County Commission special meeting for the comprehensive planning evaluation update. We have a floor on the agenda. We've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion for the motion on the floor? Are there any citizen comments for the motion? Back to the board. Those in favor of the motion will buy the sign of aye. Aye. Those opposed, anytime motion carries. Mr. Chair, this is another in our series, not long series, but abbreviated series of evaluation and appraisal presentation. Ben, of course, needs no introduction. This is about community facilities and services, and we have staff from Solid Waste. We have transportation and parks available if those questions come up in those areas. With that, Ben, take it away. Ask a question that's relevant to this generally before we get into this, if I can. That is, I just saw the challenge to the comp plan updates in another county due to 180, and I was wondering if we know, I know you were saying that there was a rotter bill being introduced. The glitch fix. The glitch fix, which. Yeah, so two paragraphs of Senate Bill 180 for asking the, Sam McLean's bill, asking him to take a look at the fact, and he's committed to taking a look at that, and narrowing the focus of Senate Bill 180 to just include damaged properties from hurricanes. We'll see if that actually gets introduced into session, and I know there's lots of other counties that are very motivated to ask for that. So I think it's until what we're talking about now won't go into effect until after session, so theoretically, but. Mr. Chair, what the evaluation and appraisal-based updates to the comp plan will have to be transmitted before April 1st of next year. So that will likely be before whatever the bill is that addresses Senate Bill 180. And Mr. Chair, the way that we've been approaching this process, at least our internal staff conversations have been, is through this workshop process is not to limit your discussions. Anything that comes forward that may be considered under the current Senate Bill 180 rubric to be a more burdensome or restrictive regulation, everything's getting written down. At the end of this process, the way that if the current Senate Bill 180 is still in effect, we will pair through it, and we will make sure that we come up with, as Ben mentioned, and I think at the beginning of this process, that what we're required to do is come up with any amendments that are required to be consistent with state statute. And so that we will do. And that clearly, well, I say clearly, as far as we know, that would not be considered more restrictive or burdensome, or otherwise would be in conflict with existing state law. So we would move forward with those. The rest of the items we could keep on a different list and move forward with those when we are able to. I guess I was thinking the session would be over by the time we heard back and had to do the, it's an adoption hearing and then a transmittal hearing, right? Other way around, but yes. On transmittal and then adoption, I mean. So theoretically, we would transmit, and even if they were more restrictive, then we would suspect to have comments, or would we just not even submit them? I mean, I guess there's a lot of, I'm wondering how many of, some of what we're doing that's optional isn't necessarily more restrictive. It's just changing language or updating language or fixing things or adding clarity to things or making things less restrictive, like in our TOD, TND stuff, I think we're creating something that's more flexible. Well, so I guess would we attempt those or? Mr. Chair, I think just in looking at everything that the board has directed us to do, the overwhelming majority of those things, I would just, from an initial analysis, would not be more restrictive or burdensome. I agree with that. Just based on staff's analysis of it, there may be, you know, one or two that might be debatable, and we'll definitely look at those more closely as we move through the process. But even if we submitted those, we would suspect that the state viewed those as more restrictive, and we didn't, then they would give us a comment, correct? They would. And it may be worth it to save them and submit them after they've fixed the glitch bill so we don't have to go through or back and forth with the state. Yeah. I think we'll know a lot more by April 1st. Yeah, we'll know. Okay. We'll kind of know if anything's moving through or not, and then we can probably make that decision. I mean, I'm, yeah, so it's a great question. I just wanted to bring it, yeah. I hadn't really focused in on that. I thought this would all be fixed by the time we submit, but probably not. