Orange County's draft rewrite of its boating code names four places on the Conway Chain where boats would have to drop to idle speed. All four are launch points: the Randolph and Ferncreek ramps on Little Lake Conway, the Warren Park kayak launch, and the Perkins Boat Ramp on the south lobe of Lake Conway. The canals near the Nela Bridge fall into a looser category called slow speed, minimum wake. Daetwyler Lagoon and the Venetian boat ramp don't appear anywhere in the draft.
Belle Isle City Council raised all three of those locations on July 21, 2026. The draft is still a proposal. Its ordinance number is blank, and the county's posted schedule puts the final Board of County Commissioners hearing on December 1, 2026. If you launch from Belle Isle or live on one of its canals, the next eight weeks are when the map can still change.
Four launch points get the strictest rule
The draft is dated May 19, 2026, and it is the version linked on the county's ordinance page. It sorts the Conway Chain into two kinds of restricted water. The idle-speed list is short. The slow-speed list is long, and most of it covers canals, land cuts and blind corners.
| Location on the Conway Chain | Zone type in the May 19 draft | Draft map |
|---|---|---|
| Randolph Boat Ramp, Little Lake Conway | Idle speed, no wake | B-1 |
| Ferncreek Boat Ramp, Little Lake Conway | Idle speed, no wake | B-2 |
| Warren Park kayak launch, south lobe of Lake Conway | Idle speed, no wake | B-3 |
| Perkins Boat Ramp, south lobe of Lake Conway | Idle speed, no wake | B-4 |
| Canals between the middle and south lobes near the Nela Bridge | Slow speed, minimum wake | F-8 |
| Hoffner canal and the channels north and south of the Hoffner Bridge | Slow speed, minimum wake | F-4 |
| Canals and land cuts between Little Lake Conway and Lake Gatlin | Slow speed, minimum wake | F-1 |
| Blind corners and grassy areas around two islands on Little Lake Conway | Slow speed, minimum wake | F-5 |
| Daetwyler Lagoon | Not named | None |
| Venetian boat ramp | Not named | None |
Belle Isle boaters know Perkins best. The city's boat-ramp page says parking there requires a Belle Isle resident decal, which costs $50 a year, is prorated by quarter, and expires May 31. The ramp is open sunrise to sunset. That page carries no date, so check the fee with the city before you renew. Under the draft, the water off the Perkins ramp becomes a formally designated idle zone, with its boundary set by coordinates running to the eastern shoreline.
The pattern in the table is clear. Every idle zone sits at a public launch, and every canal and bridge passage on the list gets the slow-speed label. The difference between those two labels matters most at the Nela Bridge.
What "slow speed" means under the Nela Bridge
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission defines idle speed, no wake as the minimum speed that lets a boat keep headway and steer. The county's draft writes its own definition of slow speed, minimum wake, and it's more specific than most boaters assume:
"Slow speed, minimum wake means that a vessel must be fully off plane and completely settled into the water."
The draft then lists what doesn't count. A boat running on plane isn't at slow speed. A boat in the middle of coming off plane, or climbing back onto plane, isn't at slow speed either. Neither is a boat throwing a wake that unreasonably or unnecessarily endangers other vessels.
In practice, that means any boat inside the Nela Bridge canal zone has to be fully settled and moving with little or no wake, and it has to stay that way through the whole marked stretch. You can't throttle up early as you pass the last pilings.
On July 21, Sgt. Wasmund of the Belle Isle Police Department presented the county proposal to the City Council. He described it as converting several existing no-wake zones on the Conway Chain to slow-speed, minimum-wake zones to comply with state requirements. Council members discussed what that could mean for boating safety, shoreline erosion and enforcement. They named the Nela Bridge and Daetwyler Lagoon as concerns and pointed out that the Venetian boat ramp had been left out.
Enforcement on Belle Isle's water is getting new equipment either way. WFTV reported on July 22, 2026 that the state approved $350,000 for Belle Isle Police to replace two aging marine patrol vessels and add a side-by-side utility vehicle for lake and emergency response.
