a Polk County item. In the comparison of Polk, Osceola and Lake counties, Lake County's ordinance for a temporary moratorium on data center facilities is counted as rules text; the edition does not say that the ordinance amends the county's code, and it could be read as agreement or other.

Polk County's own boards: 40 items, mostly land use and rules

Forty of the 67 items were before Polk County's Board of County Commissioners or Planning Commission. Seventeen are about a change to a future land use map and 19 about a change to the text of the comprehensive plan or the land development code; the other four are of other types: one rezoning or planned development, one plat or subdivision plan, one site plan and one agreement or other.

The largest of those that give an area is the one the September edition lists as Mims Crossing: a consent item to set the hearings on a large-scale amendment that would change ±1,261 acres from Phosphate Mining to Industrial. Five other proposed map amendments would take land out of Phosphate Mining into Agricultural/Residential Rural: 116.5± acres at US 98 and Peace River, 66.5± acres at Parrish and Keller, 19.47± acres on Keller Road, 2.0± acres on Mt Pisgah Road, and one listed as Fort Groves with no acreage.

Three proposed amendments would move land from Business Park Center to Industrial: 71.26 acres listed as Organic Matters, 25.8± acres at Sumner North Cozart Road and 8.59± acres listed as Premier Parking. One would move 38.11± acres on Pavers Road from the Rural Development Area to the Urban Growth Area, and is on two agendas. One would change ±29.62 acres at Kathleen to Institutional, in the edition's words for a future County government center.

Several county items name places. Three are about adding “Vehicle Service, Mechanical” to the Regional Activity Center district of the U.S. 27 Selected Area Plan. One is a modification of a planned development for a retail center on U.S. Hwy 27. One is an impact fee credit agreement for a Home Depot at Davenport Blvd. and U.S. Highway 27. Two concern Poinciana: the allowable uses on land west of Lake Marion Creek Drive, and the vacation of rights-of-way and easements in a residential development that the edition describes as platted but not constructed.

A new land use category was also on the county's agendas in these months, the Main Street Corridor: adoption hearings on July 21 and September 1 for a new section of the Future Land Use Element; hearings on its uses in the Land Development Code; and the setting of a hearing on a 34.05-acre map change at Eloise to that category and two others. The editions list the hearings and do not say how they ended.

Haines City: six items, and the Census Bureau's ranking

Haines City has six items. The Crossroads Townhomes project is on second reading on July 16, as a small-scale land use amendment (Ordinance 26-2148) and a zoning map amendment (Ordinance 26-2149). A small-scale land use amendment for 2115 Holly Hill Fruit Road (Ordinance 26-2151) is on the agendas of August 6 and August 20. A preliminary plat for Lake Eva Estates, a 31-unit single-family subdivision (Resolution 26-1923), is on the agenda of August 20, and a conditional use for a daycare center in Oak Ridge Plaza (Resolution 26-1942) on that of September 24.

Haines City is on the Census Bureau's national list for the year, and it is the only Florida city on it. In the Bureau's release of May 14, 2026, it is 6th among “The 15 Fastest-Growing Cities and Towns With Populations of 20,000 or More” for July 1, 2024 to July 1, 2025: a 10.0 percent increase, to a 2025 total population of 45,973 (U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 city and town estimates).

The University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR), which estimates for April 1 of each year, puts Haines City at 44,215 on April 1, 2025 and ranks it 7th in its table of the top 100 Florida cities by percent change in population from 2020 to 2025, at 65.8 percent (BEBR, Florida Estimates of Population 2025, Table 10). The two figures are different estimates for different dates, and neither is a count.

Lake Wales: two annexation requests

Lake Wales has eight items, and two of the four annexation items in the three editions. The July edition has, on second reading on July 7, the annexation, land use and zoning of 164± acres listed as Hunt Bros Mixed Use, which the edition says enacts a residential planned development the City Commission approved on April 21, 2026; a land use and zoning change over roughly 47± acres listed as Hickory Ridge; and, on first reading, a rezoning of 2± acres from residential to C-3 Highway Commercial, where the edition notes that the agenda file references a hotel.