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Mr. Chair, as long as they're keeping a list, which they are, and we can tell you as we go through, you have 180 days after you get comments back to adopt, right? Correct. So you could push it beyond the law if we've gone and tried to put things in there because the law is changing. So we'd be okay in that. So they are throwing out entire comp plans based on not even all of it being more burdensome. Right. So that's why I would rather us hold off. Yeah, I agree. But if they're going to create a glitch, but it's going to work, then I think we should wait. Okay. All right. Thank you for the conversation. I just. Okay. I will go ahead and proceed with the presentation. Yes. Thank you. Again, Ben Shumley with Growth Management. This is your fourth policy workshop on the comprehensive plan evaluation and update. As Jeff mentioned, this one is about the general topic of community facilities and services, and that includes four elements, the transportation element, the recreation element, solid waste element, and the community health element. So today I'm just going to provide a brief overview of those four elements, as well as review some conceptual recommendations from staff for updates to the plan. And we want to get direction from the board on those potential updates and any other updates to those elements that you would like to direct us to do. And based on your direction today, staff will draft plan amendments and bring those back to you at a later date. So just talking a little bit about the schedule, today is your most likely your final policy workshop on this phase of the comprehensive plan update. After today, staff will start drafting amendments to the plan. I mean, we've already started, but we will really begin in earnest that drafting process based on the direction you've given. Part of that process will be sorting out what updates we will bring forward as part of this package and what updates may need to be held back based on Senate Bill 180 or just, you know, a need to address things in a little more detail than maybe we have time to do. So that will be part of that process going forward. We do have one more potential workshop date reserved on your calendar for December 2nd. At this point, staff is thinking we probably will not need that workshop for the comp plan update. However, there are a couple of other growth management items. I think ULDC updates that may be coming forward on that date. So that date is still out there if we need it. And just as a reminder, and I think Jeff said it, but our obligation under the statute is to transmit any plan amendments that are necessary for compliance with state statutes by April 1st of 2026. The transportation mobility element is the first element we are looking at today. The overall goal of this element is to establish a multimodal transportation system that provides mobility for pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, motorized vehicle users, users of rail and aviation facilities, and is sensitive to the cultural and environmental amenities of Alachua County. So policies in this element focus a lot on the connection between land use and transportation. There is an emphasis on promoting mixed-use development at densities that are supportive of transit, and those policies also tie in with policies in the energy element about reducing vehicle miles of travel and greenhouse gas emissions. The transportation element also establishes a multimodal transportation capital improvements program, which addresses projected transportation network needs over the next 20 years. The board just adopted an update to that transportation CIP earlier this year as part of the comprehensive plan, so that is very current. The element also contains level of service guidelines for roadways as well as pedestrian, bicycle, and transit facilities. And I say guidelines because they're not concurrency standards. They're guidelines that are used for planning purposes. Transportation safety is another issue that's dealt with in this element, and policies in that part of the element call for monitoring of traffic safety data and developing plans to make improvements to roadways and intersections that have documented safety problems. Your Safe Streets and Roads for All plan that's been ongoing for a while now is an example of putting those policies into practice. And another thing addressed in this element is aviation, and those policies generally talk about the need for coordination with aviation facilities to prevent any potential obstructions to airport operations. So that's a very high-level overview of what's in the current transportation element. And at this point, I am going to turn the presentation over to Allison Moss, our transportation planning manager, to walk you through a few recommended updates to the transportation element. And I'll advance for you. Hello. I'm Allison Moss, transportation planning manager, and just here to build on some of the sort of framework that Ben laid out. So as you probably sort of got the impression on the first slide, the comp plan is very strong in terms of aspirational sort of formulation of goals and priorities for Alachua County to be multimodal to support sort of sustainable transportation. The primary changes that we're looking at in this comp plan update would be to make those goals and policies more rigorous, to put them into action. So the very first thing, so Objective 1.6, to provide a system of safe, pleasant, convenient, and continuous bicycle pedestrian networks throughout the community. So it's a very good objective. How do we do it by implementing a countywide bicycle pedestrian master plan is the primary mechanism. And so we