Alachua County Commission discusses homelessness, conveys 13 acres to Hutchinson Foundation for Legacy project

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At the September 8 meeting, the Alachua County Commission approved the purchase of office space in the Chamber of Commerce building, asked staff to look into recommendations for reducing bureaucracy in providing services to homeless people, and moved forward with conveying 13.11 acres to the Hutchinson Foundation to build a workforce/market-rate housing development in east Gainesville.

A second article will cover the rest of the meeting and the budget.

Purchase of condominium in the Chamber of Commerce building

As part of their unanimous approval of the consent agenda, Commissioners approved the purchase of a 7,284-square-foot office condominium from the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce for $1,349,000 ($1.4 million was allocated for the purchase). 

According to the agenda backup, the purchase “will support the consolidation and improved accessibility of several County functions… The Clerk of the Court’s Fiscal Office, currently located on the fourth floor of the County Administration Building, will relocate to the property. The first-floor location will provide a more convenient and accessible location for residents and members of the public conducting business with the Clerk. The space vacated by the Clerk will then allow Alachua County OMB and Fiscal staff, who are currently located across multiple County facilities, to be consolidated into one central location. This consolidation will improve communication, staff cohesion, and overall business operations.”

Healthcare Advisory Board

Following a presentation from the Healthcare Advisory Board, Commissioner Anna Prizzia said, “I know that you all lean really heavily on the Community Health Assessment and the Community Health Improvement Plans. I know that the state has discontinued the Health Department’s work in doing those Community Health Assessments and Community Health Improvement Plans, and I’m wondering if our advisory board would take up the mantle of figuring out how we would move forward with continuing to do those… They’re really critical to how you all make recommendations to us and how we make decisions and prioritize funding that goes into health needs in our community.”

Motion

Prizzia made a motion to accept the advisory board’s annual work plan and objectives, with the additional objective to make recommendations to the board on “how to continue with our Community Health Assessment and Community Health Improvement Plan going forward.”

Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler asked about the current status of the CHOICES program, and a staff member said, “We currently have two recipients. We are collaborating with [the Office of Management and Budget] to figure out the next funding amount,… but we foresee it continuing.”

Wheeler said “some labor representatives were really anxious to make sure that we keep this going and actually increase the power of its impact in the community, based on what we’re seeing with people’s inability to pay for insurance or to make their medical payments.”

The motion passed unanimously.

General public comment

During general public comment, a representative from Acrosstown Repertory Theatre said they’d had technical difficulties submitting their grant application, and she asked Commissioners to make an exception to the deadline, pointing out that similar waivers have been granted in the past.

Abigail Perret-Gentil called in to talk about Karrie Ford, the woman who recently committed suicide by jumping from a downtown parking garage. She said the woman was number 1,186 on the housing waitlist and had been discharged from the Crisis Stabilization Unit without medication. Perret-Gentil said, “She was doing everything right. She was looking for work. She was sober. She was meditating. She was reaching out for help.” She said Karrie had been “set up to fail” by being released without medication or a safety net and “stripped of dignity and treated like a data point.” Perret-Gentil said, “I just want to emphasize how healthcare and housing are suicide prevention… If I was able to walk Karrie into an agency and get help in real time, she may still be here.”

Commissioner Anna Prizzia: “I think we need a next step… [to put] together a real plan [for homelessness], much like our action plan for climate change.”

After public comment, Prizzia said she would like to have a conversation about the waitlist: “I understand that it’s supposed to create fairness, but I do see again and again how it is failing so many people who are at the bottom of that list and who might only need minimal services to be able to get into housing and get stabilized, and yet they… fall into this pit of despair because they know they’re never going to get to the top of the list.” She said there have been “a lot of conversations swirling around the issue of unhoused individuals and homelessness in our community, but I’m not sure that we’ve really come up with an action plan that is solution-oriented… I think we need a next step… [to put] together a real plan, much like our action plan for climate change.”

