Newberry City Commission imposes impact fees on new construction, approves new mixed-use development, rejects second meeting with County

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

NEWBERRY, Fla. – During their August 14 regular meeting, the Newberry City Commission approved zoning for a development to be known as Newberry Plaza that will include 350 single-family homes and 150,000 square feet of commercial space. They also approved impact fees on new construction to cover the additional costs incurred by the City related to those construction projects. Toward the end of the meeting, the commissioners gave their reasons for not wanting to attend a second joint meeting with the County Commission regarding the proposed meat processing facility in Newberry.

Newberry Plaza

Operating in quasi-judicial mode (as a judicial board instead of a legislative body), the commission heard the second reading of Ordinance 2023-16/LDR2307, “an ordinance of the City of Newberry Florida relating to the rezoning of approximately 128 contiguous acres.” Commissioner Mark Clark recused himself due to a possible conflict of interest.

The Principal Planner for the City of Newberry, Jean-Paul Perez, introduced the ordinance: “Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The request before you is the Rezoning Petition Ordinance 2023-16 related to the future land use map amendment that was just approved, rezoning the property from ‘Agricultural A’ to ‘Planned Development PD.’ The image before you shows the general location of the property (at the SE corner of CR235 and Newberry Road). There’s a topographical map of the property… The level of development proposes 350 detached single-family dwelling units, 150,000 square feet of non-residential use. The applicant is present if you have any questions. They have not prepared a presentation for the second reading of this ordinance, and with that, I’m going to wrap up my presentation. We do find it consistent with the Comprehensive Plan land development regulations, and we do recommend enactment of this ordinance on second reading.”

No members of the public spoke about the proposed development. Commissioner Tim Marden asked about the lot size: “The minimum lot size of 5000 (square feet) is comparable to what-ish neighborhood that we currently have?” Perez responded, “That’s a great question. Avalon Woods, I think, would be a good idea (of the lot size).”

Marden made a motion to approve the ordinance, and it passed unanimously. 

Impact fees

Assistant City Manager Dallas Lee gave a short presentation on the proposed impact fees: “As the City Attorney stated, the recommended motion tonight is to move to adopt the Impact Fee Ordinance upon its second reading… As a reminder, an impact fee is a one-time capital charge. It’s charged to new development, so existing residents do not pay impact fees unless they’re building a new building within the city. It covers the cost of capacity increases of our infrastructure so that our taxpayers don’t have to bear the full burden of new residents moving into the city… At 100 percent impact fees, should the commission adopt those, it’d be about 35 dollars a month on a typical mortgage… Should the commission adopt the ordinance tonight, [a 60 percent impact fee] would be effective November 14th…through October next year. And then… every October the impact fee would increase by 10 percent until you reach the 100 percent impact fee rate (in October 2027) that was established by our consultant.”

Lee told commissioners that the impact fee is based on the size of the house, with homes grouped into categories of small, medium, and large, and in almost all situations, the impact fee would be less than the County’s current impact fee and much less than the County’s new proposed impact fees. Lee said, “For example, a 2,000-square-foot home in Newberry will pay just under $4,200 in total impact fees. Currently in Alachua County, that’s about $6,800. Should the County adopt the impact fees they have proposed, that would go to $8,800. So we’re about half of what the County’s proposed impact fees are.”

Lee mentioned economic development incentives for businesses that would allow them to offset a portion of their impact fees by paying employees more than the standard wage in the area. The commissioners discussed the fairness of allowing businesses to pay lower impact fees when homeowners do not have this option, and they mentioned that the cost of living in Newberry is still one of the lowest in the state. 

Commissioner Rick Coleman made a motion to approve the ordinance, and it passed 3-1, with Marden in dissent.

Second meeting with County Commission

The mayor and commissioners addressed a formal request from the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners to participate in a second joint meeting regarding the proposed joint-venture meat processing facility to be located in Newberry. Mayor Jordan Marlowe pointed out that Newberry had done their part by donating the 22 acres of land for the project. He said, “I kind of think that really this is a political ploy just to fill up a room again and have the same conversation over again. I am willing to put that in a letter. I’ll go home tonight and write a letter that we respectfully decline the opportunity to have another joint meeting. Newberry has offered up the acreage… we sincerely hope that you move forward with it because our farmers have expressed that they would like this. But if you’re not, it’s a County project… and somehow, even though we’ve been really supportive of the County, we’ve been used as a pawn, and now it’s creating division between us and the County right when we were just here from the very beginning saying, ‘Hey, that sounds like a good project, we want to support it.’… But that’s okay, I’ll be happy to repeat… that’s six hours of my life I’d just as soon have back. I wish I could have it back for everybody else, and I understand that the County likes to talk about everything to death and not do anything. That is not the personality of this commission, and I think it’s a complete waste of time, and I refuse to have our community used so that those commissioners can grandstand on issues.”