are working on that now, and we've actually developed the draft network. We're having the consultant go through with the fine-tooth comb to determine the feasibility of these projects so that when we come up with a prioritized list, they're very vetted. And the bicycle pedestrian master plan itself has goals, policies, objectives, and strategies, and so the idea would be for the comp plan to incorporate those by reference. Those include things like mode share goals, which is what percentage of people would be like and would be reasonable as a target for Alachua County to be walking and biking. For transportation, that would, of course, be different inside and outside of the urban cluster. What was the mode share? Yeah, so, you know, for instance, something like 5% of trips are made by biking. What share of the population is using a given mode of transportation? That's correct, yeah. And part of our goal is to increase certain modes. Yeah, and one of the things that the recent, so recently the MTPO board, of which you all are members, was asked to increase the funding for the bike ped plan, and part of that is to look at the feasibility very closely, but also we have some budget to do a little bit of a closer look at the goals and policies, and that would be to do research on comparable communities, what sort of goals have they had for making walking and biking accessible, to sort of tether our, you know, projections to something that exists in the real world. Yeah, so rather than reiterate all of the goals, policies, strategies within that, just incorporate them by reference. So here is a big old map of the draft network for bicycle pedestrian projects, sort of intentionally zoomed out because it's not really ready for prime time, but there are going to be many, many projects. It's a very robust network. A lot of the projects are either shared-use paths on the busier streets, or bike boulevard or neighborhood greenways, sort of traffic calming on residential streets with crossing enhancements of the busier streets. So that will be, again, sort of incorporated by reference. Some of these will be developer-driven projects. Some of them will be, you know, CIPs. Some of them will be working with the Florida Department of Transportation to have them help us implement them on their roadways. Yeah, just speaking very briefly to the Senate bill that was discussed, I think in a lot of these cases it's not really a whole lot more infrastructure. It's rather reallocation in a given area. Or in the sort of residential context, it's mostly about improving the crossing, and the local roads themselves are pretty, you know, functioning okay. Yeah, or, you know, the developer being able to provide, you know, multimodal transportation rather than, you know. It could be very expensive to do a lot of vehicle infrastructure as well. So that would be dependent on context. I'm sorry, would you rather explain? Yeah. Yes. My concern is at schools, school crossings, and also community centers, parks, you know, that we are monitoring accessibility with crosswalks. Right now I'm thinking about Santa Fe High School. You know, it's that heavy intersection right there. And there's a lot in here that relates to that, and I didn't know if we were specifically anywhere in this plan focusing on those areas and data collected at those areas. Because I know with Santa Fe High School, with all the activity that's going on there, with 235A and 441 plus the Wawa and the, I mean, there's a lot of activity going on there. I don't know if there's any sidewalks or if there's any bike, you know, I don't know if it's too dangerous an intersection for even to be considered bikeable, but walkable for sure. And so I don't know, is there anything in the comp plan that is addressing those areas that congregate old people and children? So, yeah, Mr. Chair, I'd say that the bicycle pedestrian plan does have a focus on safe routes to school and, you know, just sort of bicycle walking safety in, you know, areas of higher activity. When I mentioned that the goals and policies will be strengthened a bit with some additional budget, the consultant will be able to take a closer look at, you know, truing up numbers, making them realistic and achievable for Alachua County. And they'll only be able to do, you know, a lot of research on select goals and policies, and I think safer routes to school one would be a very good one. Okay, school, and that would be mentioning then specifically schools and community parks or that sort of thing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I think the plan is to take that plan that's going to have the detail of what she's talking about and then we would reference it in here along with the Safe Streets for All, like both of those would then get referenced in the comp plan as sort of just like we did with the parks mastermind of being like our go-to or the climate action plan. So the next sort of, you know, element of taking comp plan objectives and making them more rigorous would be implementing the Safe Streets and Roads for All action plan. The board is going to receive an update on the 28th of this month regarding that project. So objective 1.8, safety