Motion

Prizzia made a motion to give Acrosstown Repertory Theatre the opportunity to be considered for the grant award; she said, “It’s not a procurement program… It’s a program of our tourism department, and we have the authority to, you know, waive. And I understand mistakes are made and problems happen, especially when you’re an all-volunteer board and you made every effort to get it in on time.”

After Commissioner Mary Alford quoted from Abigail’s Substack – “Sadly, the amount that we don’t have to bury her properly is the exact amount we still needed to house her” — Prizzia added a second part to her motion to “refer to staff the action recommendations in [the Substack] and ask that they bring us back a response to that, with some recommendations on information for discussion.”

The motion passed unanimously.

Pothole requests

In response to comments from the public about potholes, Public Works Director Ramon Gavarrete said they currently have 222 requests to fill potholes, and he asked people to refrain from sending multiple emails about the same pothole, “because that just slows down the whole processing.” He said three crews are rotating through specific roads, and they are supposed to do all of the potholes while they are in an area, but the fourth crew works on significant or deep potholes, and they do not fix other potholes on that road, “so we’re basically doing a mixture of both.”

Annual funding agreement with Meridian Behavioral Healthcare

During a discussion about the annual funding agreement with Meridian Behavioral Healthcare, a representative from Meridian said that patients are discharged with medication, although sometimes there is “an unwillingness, still, with medication. [Some] clients will refuse, and that is their right.” She said Meridian also sets them up with follow-up care and appointments, and care coordinators reach out after discharge to check on them. Prizzia asked the representative to bring up the issue in any coordination meetings that are held, saying that Karrie was discharged from Vista without medication, even after asking for it, “and I’m sure it’s happening in other incidents.”

Legacy Community Development Grant Application ranking of proposals

Ralston Reodica from Community Support Services reminded Commissioners that they had previously directed staff to offer the 13-acre parcel plus potential workforce housing funding from the Wild Spaces and Public Places surtax, with the goal of selecting an applicant that would include at least 30 detached single-family homes with a mixed-income model providing workforce and market-rate housing. The parcel is located at SE 8th Avenue and SE 15th Street.

The Hutchinson Foundation, a Gainesville-based nonprofit developer, submitted a proposal that included 55 for-sale homes, with 17 designated for long-term affordability; 24 age-restricted units (62+) for aging-in-place; a licensed daycare facility; 14,000 square feet of commercial space, including a “Farmer’s Stop” hub to “eliminate the local food desert and catalyze small business growth”; and five duplexes (a total of 10 units) to provide “missing middle” housing diversity and optimized land use. They requested $3.5 million in County funding toward a $29 million development.

The presentation from PLAD proposed “high-efficiency modular construction” incorporating almost 5 acres of “lush landscaping, dedicated green spaces, active playgrounds, and a community swimming pool.” The proposal includes 146 residential units, with 22 detached 460-square-foot homes with 2 bedrooms and one bath; 34 stacked duplexes with 400 square feet per floor, two bedrooms, and one bath; and multifamily blocks constructed with interconnected modular units, including 30 884-square-foot two-bedroom apartments and 60 442-square-foot studio apartments. They requested $2.2 million in County funding toward a $10.8 million development.

The PLAD representative said, “This is not a manufactured home project. This is on-site traditional construction, using steel materials.” He said the exteriors of the buildings can be customized to “make it look like any neighborhood.” He said they can build a home in four hours, although he said the project would take about 36 months because of the needed approvals, permits, and site infrastructure.

Wheeler said she loved PLAD’s design and “the creative response to the housing need.”

Alford said there were things she liked about both proposals; she said the modular housing is “a great way to construct homes that have high wind resistance and have excellent sound and energy efficiency and all of those things.” She said she was disappointed in the lack of variety in the models offered by PLAD because she values “a neighborhood that is diverse and is interesting.” She liked the emphasis on front porches in the Hutchinson Foundation proposal and the houses that are raised up off the street because that “gives you another level of privacy” when lots are small. She also liked the Hutchinson Foundation’s emphasis on a mix of housing types and the commercial component, along with “working with the community and listening to the community and understanding what the community wanted.”

