All-Time Influential Jeff Briggs Retired Planning Manager, City of Winter Park Jeff Briggs, a New Jersey kid raised on a New England aesthetic, had just earned a master’s degree in planning from Georgia Tech University when, in 1977, the City of Winter Park advertised an open position. “The next thing I know I’m walking in my wool suit on Park Avenue and the rest is history,” he says. Since then, Briggs has worked for a grand total of 11 mayors and 32 city commissioners. He announced his retirement last year but remained as planning director emeritus until early this year. The long arc of his influence can be seen in how Winter Park looks today—still visibly linked to its roots as a haven for cold-weather tycoons that was thoughtfully designed in the 1880s. His operating philosophy, he says, was to balance the pressure for new development with the city’s desire to keep its scale and character intact. “My job wasn’t to pitch projects,” he says. “It was to help developers bring in projects that were approvable.” One of his most lasting imprints, though, has nothing to do with planning. Briggs was just a year into his job when City Commissioner Jerome Donnelly suggested that the newly acquired freight depot near Park Avenue could be used to host a farmers’ market. Briggs was tasked with making it happen—and the result can still be seen every Saturday morning in the larger West Meadow of Central Park. In 1992, Briggs joined former Rollins College President Thaddeus Seymour and developer Hal George to start Habitat for Humanity of Winter Park-Maitland. The group, which Briggs still serves as treasurer, is now working on its 60th home. Briggs, as liaison to the Historic Preservation Board, has spearheaded the effort to add more than a dozen historical markers in the city and personally raised some $200,000 in private donations—half the total required—to erect wrought-iron entryway arches at the northern and southern ends of Park Avenue. Says Briggs: “That was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” #winterparkmagazine #winterparkfl #mostinfluential