to provide a safe transportation system network that supports the needs of all system users. So the board already approved a Vision Zero resolution committing to a goal of zero serious injuries and fatalities on county roadways. And then the Safe Streets and Roads for All action plan is really a sort of multidisciplinary, multifaceted effort. So there are strategies, there are projects, there are policies. There's been significant community engagement. And so that plan has this sort of like multifaceted approach and that will be referenced as well through the comp plan. Can I ask a clarified question? So you said that the Vision Zero resolution was for all the Lachua County roadways. Is that all roads in Lachua County or is that all roads that Lachua County owns? The resolution I don't think was specific in that way. The Vision Zero or the Safe Streets and Roads for All action plan considered all streets and roads. That's what I thought. I just wanted to clarify that. The city adopted a similar Vision Zero resolution. Right. Yeah, they did. But, you know, and the state has too. But, I mean, in terms of our efforts, we are applying our efforts to everything that we have any impact on, whether or not it's our road specifically. Yeah. And, Mr. Chair, I would say that the comp plan is actually pretty strong on the safety aspect of transportation. There are a lot of recommendations, I would say, that haven't really been implemented until the Safe Streets and Roads for All action plan. And it's doing things like bringing together a task force that just met in this room earlier today and included FDOT, City of Gainesville, of course, county, public health, and law enforcement. And so to work on these safety goals. So, yes, the county only has jurisdiction over its own roadways, but there are certain efforts such as, you know, things sort of task force that have been accomplished by the action plan that are helping bring FDOT to the table. And advocacy. Is the condition of our roads going to impact this at all, you know, in terms of safety and, you know, because I know we're hearing from a lot of folks, you know, we're talking about the condition of the roads being problematic, swerving line-to-line, you know, damage to cars and things like that, you know, that I just didn't know if, because that seems to be one of the causations. Yeah. Mr. Chair, so we have heard that. I'd say that the reality is probably it's a little bit difficult to determine whether, say, potholes are contributing to safety issues. It's not really borne out in the data from the action plan that we've seen in terms of a major crash factor. It can be traffic calming. It could also be hazardous. And here are just some sort of snapshots of the HIN, which stands for High Injury Networks. The first is for the Bicycle Pedestrian Network, and the image to the left is countywide, and then the image to the right is within more or less the urbanized area, the city of Gainesville and beyond. And it includes both segments and intersections. So this data was for bicycle and pedestrian, we looked at all injury severity. And then if you... That's your intersection that you were talking about. Mm-hmm. Yes, I'm looking at it. And then the following slide looks at vehicle and motorcycle high injury networks. These were normalized by volumes of motor vehicles, which is easier to do with the large numbers of people driving. So you see, you know, largely it follows, you know, the collector arterial roadways and the state highway system. So speed is definitely a major factor. Just a brief note that the intersections in this case are signalized intersections, and that's just sort of... They have... They're a different beast than unsignalized intersection. There's different sort of countermeasures that we would propose. So, again, the comp plan would reference this work, and then there may be CIP projects that come out of this, ultimately. What time frame did this... It was the last five years plus. So it was 2019 through 2014. I'm pretty sure. Yep. Back in time, yes. And that was required by the FHWA for the grant. And the last one I'll say, I think everyone wishes we could have a more robust transit section within the comp plan. So Objective 3.1 to assist the providers of mass transit in Alachua County in their planning efforts through coordination, informational support, and participation in planning efforts. So one of the things, and this is sort of a catch-all thing, is that we do have a large group of maps at the end of the comp plan transportation mobility element. And, you know, we need to update them. We need to reflect, you know, the transit service that is currently provided. And that goes really for all of the maps that we have. I would add, additionally, we'd hope to get, like, more dynamic, easy-to-use maps. And I think we have that capacity now with the new GIS manager. Mr. Chair, that's all we have on the transportation section. So if there are any transportation comments or questions, we can take those now, or we can move on, depending on how you want to handle it. I had a few. So you just mentioned that you were looking at beefing up the transit portion. Given the changes in paratransit, are