The two places the draft leaves out
Daetwyler Lagoon and the Venetian boat ramp don't appear in either list in the May 19 draft. The idle-speed section for the Conway Chain stops at Perkins. The slow-speed section moves through the Lake Gatlin cuts, the Little Lake Conway canals, the Hoffner Bridge area, the middle-lobe canals and the Nela Bridge passage, then ends with one stretch of canal on the south lobe.
The Venetian area also has a separate, unresolved question in front of the city. An August 20, 2026 council agenda item looked at the canals labeled "Venetian Canal" on the Venetian Gardens plat recorded in 1925, which connect to the Conway Chain. City staff wrote that ownership of the canal and responsibility for maintaining it has been a recurring problem that has never been resolved. Orange County has a history of dredging the canals, and the city does not. Staff found no record of the council ever formally accepting the canals or the job of maintaining them. The agenda described maintenance costs as significant and still to be determined. According to the city manager's work plan in the September 9 council packet, the city attorney and city staff had contacted the county to settle who owns and maintains the canals, and the city was waiting for a response.
The dredging question and the boating ordinance are separate processes. Both, though, leave the Venetian side of Belle Isle without a settled answer on paper this fall. One concerns who maintains the canal. The other concerns what speed rule applies at its ramp.
Why the county is rewriting the map now
Orange County describes Phase II of its Chapter 8 revision as bringing the code "up to date with current state statute requirements for existing and proposed boating safety zones." A June 18, 2026 stakeholder presentation counted 40 existing boating safety zones across Big Sand Lake, the Butler Chain, the Conway Chain and Lake Jessamine. It said those zones are funded by their lake taxing districts. The same presentation proposed 13 new zones recommended by the Orange County Sheriff's Office on those lakes and four more.
The state law behind this is section 327.46 of the Florida Statutes, which was amended by Chapter 2026-36 and took effect July 1, 2026. The statute lets counties set slow-speed zones within 300 feet of a blind corner or a bend in a narrow channel, in areas with unsafe vessel congestion or navigational hazards, and where accident or citation data show a significant collision risk. For several of these zone types, a local ordinance can't take effect until the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reviews it and finds, by substantial competent evidence, that the zone is needed for public safety. So a council's concern about erosion or a resident's concern about a narrow cut carries the most weight when it comes with specifics about visibility, traffic or safety at that exact spot.
Orange County also lists a Lake Conway Water and Navigation Control District. It's a dependent special district governed by the Board of County Commissioners, and its stated purposes include regulating boat speed, operation and navigation.
The calendar, and how to get a comment on the record
The county's ordinance page lists these dates and notes that they may change:
- October 13, 2026: Board of County Commissioners work session, Commission Chambers, 201 S. Rosalind Avenue. The board does meet that day, but the county's long-range agenda dated October 6 doesn't list Chapter 8 on its October 13 docket. Confirm before you plan around it.
- October 28, 2026: Environmental Protection Commission public hearing at Orange County EPD, 3165 McCrory Place, Suite 200.
- December 1, 2026: Board of County Commissioners public hearing in Commission Chambers. The county's business-impact estimate, published July 13, says the board "will conduct" this hearing.
The Environmental Protection Commission also held a work session on July 29, and the county has posted minutes and a recording for it. Revised drafts may come out of that process, so compare the zone you care about against the newest version linked on the county's ordinance page.
Orange County runs a Chapter 8 stakeholder comment form. Comments submitted through it become part of the public record. The form requires your name, street address, city and ZIP code, and email and phone are optional. The county calendar lists Jane Gregory as the contact for the commission's Chapter 8 meetings, at [email protected] or 407-836-1404. A comment that names Daetwyler Lagoon or the Venetian ramp by location and explains the visibility or traffic problem there matches what the statute asks the state to weigh.
If your home sits on a Belle Isle canal, the boating map and the Venetian Canal maintenance question both affect what you own, and both can come up when you sell or refinance. At Franc Marrero, Franc brings a background in title work as well as brokerage, and he can help you read a plat, check who is responsible for the water behind your dock, and work out what to tell a buyer. Schedule a consultation before the December 1 hearing if you want those answers in hand.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
