Since 2010, Groveland has nearly tripled in population. Located along Florida’s Turnpike a short drive west of Orlando, it’s easily one of the fastest-growing cities in Florida.

With so many large housing developments cropping up there, the city is striving to preserve a traditional urban development pattern and historic architectural style. It’s also trying to encourage infill construction to help revitalize its central core, according to a report in GrowthSpotter.

To help accomplish those goals, the city in southern Lake County is making available to developers a portfolio of pre-approved architectural plans for homes that are designed in a New Urbanist style. City officials hope that the ease of using these designs will attract smaller developers in an area where most homes are built by big developers.

“We decided, instead of you having to come up with new building plans from scratch, let’s just put a few plans on the shelf that have already been reviewed for our architectural and building code,” said Timothy Maslow, Groveland’s community development director. “If you want to do this off the shelf, you’re going to meet the code. You’ll save time and money.”

The house plans were designed by Orlando architect Geoffrey Mouen, whose previous architectural work in Celebration and in the Baldwin Park neighborhood of Winter Park made him an attractive choice for Groveland’s project.

Mouen’s architectural plans on Groveland’s website include:

— a two-story home with porches in the front and back

— a duplex with porches facing the street

— a fourplex townhouse

— a live-work unit designed to fit into a traditional downtown with a professional space on the first floor and two residential stories above

In keeping with New Urbanist principles, none of these designs have street-facing garages. They have front porches instead.

“Development has been so complicated in the last 20 years, with lots of regulations,” Maslow said. “What we’re trying to do as a city is to take our vision and things we want to see in terms of development and try to make it as easy to do as possible. More diversity of housing types, market-based affordable housing, missing middle housing types – we’re trying to make all that as easy as possible.”

Groveland also has updated its code to allow more duplexes and multiplexes. It got rid of its former minimum-size requirements, allowing smaller homes for smaller households. The goal is to foster the creation of more affordable housing.

“We’re trying to make it as easy as possible to build smaller units, and different types of units, instead of requiring every house to be a large house with 2,000 square feet of space, on a large lot,” Maslow said. “As soon as a city requires that, you can kiss affordable housing goodbye.”

Just last month, the city’s elected officials voted to reduce impact fees for missing-middle housing types that don’t often get built by developers of large apartment complexes or residential subdivisions. The city will also delay impact fees for any developer who uses its pre-approved architectural plans.

Strong Towns, a nonprofit group that advocates for livable development, notes that the concept of pre-approved construction plans to streamline smaller-scale development is starting to gain momentum around the country, with similar programs under way in places like Spokane, Washington, and South Bend, Indiana.

By fostering more infill development, Groveland hopes to bring more residents and economic activity to its central core. That’s why some of the pre-approved plans would support a live-work model, with office or retail space combined with residential space.

“The plans have gotten a few people interested,” Maslow said. “They’re looking at building on property in our downtown.”

To read more about early-stage development in Central Florida, go to GrowthSpotter.com and subscribe.