you looking at changing any of the wording in the paratransit section also? That's Objective 2.2. I would say that that section appeared to me to be pretty meager. And so... I mean, I don't know what... I don't really have any good suggestions on what to add to it other than the fact that it looks like we may be, you know, managing paratransit. Yeah. I think it probably could be... I'm just imagining, sort of recalling in my mind what it said. But I know it specifically refers to transportation disadvantaged. It's roughly like a sentence. And I think that it could probably... I think it's two sentences. Yeah. Yeah, there are. It could probably be reframed to better reflect the county's commitment to supporting its residents with paratransit. I don't know exactly what... Here. Look at that. Well, I guess just real quick that I marked... Because I marked it too and I forgot. I guess I would just say that I think that likely the dialogue that we're having with the city and the MTPO about a regional transit authority might change a lot of the dynamics in the transit section of the comp plan that we have to update after that happens and after the MTPO director is on and boarded and really begins to outline the scope and the work that we're doing. So I guess my feeling with this section... I read it, but I didn't read it with a fine-toothed phone because I assumed between Safe Streets for All and Bike Pad Master Plan, both of which are coming soon, and the dialogue that's coming regarding a transit authority and changes in everything from paratransit to kind of overall transportation. I agree with all of that, except I was saying kind of the opposite, is that if it's in our comp plan, it would help direct our conversations to the goals that we have, you know, that are important to us and making it happen. For sure, for sure. Yeah, so that was sort of where I was at, was making sure that what was written in our comp plan supported the goals that we have in terms of providing paratransit and transportation disadvantaged services and in terms of, you know, expanding regional transit rather than contracting it in order to serve the needs of outlying communities and things like that. Yeah, good point. And so, you know, so when I met with the new UF interim president yesterday and that whole group of folks, transportation actually was one of our biggest topics. And I don't know if you guys talked to them at all about that, but it was interesting because they're actually meeting with MB Transit 2 about being service providers that could possibly affect how all of this works. I'm just throwing that out there. But we also talked about, you know, partnerships with the University of Florida and in terms of future transportation. We talked about partnering on things like, for instance, park and ride lots for not just for connection to transit, but also for, you know, cyclists that might come in from another town could park and bike into campus. Folks could use them for carpooling and things like that. And, you know, the UF bus service could make their circles as well as we could, you know, service them eventually with a more regional transit system. Anyway, they have a lot to say about transportation. I was really surprised. Did they understand that by insourcing their transit on campus, they were impacting the ability of our entire community to provide quality public transportation? Yes. I gave them a whole report on that. Great. Thank you. Yeah, that was why. I brought a much more polished version of the report. I handed out the MTPO meeting and gave them a copy of it. Good for you. So that was why it was part of our big conversation. And, you know, I told them that a UF freshman who was concerned about transit wrote that. But those were the things that I had in terms of making sure that, you know, we covered that in our transit is that thinking about, you know, in terms of increasing that, you know, usage of bikes, like having a place for folks to park and then bike in to take more cars off the road or whatever could all be, especially once we get the archer braid finished and things like that, it could be really useful. So I just didn't know if those, I didn't really see that element in there. So I wanted to put that. And I don't know if there's a way that we could, because I've talked about this a few times with you guys, about having private, you know, a personal private person, you know, business who would just work out of a community. You know, I don't know if we needed to address being willing to work with any private provider like that, or if that would be acceptable, just saying. Mr. Chair, we can look at ways to incorporate all of those things into the transit section and the transportation disadvantage section when we bring it back to you. So everything's being noted. It's just a thought, you know, just, you know, however you all think that it could or not be. I mean, I think a policy that says something along the lines of, like, the county is interested in exploring innovative solutions to rural transportation options and to partner with, you know, local municipalities, private providers, whatever. Like, something that's sort of expansive, but