PLAD said they have “hundreds of options” in exterior cladding, and they can offer “floor-to-ceiling glass windows, you can have decks, we can offer front porches, all that.”

Prizzia liked the “sustainability component” of the PLAD proposal, but she said the Hutchinson Foundation had “done what we asked them to do, which is to sit with the community, to talk to the community, to understand the community’s needs, and to bring a project that matches those needs.” She particularly liked the “multi-generational component.”

Prizzia asked PLAD about their engagement with the community, and the representative said the “team has reached out to local communities,… and also local architects and contractors. We’ve found that the best voice will be coming directly from the workers and the workforce that is building these areas.” He said the residential units would be priced around $1.70 per square foot. 

Commissioner Charles Chestnut to PLAD: “This is not what [folks in the area] are looking for,… and it’s not what I’m looking for… I don’t think you understand the neighborhood, and I don’t think you did your due diligence to find out what the folks in the neighborhood wanted… I couldn’t support it.”

Commissioner Charles Chestnut said to PLAD, “I have a lot of issues, sir… I don’t think you know much about this area… Residents in the area… don’t want just something plain and simple. They want something that looks like a neighborhood. To me, this does not look like a neighborhood… They don’t have garages… This is not what [folks in the area] are looking for,… and it’s not what I’m looking for… I don’t think you understand the neighborhood, and I don’t think you did your due diligence to find out what the folks in the neighborhood wanted… I couldn’t support it.”

The PLAD representative said they can easily change the exteriors of the buildings and then send out options via an online poll to let the community “choose exactly what they want it to look like… Modular gives us that flexibility.” He also said the homes would not be as affordable if they had garages, and they would take up more space, “but if that’s something that locals want, it’s something that we can do.”

Chestnut said, however, that he was “really impressed” with the Hutchinson Foundation’s proposal: “I think that’s what the folks in the neighborhood was actually looking for — something that’s mixed-use, something that’s nice, that will bring quality to that area, and people will want to live there.”

Chair Ken Cornell said he thought the Hutchinson group “really nailed it.” He said he was most impressed by the team “of local folks that I know very, very well, across the board… This is literally the A Team, in my opinion, of Alachua County.” 

Motion

Prizzia made a motion to negotiate with the Hutchinson Foundation for the Legacy project and bring back the proposed grant agreement to the board. Three other Commissioners seconded the motion.

Prizzia added that she thought there were other places in the community where PLAD could build modular developments: “I think the product that they bring has a lot of potential,… but this is not the project for you.”

She agreed with Chestnut that the project “was really about this community. They live there. They’ve lived there for decades. They’ve dealt with generational issues of racism and generational issues of disinvestment, and what they were asking for is that the government listen and that the government bring something different to the table. And to do that, that means you have to have the conversations with these people about what they want in their back yard and really listen. And I think that’s what the Hutchinson family has done, and that’s what they’ve brought forward in this proposal.”

Prizzia, however, said she wasn’t sure the funds should come from the infrastructure surtax because “we committed not to spend those east of Main Street.” Cornell, who made that motion in December 2022, said, “I don’t view this as affordable housing. I view this as workforce/market-rate housing. So I don’t [see] my motion in conflict with this, at all.”

Prizzia said the infrastructure surtax money was set aside “specifically for affordable housing,… for 80% AMI and below.” She wanted staff to bring options for the funds from other sources. 

Cornell asked what the price would be for the Hutchinson Foundation’s two-bedroom/two-bath homes at 1,100 square feet, and the answer was between $260,000 and $280,000. 

In public comment, all of the speakers supported the Hutchinson Foundation proposal. 

The motion passed unanimously.