Alachua County Commission discusses data centers, defers decision on Westside Christian School request for water/sewer connections

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the May 26 meeting, Alachua County Commissioners selected artwork for the County’s Fire Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center, heard an update on regulations for data centers, and deferred a decision on Westside Christian School’s request for water and sewer services.

Grants on the consent agenda

During public comment on the agenda, Vivian Filer and Evelyn Foxx from the board of the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center thanked the board for a Tourist Development Tax grant of $328,000 for capital repairs and improvements that was approved on the consent agenda. The money will come from unspent Cultural Facilities funds in Tourism reserves. Filer said the Center has visitors from all over the world and added that the board was very grateful for the funding.

Leah Galione from PEAK Literacy also thanked the board for an additional $37,500, which will be on top of a November 2025 grant of $200,000 to implement literacy efforts. Galione said her organization currently serves 292 students and has given 25,356 individual lessons so far this year. She said they will add two new sites over the summer.

Designating Lakeshore Drive as a scenic road

During General and Early Public Comment, one person spoke against classifying Lakeshore Drive as a scenic road because the road is in bad shape and he feared that the designation could increase traffic and would expand the right-of-way into the property of current residents. Three other speakers agreed.

Staff recommended against moving forward with designating portions of Lakeshore Drive (SE 74th Street) as a County Scenic Road, and Commissioner Anna Prizzia made a motion to remove consideration of the road as a scenic road. Commissioner Charles Chestnut seconded the motion, and the motion passed 4-0, with Commissioner Mary Alford absent for the first part of the meeting.

Artwork for the County’s Fire Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center

Commissioners considered three finalists for artwork for the County’s Fire Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Left to right in the picture below, the finalists were a bronze sculpture, a mural, and a relief. 

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler, a former art teacher, said she liked the relief (the one on the right), but the uniform should be changed to make it look more like Alachua County Fire Rescue uniforms. 

Prizzia also liked the relief, but she said the EOC is about much more than firefighting, so she suggested expanding future calls for artwork to not be “so thematic and so representational of what’s in the building, because our buildings change uses all the time.”

Wheeler made a motion to accept the relief with changes in the uniform, and Prizzia seconded the motion. Prizzia asked to add a request to the Arts Council to consider expanding future proposals, and Assistant County Manager Gina Peebles said future requests could say it “doesn’t necessarily need to reflect what function is in the building.” Wheeler agreed to add that to her motion. 

The motion passed 4-0, with Alford absent.

Data centers

During an update on legislation passed in the 2026 session, Prizzia asked the Growth Management Department to expedite Comprehensive Plan changes for data centers; the new bill preserves local authority on developing policies and land use compatibility regulations for data centers with a monthly peak load of 50 MW or more. Staff said that without language to use as a model, it will take a few months to develop policies for the board to consider.  

Prizzia said she has “strong opposition to the idea of one of these being located in our county, given the intensive nature of their natural resources impacts… So I’m anxious to have this done, so that we’re not at odds with a potential application.” Wheeler, Alford, and Chestnut agreed, with Wheeler saying, “Just say no.”

Principal Planner Chris Dawson on data centers: “The Growth Management Director’s interpretation is that they’re… not a permitted use.”

In response to a question from Prizzia about whether they could implement a moratorium on data centers until regulations are in place, Principal Planner Chris Dawson said they couldn’t, but “the Growth Management Director’s interpretation is that they’re… not a permitted use.”

Former Wahoo restaurant property

The board unanimously approved a small-scale Comprehensive Plan amendment for the former Wahoo restaurant property (near I-75 and NW 39th Avenue), changing its future land use to Commercial, and a rezoning from BH (highway-oriented business services) to BR (retail sales and services). 

Westside Christian School

The next item was a Preliminary Development Plan (PDP) for Westside Christian School at the existing Faith Baptist Church property on about 9.7 acres at 3200 SW 122nd Street. Staff recommended approval of the PDP for a 65,300-square-foot private school. The item included a request to extend centralized potable water and sanitary sewer beyond the Urban Cluster Line for the purposes of meeting fire sprinkler flow requirements and allowing the school to connect to sewer when the school decides it’s feasible, as it grows to a maximum of 750 students. The school’s intention is to use the on-site septic systems for now, and the Alachua County Health Department did not have any concerns about that.

Prizzia said, “That’s not a limited use; that’s a major use,” and Chair Ken Cornell remarked that the school would be about the size of a public elementary school.