that identifies that that's something that we're interested in and that we're seeking those kinds of solutions. I don't think it's a bad idea. Good for you. That's better said. Yeah, because the UF could build a big golf course so they could have a parking lot there for a parking lot. Mm-hmm. Yes. All of the above. Okay. Thank you for bringing that up. I had it circled, but I let it go. Okay. If there's nothing else on transportation, I will move on to the recreation element. I think we're doing public comment at the end of all the sections. Is that correct, sir? I just saw a public with their hand up, so it was waving at us. The public. The public. Yeah, I think at the end it makes sense. Okay. Okay. So the overall goal of the recreation element currently is to provide an integrated recreation and open space system for Alachua County, so it's very broad. The specific policies in this element call for the county to develop a recreation system that is equitably accessible, supports a diverse range of activities, and includes both activity-based facilities like sports fields or playgrounds, as well as resource-based facilities like your boat ramps. The element also includes level of service standards for activity-based and resource-based recreation. Those standards are based on the amount of developed county park acreage per 1,000 of county population. So those standards are, you know, they're very general and they're somewhat limited in that they do not really take into account geographic components of where parks are located relative to population. So that's one of the things that was brought up in your recent recreation master plan. Policies in this element also focus on the importance of providing non-automobile access to county park facilities, as well as connecting parks through greenways and trails. There are also policies that call for promoting recreational access to natural resource areas. So the primary example of that would be your ACF conservation lands. So that's kind of a general overview of the recreation element. Staff does have a few recommended updates to that element. The primary thing in that area would be to incorporate the county's 2023 parks and open space master plan into the comprehensive plan. We do have references in the element to prior versions of the recreation master plan. So I think we need to kind of purge those references and replace with new language that reflects the current master plan. One of the things as part of that would be adding a geographic and park type focus into the level of service guidelines for the parks. And as I said, currently the level of service standards are just based on acreage per 1,000 of the population. So the recreation master plan looked more at a more even geographic distribution of parks throughout the county and providing future park facilities in currently unserved areas. So that's a major component that we need to incorporate into the comprehensive plan with this update. We will also need to update the park type classifications that are in table one of the recreation element so that they reflect the park types and park sizes and service areas that were identified in your recreation or your parks master plan. One of the other key recommendations in the parks master plan had to do with inclusivity and safety of parks, making sure they're safe and welcoming to all users. There is a little bit of reference to that idea in the recreation element, but it's something that probably could stand to be articulated a little bit more clearly so that, you know, we're, we're reflecting the ideas that were in that recreation master plan. I had a question. I have a question. I, I, I didn't see it in here. And I have to admit both the transportation section and the section were sections. I didn't read as in depth because I was like, well, we have master plans that we are going to incorporate by reference in those. And so it seemed like there was less, my, I spent less emphasis on these, but I did want to ask about how in this section, we address preventative maintenance and ongoing maintenance of our recreational facilities. As we get more invested in more parks and as we're investing in more infrastructure in those parks, they're going to require more upkeep, right? Like we have more pavilions and more playgrounds and more whatever it might be, you name it. And what I'm seeing in other places that own parks and facilities is that there's a lot of investment upfront in the park itself, but then there isn't a set aside for the ongoing maintenance that's required for those facilities. And as is evidence, we had one park that we found that was like in complete disrepair, you know? So I think something about the maintenance level expectations and ongoing investment for the maintenance and upkeep of these parks, I think is something we need to put in here and we need to keep on top of so that we don't end up creating something that just turns into an eyesore in communities. And, you know, that becomes a safety hazard because it's not being kept up. To that point, many years ago, I was a docent for Split Rock Park for the city of Gainesville a million years ago. And when it was a brand new park