The August edition has the request listed as SR 60 Industrial, on first reading on August 18: the annexation of 193± acres, with a land use map amendment and a zoning map amendment to give that land industrial designations. Its land use ordinance had been on a July 23 agenda with no description. The same edition has a request to amend the approved preliminary subdivision plat and a special exception use permit for Iron Mountain, a residential planned development on approximately 76.95 acres.

Dundee: twelve items in a small town

Dundee has twelve items, in a town the Census Bureau estimates at 6,424 people on July 1, 2025. The July edition lists the second reading of a major amendment to the Estes Grove mixed-use planned unit development (Ordinance 26-09) and of the Estes future land use map amendment (Ordinance 26-06); a site development plan for Ridgewood Mini Warehouse; a developer's agreement and a water allocation agreement for the Legacy Hill Subdivision; and the voluntary annexation of Central Florida Outdoor Storage Inc. (Ordinance 26-14), which is on second reading on the agenda of September 1.

The site development plan for the Vista del Lago Phase IV subdivision is on the agenda of September 1 as Resolution 26-24 and on that of September 8 as Resolution 26-29, proposed to rescind and replace the first. The town's Evaluation and Appraisal Report and Comprehensive Plan update is listed three times.

Auburndale: one item

Auburndale appears once, in the July edition: a Florida Department of Transportation request to rezone 19.32 acres at Pace Road and the Polk Parkway, listed as the SunTrax property, from Industrial Planned Development to Commercial Highway (Ordinance #1851). It is on the agenda of July 20, which says that if the ordinance is approved on first reading, the second and final reading follows at the next meeting.

Population: what the Census Bureau and BEBR print

Population is the other half of the question, and two sources print it. The Census Bureau estimates for July 1; BEBR, at the University of Florida, estimates for April 1. Both start from the 2020 census, and they do not agree to the person. The table gives both for the four cities with items in the editions (Haines City, Lake Wales, Dundee and Auburndale) and for three with none (Davenport, Winter Haven and Lakeland). For the county as a whole, the Census Bureau estimates 874,790 people on July 1, 2025, and BEBR 846,896 on April 1, 2025.

BEBR ranks Polk County 1st of Florida's 67 counties by population change from 2020 to 2025, with 121,850 people added, and 11th by percent change, at 16.8 percent (BEBR, Florida Estimates of Population 2025, Tables 7 and 8). In the Census Bureau's release of March 26, 2026, the Lakeland-Winter Haven metropolitan area, whose population in that table is the 874,790 the Bureau estimates for Polk County, is 4th among the “Top 10 U.S. Metro Areas by Percent Growth” for July 1, 2024 to July 1, 2025, at 2.7 percent, among areas of 20,000 or more.

By BEBR's percent change from 2020 to 2025, the Polk County city that grew fastest is Eagle Lake; on the Census Bureau's list of cities of 20,000 or more for the year to July 1, 2025, it is Haines City. BEBR's table of the top 100 Florida cities by percent change in population from 2020 to 2025 lists twelve Polk County cities: Eagle Lake 3rd at 106.3 percent, Lake Hamilton 4th at 104.2, Haines City 7th at 65.8, Davenport 9th at 54.7, Lake Alfred 13th at 41.8, Auburndale 18th at 38.8, Winter Haven 31st at 23.6, Bartow 39th at 19.8, Mulberry 55th at 15.7, Dundee 78th at 11.7, Polk City 86th at 10.8 and Lakeland 90th at 10.7 (BEBR, Table 10). Lake Wales is not in that table. Small places move a percentage fast: BEBR estimates Lake Hamilton at 3,139 people and Eagle Lake at 6,206.

What the counts cannot tell you

None of this is a price. An agenda item does not say what a home will sell for, when a subdivision will be built or whether it will be built at all, and neither population source says anything about values. This guide makes no price prediction.

What the counts do show is what the editions listed in one summer: on the county's own agenda above all, proposed changes to the land use map and to the rules themselves; in Lake Wales and Dundee, requests to annex land; and in Haines City, six items.

Each edition links every item to its official agenda. The county's permanent Radar page shows the latest edition.