Alachua County Commission approves 149-home development near Newnans Lake after 2.5 hours of public comment

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – During the evening session of the May 27 Alachua County Commission meeting, the board voted unanimously to approve the first step in developing Eastside Preserve, a single-family residential neighborhood with 149 homes, near Newnan’s Lake.

82-acre site northwest of SE Hawthorne Road and Lakeshore Drive

The agenda item concerned a request for a large-scale Comprehensive Plan amendment that would set a Low Density Residential land use designation for an 82-acre site northwest of SE Hawthorne Road and Lakeshore Drive. Under the previous land use designation, 131 units could have been approved; the new land use designation would allow 221 units, but a companion rezoning would limit that to 149 units. The amendment also includes a Conservation designation in the northern portion of the site.

The original land use allowed for commercial development, but the developer wants to build single-family residential units on the site. The primary entrance will be on Hawthorne Road, the property is in the urban cluster, and the development will connect to GRU water and sewer, unlike many of the surrounding properties, which have septic systems. The developer plans to install a lift station that will create opportunities for nearby properties to connect to GRU’s water and sewer services.

The homes were described as “entry-level workforce-type housing” between 1,300 and 1,700 square feet, priced for entry-level buyers.

Staff recommended that the County Commission transmit the amendment to the State (the first step in a long process ending with the final approval for the development), while the Local Planning Agency voted 4-3 against transmitting the amendment. 

Motion

Commissioner Mary Alford made a motion to accept staff’s recommendation for discussion purposes, adding the changes proposed by the developer to include a 200-foot greenway and a limit of 149 houses. Commissioner Anna Prizzia seconded the motion.

Prizzia: Limiting the development to 149 houses “really changes things for me.”

Prizzia noted the “very full room” and said she thought her mind was made up when she walked in, but “this text amendment (to limit the development to 149 houses) really changes things for me… What could get built here ‘by right’ would be a heck of a lot worse than what is being proposed right now, and all of us – most of us, anyway, in this room – care very deeply about affordable housing. We care very deeply about community development. We care very deeply about East Side economic development… And we all care very deeply about the environment,… and these two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. And I think that… this strikes a really good balance of utilizing existing urban cluster development, building housing that’s really needed, and compromising with the community to lower the number of units to the least number that they have to do to be economically viable, and providing a greenway and conservation areas and stormwater management. And that’s just a very rare thing.”

Public comment

Twenty-five members of the public pooled their time to be able to speak for 75 minutes, so Chair Chuck Chestnut allowed individual speakers to go first.

A total of 24 people spoke in favor of the development (with two more yielding their time), and 13 spoke against the development (with 10-15 people yielding their time). Most of those who spoke in favor of the Comprehensive Plan amendment lived in East Gainesville and generally supported having more market-rate homes on the east side of Gainesville.

Several people yielded time to Armando Grundy-Gomes, who spoke for about nine minutes about the need for housing on the East Side and the environmental benefits of having the homes connected to a sewer system instead of septic tanks.

Paul Pritchard spoke for the group that opposed the development, including about 25 people in the room and 60 people who signed a letter opposing the development. Pritchard claimed that the County’s notification process had not been followed and called it “bait and switch.”

Rob Brinkman read a letter from an attorney claiming that the public notices for the neighborhood workshop made claims that were later changed without notice. Chet Robertson discussed the risks of flooding in the area. Kelly McPherson spoke about the effects of the development on nearby conservation lands and said the current land use designation would lead to more diverse development, including commercial. One man who spoke had concerns about additional traffic on Lakeshore Drive. John Moran rejected “the false dichotomy that says that we must choose between a healthy environment and a thriving economy” and said the developer “targeted Alachua County purely to mine our precious lands for profit.” 

After about two and half hours of public comment, the discussion went back to the Commissioners. 

Alford: “I believe that the balance that we need right now is this development.”

Alford said she was initially against the project but changed her mind after “looking into this developer and considering what this development would do for East Gainesville and the promises that were made to East Gainesville… I understand that we can’t have development without having some environmental impact. That’s just part of the trade-off. We cannot not have development in East Gainesville because there’s going to be environmental impact. There’s always going to be environmental impact… But I also understand that this is a balance that we have to strike, and I believe that the balance that we need right now is this development, and so I’m in support of the motion.”

In response to a question from Commissioner Ken Cornell, County Attorney Sylvia Torres said she believed the public notices “checked the boxes” required by statute. In response to another question from Cornell, Environmental Protection Department Director Steve Hofstetter said the developer will be required to reduce the average annual phosphorus and nitrogen load in the lake by 10% from the pre-development conditions.

Cornell: “This is the first private investment that I can think of, of this magnitude, on the eastern part of the county.”

Cornell said the board previously decided not to approve any more affordable housing east of Main Street, and “this is the first private investment that I can think of, of this magnitude, on the eastern part of the county.” He said most people who spoke in favor of the development also care about the environment, and “this development is listening to us and is creating a development that is doing both – I don’t like the word ‘balance.’ Balance, to me, says that we’re giving up something to get something else. I like the word ‘abundance,’ and so I really think that we have to kind of change our mindset… I’m going to support the motion.”

Prizzia: “18 extra homes, people, 18 extra homes, and you’re getting rid of 124,000 square feet of commercial, which would basically be a Walmart.”

Prizzia pointed out that the amendment allows for 18 homes over the current land use designation: “18 extra homes, people, 18 extra homes, and you’re getting rid of 124,000 square feet of commercial, which would basically be a Walmart. So you get rid of a Walmart and a ton of homes, and instead, you get 18 extra homes and you get a reasonable development with housing that people need and want, and you avoid affordable housing on commercial land that a developer could do ‘by right’…  and we honestly avoid million-dollar McMansions with St Augustine lawns sprawled out over that piece of property, because that’s probably the other alternative. So to me, this makes sense.”

However, Prizzia said, 10% of the houses need to be affordable, and “I’d better see price points that are actually attainable – because I don’t want to see $400,000 homes.” She also asked for no-irrigation landscaping, the use of local contractors, and consideration of making it a “night sky development” with no street lighting and no “unnecessary house lighting.”

Chestnut: “It’s going to give us the rooftops I think we need in East Gainesville to actually, eventually, get a grocery store.”

Chestnut said that if people want amenities on the east side of Gainesville, they will need to be built “in your neighborhood… If I lived there and it was in my back yard, I probably wouldn’t want it either. But this is for the better good of East Gainesville. I think it’s giving us the market-rate housing that we need, and it’s going to give us the rooftops I think we need in East Gainesville to actually, eventually, get a grocery store, because now it’s a food desert… You know, it seems like it’s a racial divide here tonight, where a group of folks want it to stay the same, and a group of folks want it to change for the better, and I want it for the better, and I think that we can both have it both ways. We can protect our environment, but we can also have the development to come and to make things better on the east side of town.”

Vote

The motion passed unanimously.