and they didn't want people going into the park unless they had somebody with them. And so my question is, I see, you know, some larger cities that have larger parks have similar kinds of things as like Pains Quarry does with like friends of a park. And those folks like help with cleanup and with maintenance. Yeah, they're from Cusco-Willow. Right, like friends of Cusco-Willow. So I don't know if that would make sense for some of our parks or to have, you know, neighborhoods maybe, you know, adopt some of the smaller parks that are incorporated in those areas. That's a good idea. I do see it in policy. Thank you. Ken pointed it to me. And policy 1.5, we do talk about operations. It could be strengthened. Yeah, it could be strengthened a little bit. But I see I generated a comment. Did I generate a comment? No? Just here in case you have a question. Oh, no, no. But anyway, I didn't know if that was something that, you know, we wanted to consider or if that would be more staff time than actually paying care of the problem. I don't know. But having, you know, having neighborhood eyes and having like a feeling of ownership for a park, I think, makes a big difference for neighborhoods. I mean, I love that. Yeah, I think I know, I wonder how the Friends of Cuskalilla is going in terms of its support and operations versus like lift of staff to manage expectations. And so it would be interesting to hear from that. But I could see us putting something, again, like encourage, you know, community, friends of organizations or having a structure, creating a policy that sets up a structure for that. I know for the Friends of the Pains Prairie State Park, they do major work out there. They, you know, repair boardwalks and chainsaw trees. They do things that I'm not sure we would necessarily be comfortable with our citizens taking on as volunteer work without a lot of, you know, legal support. But on the other hand, you know, it's also. Yeah, I know they do scout clubs and things. We use scouts out at Cuskalilla, too, to do some of that kind of thing. Yeah, but anyway, I didn't know if we had anything. I think it's a really nice idea. Set up to, you know, at least allow that to be explored. And then the second question that I had after looking at that was, you know, we're connecting our parks with trails and other, you know, alternate transportation. We have more and more people that are dependent on e-bikes. We also have more people that we don't have. I don't know how many of our parks are set up with any place to, like, charge a cell phone. So we have some pretty far-out-there parks. And so I'm thinking about, you know, somebody having a maintenance issue, having a dead cell phone, and the safety aspects of that. And so I was curious if we had, you know, do we advertise which parks have the ability to charge something where there's electricity available for charging a bicycle? Do we let people know anything like that or charging a cell phone? I know it seems like a small problem, but it could be a big concern one that, you know, for somebody at some time. So speaking of which, do we have access? Is there a way for someone to report a problem from these parks? You know, is there a public notice somewhere that says report this if there's an issue? Yes, Mr. Chair, Ed Williams with Alachua County Parks. All of our parks have a sign right up front, and some of the larger parks have multiple signs that say where you are, have the address and the main number to call if you have an issue or a concern. And to the other commissioner's question, some of our parks do have electrical capacity or, you know, capacity for citizens to use the electricity. It's something we've worked on, like in some of the pavilions. We have a timer switch now with a light in case they're there late in the evening or early in the morning, and there's also an outlet associated with those installations. So that's something we're working on, but it also addresses the other commissioner's point that maintenance, as we develop more parks and even with the existing parks that we have, maintenance is certainly an issue. So I would say to your point about the friends of the community engagement program that we now have, particularly where we're going to renovate a park or we're going to develop a new park, and we've really gone out for community engagement usually multiple times if we're doing a major project there. And I think it really does inspire a better sense of ownership of the park with the community. That would be a great way to start a friends of the park. And I think it would. It would definitely be a way. I'm not prepared to speak on sort of the performance or the metrics for the friends of Cuscawilla. There are others that would certainly have more educated comments to make about that than I, but that's something we'd certainly be glad to get back to you on. Well, maybe it's just a policy recommendation, like more of the comp plan is to encourage friends of organizations and create a structure for them. And then maybe the friends of Cuscawilla is a great learning curve for our team to put in place the policies and procedures for how to set them up. Because that would be a great thing to do with the group from West End, with these groups that you're working with, to kind of offer that up as something they could do if they want to and have the sort of structure already set up that we could just hand them. For example, with West End, we have a really good e-mail list that we've developed just through the community engagement process. And so now if there's an update or even like when the World Masters was coming and we solicited volunteers, we had a list to be able to send that out. which we don't ordinarily have. So that was nice. Very cool. Mr. Parnell. