Newberry City Commission works to modernize roads and preserve historic buildings, adopts Fire Assessment Fee increase

BY DAVID LIGHTMAN

NEWBERRY, Fla. – At their August 28 regular meeting, the Newberry City Commission heard a presentation from the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) about planned improvements to a stretch of State Road 26 from the Gilchrist County line to State Road 26A. An architectural historian delivered the results of a survey of currently-classified historic buildings and additional buildings that may fall under the historic classification. Commissioners also passed a new fire assessment rate with only a five-dollar increase, keeping Newberry’s rate among the lowest in the county.

One-way Pairs Project on SR 26 

David Tyler, the District 2 Transportation Planning Manager for FDOT, gave a short presentation to update the current design for the One-way Pairs Project on State Road 26/Newberry Road. The project consists of making the current SR 26 one-way eastbound and NW First Avenue one-way westbound. Both roadways will have travel lanes, parking spaces, and a sidewalk. The eastbound road will have a seven-foot bike lane, and the westbound road will have a ten-foot paved multi-use trail that can be used by pedestrians and bicyclists. 

Tyler spoke about safety improvements: “We’re looking to improve the U.S. 41 intersection operations where they intersect with State Road 26 and NW First Avenue by installing traffic signals. We’re also reducing conflict points at every intersection by making it one-way, and we’re installing a roundabout at County Road 337, which reduces the conflict points… from a traditional intersection by 75 percent. We’re reducing with this project the parked-car crash instances along the corridor. We’re also installing the sidewalk and trails on both sides of State Road 26 and Northwest First Avenue. Again, a real Complete Streets type of project.” He said the project was initiated in April of 2019, and design changes had been made since then with input from the public.

Tyler mentioned lighting, parking spaces, and other safety features: “Another project amenity that we’re offering with this project is the decorative lighting. This will be for both eastbound/westbound and the nine side streets through this corridor… The pole assembly, the luminaire, was approved by the City Commission and the Historic Architectural Review Board. This represents a $2 million enhanced cost to the project… We’re also including side street improvements, resurfacing improvements that we weren’t originally intending to do, through, again, collaboration with the City… On-street parking, where we can fit it, sidewalks, and decorative lighting, and again that’s a $4 million additional enhanced cost that we’re absorbing with this contract. We appreciate you guys and your communication on that need. We’re definitely glad to have that as part of the project, and… we’re also including some off-street parking amenities. We have two new proposed parking lot improvements, one on State Road 26 in the eastbound direction across from City Hall… and then one at NW First Avenue and 252nd Street.” He mentioned that the number of parking spaces will increase to 172, a net gain of 39. A golf cart crossing at 260th Street will be installed at the request of the City.

The total cost of the project, to be paid by the State, is between $80 and $85 million. Mayor Jordan Marlowe complimented Tyler on FDOT’s responsiveness to the city’s needs: “You guys have just been amazing partners in trying to meet in the middle. Our businesses were worried about losing the parking, you’ve addressed that. Our neighborhoods were worried about losing that neighborhood feel of a road, you guys are doing the best you can to address that, and you put your money where your mouth is.” 

Tyler addressed the utility construction costs associated with the project: The $10 million cost will be mostly paid by the state, leaving Newberry with a $3 million non-compensable portion. Marlowe thought this was a reasonable expense for the City: “Please pass along the commission’s gratitude about that quick and hard work to get that down to a number that our community has a much better likelihood of being able to absorb.”

Tyler said the project will take roughly three years to construct; however, construction won’t actually begin until 2026. No members of the public spoke during public comment. The mayor and commissioners voted unanimously to approve the agreement to work with FDOT on the One-way Pairs Project.

Historic Resources Survey

Jean-Paul Perez of the Planning and Economic Development Department introduced the next presentation: “The Historic Resources Survey is essentially an inventory of structures within the Historic District. JMT is the contractor that was selected through the bid process. The project was funded through a small matching grant… Christine Leggio is the senior architectural historian with JMT, and with us today is Elisabeth Price, who will be giving you a presentation. She’s the architectural historian that worked on the update to the project… It’s pretty relevant; there’s programs and funding out there for disaster mitigation in historic districts… We’ll be looking into opportunities to provide assistance for disaster mitigation for the historical homes.”

Elisabeth Price, Architectural Historian with JMT, told the commission, “The City of Newberry Historic District has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1987. It is an intact commercial district and residential neighborhood that’s been relatively unaffected by new development. It is representative of early twentieth-century architecture in Florida, and many of the buildings that contribute to the Historic District were constructed in the early 1900s and are still here today.” She said 120 resources were surveyed, including 80 extant resources within the Historic District and 40 newly-identified resources. She said that, unfortunately, none of the 40 newly-identified resources meet the criteria to be considered historic. 

Price encouraged the commission to consider ad valorem property tax incentives, like some other districts in Florida, to encourage property owners to maintain their historic properties and not demolish them. In response to a question from Marlowe, Price clarified that individual property owners must nominate their own properties for consideration as historic. Assistant City Manager Dallas Lee agreed to revisit the topic of property tax incentives and bring something back for the commission to look at in the near future.

Fire Assessment Fee

Lee spoke on the proposed increase in the Fire Assessment Fee: “City staff is recommending an increase of five dollars in our fire assessment for residential houses, from $195 to $200. Just for the commission’s knowledge, comparing yourselves to other areas, City of High Springs Fire Assessment is $223 per resident. City of Gainesville has a complicated tier structure, but for a comparable house, it’s $230 per residence. For Alachua County, it’s $439 for a comparable house, so even with this modest five-dollar increase, City of Newberry is still offering the lowest fire assessment rates… The Fire Assessment goes 100 percent to fund your fire department, its operations, and its capital improvements. And the reason we’re asking for an increase this year is to fund those compensation adjustments we talked about earlier… as well as to help offset some price increases we’re facing in the fire department.” (Earlier in the meeting, City employee salaries were discussed, along with suggested adjustments to make them more competitive with similar cities.) 

Marlowe responded, “If anyone missed the Push-in Ceremony, it was a great ceremony. We had a lot of really positive feedback from the community. Their source of community pride in our fire department is fantastic. We had some commissioners from neighboring communities show up, ask how did we afford this, how do we go about this. We were able to tell them, and some of those (municipalities) have higher fire assessment rates, so once again Newberry is showing that we can do more with less, and that did not go unnoticed at that ceremony.”

Lee clarified that the increase will raise an additional $22,000 per year for the fire department. Commissioner Mark Clark made a motion to pass the resolution, and Commissioner Tim Marden seconded the motion. The motion passed 3-1, with Commissioner Monty Farnsworth in dissent.