Alford asked at what point they would have to connect to sewer, and the answer was that the Health Department said the school could exist on well and septic as long as they wanted. Staff said the County’s Code and Comprehensive Plan do not allow for a mandate to connect to sewer because the PDP is “consistent with the Code and Comprehensive Plan, as submitted.”

Alford was concerned about traffic backing up on Parker Road (SW 122nd Street), and Prizzia said it could be like P.K. Yonge: “Look at… how many cars are backed up on 6th Street,… blocking traffic for an hour each day in the morning and in the afternoon.”

Prizzia said, “750, to me, doesn’t feel like a limited use. It doesn’t feel like it’s an automatic approval at all.” She said it sounded like the board was being asked to approve the extension of water and sewer for public safety reasons (fire sprinklers), and “I’m not interested in approving something on the basis of public safety, and then [they say] that they don’t feel like doing it… They should be connecting to water and sewer because it’s a public safety hazard, and if it’s not a public safety hazard, we need to [limit]… the number of kids that, you know, make sense for a limited use on septic.”

Staff said the County’s Land Development Code table allows this as a limited use on institutional property outside of the urban cluster, and it’s always been listed that way. Dawson said “limited use” does not mean “limited in scale, it means limited by meeting criteria” for uses that are allowed on a piece of property, subject to standards in the County’s land development regulations. He said those criteria include access to a collector road. 

Prizzia said she didn’t support extending water and sewer to the property unless the school is mandated to connect to them.

Wheeler said, “It’s just a lot of toilet flushes for that many people; that’s a lot of water coming in and going out.”

Commissioner Anna Prizzia: “I feel like if we’re connecting them to water and sewer, we’re giving them what they need to open a private school in a rural area that effectively is displacing our public schools, which, in my opinion, is already a problem.”

Prizzia objected to giving them the water connection for fire sprinklers but not requiring them to connect to sewer: “750 kids a day, flushing toilets… I want it off septic and on sewer, and I feel like if we’re connecting them to water and sewer, we’re giving them what they need to open a private school in a rural area that effectively is displacing our public schools, which, in my opinion, is already a problem… They need to connect it to water and sewer.”

Wheeler agreed, “It seems to me that that should be part of the deal, you know — we will approve it if you are willing to actually pay for it and get it in the system.” She also had concerns about traffic. 

Ryan Thompson from NV5 said the school is currently operating at Westside Baptist Church (Newberry Road and NW 98th Street), and Westside Baptist is going to take over the property of Faith Baptist for their elementary school, which currently has about 100 students but hopes to grow to about 750 students. He said the Final Development Plan would have a plan for queuing cars on the property at pickup and drop-off times.

Thompson said that the site can operate at full capacity on septic; ideally, they would like to be on sewer, but it’s not budgeted at this time: “Their intent is 100% to connect to potable water; they would like to connect to sewer, but they don’t want to be tied to that at this time.”

Commissioner Prizzia: “My feeling is, if you want the water and sewer, then connect to the water and sewer, and if you don’t, then don’t.”

Prizzia said, “My feeling is, if you want the water and sewer, then connect to the water and sewer, and if you don’t, then don’t, and if you want to come back and ask us to do it at a later time when you have the money for the sewer, then great.”

Thompson said the school needs the potable water for fire sprinklers, but they didn’t initially ask for the sewer connection: “That was something that was asked of us, when working with staff.”

Alford said she didn’t have any problem with allowing them to connect to water but not sewer because well water is “less safe than having access to the potable water, and since it’s a school, I don’t want to jeopardize the potential safety of kids.” She said she would like to see a commitment to connect to sewer by the time the school has some number of students. Cornell agreed and said he thought that would be around 200-250 students, but he understood it might not be financially viable at that point.

Prizzia said the school can make tuition “commensurate with the cost of constructing their school,” and “if they want a school in an area that doesn’t have the utility services that are necessary to build that school, they should be building that school” in an area that already has utility services or “budget those utility services.”

She said, “I love Westside Baptist Church… They’re an amazing organization, and I have nothing against them in particular.” She said her concern was with building a large private school in a rural area. 

Assistant County Manager Missy Daniels asked the board to defer the item to a future meeting so staff could “look at a few things” and give NV5 a chance to talk to their client about the sewer hook-up. 

Alford made a motion to defer the item to their next meeting, and Wheeler seconded the motion. Cornell clarified that the motion did not specify a date, so staff and the applicant could discuss that. 

The motion passed unanimously.