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I like the greenways discussion in Policy 1.3.2. I think we could have some wording that ties to Anna's point of expanding ecotourism for our greenways and trails and then tie that back to the economic element. Blue Pathways, too. That's in here as well. Is it? It is. It's in the end of it. I think it's the Policy 1.4.10. It talks about the expansion of canoe trails on creeks and rivers in coordination with EPD and Fish and Wildlife. But, yeah, I mean, I agree with you again to Ken's point and your point, like tying those back to the economic element and talking about ecotourism. In general, I thought this was a pretty robust section. I'm glad we got a master plan. Mr. Chair, I do have a question about the one where we are supposed to be working with the schools in terms of expanding their properties or using, do we do that? Do we? We've got a couple of parks, I think. I know in a couple of parks, but with the new school that's being built, you know, was it Terwilliger, the new school that was built out there? I just didn't know if we had interjected ourselves into all of that, you know, as a possibility. To my knowledge, we have not. As I'm sure you're aware, we did the partnership project with Lake Forest Elementary and with... Did we do Finley? Did we do Finley? Or is that City? We didn't do Finley. I swear there was another one that we did. We've done a couple of... But those were existing parks that we just made better, right? Well, we opened them to the public. They were just schools, and then we turned them into parks. Well, I just realized that we have this in the policy, and maybe we should look at it again in terms of... Because I know the old Terwilliger school, I was really interested in... They had a huge amount of land behind it. You know, they excavated it all now at this point, and they were going to be putting it on the market to sell. But, you know, these schools have a lot of land in there, so I didn't know if there was some way that we could get some of our tree plantings in there, you know, to make parks within, you know, on their existing land, even if... Because they're in neighborhoods. They're neighborhood schools. I just... I think that we're missing an opportunity there if we're not actually going to do this, or maybe remove it if we are. We could certainly bring it up at our next joint meetings. Right. I think one thing to bring your attention, Mr. Chair, there are issues, like, for example, with Lake Forest Elementary, we found sort of at the tail end of the project that some of the after-school programs require that campus remain closed to the public. So if there are ways in future projects where, as you say, there's land behind the school, if there's a way that we could incorporate a park that doesn't necessarily have to be in the campus proper so that the public could have more access to it. Because, for example, in the wintertime, in the Lake Forest Park, the public would only really have access on the weekends, and only if the school is not already having a program. In the summertime, you get a couple hours in the evening. You know, kids leave around 6, and maybe you have until 8.30 or something like that. So it is not a lot of time, and some of the members of the public have mentioned that. Okay, Mr. Chair, if there are no other questions or comments on the recreation element, we'll move on to the solid waste element. I do have one quick question. There was something that we said about private property encouraging people who have access to water on private property. I was just trying to clarify what that means. Which policy is that? Encourage appropriate accessibility by the public. It's 1.4.9. She'll encourage appropriate accessibility by the public to privately owned water resource-based areas in Elantra County. I just didn't understand what that meant. Do you see it? 1.4.9. My understanding of that is that sometimes there's a water body that's partially or wholly on private property. But if they're interested and willing, that we would help facilitate public access to those. Because I know UF has just bought down there the yachting access to Noonan's Lake. They've always owned property. UF, but they've also bought. They bought more? Yeah, I thought they had bought more down there, too. And what that does is cut access, you know, unless you're UF-affiliated. So that was what came to my mind, if that might be. And, Mr. Chair, it could also be if there's a proposed development that's on a body of water, you know, encouraging the public to be able to access that. Like wildflowers. Whatever. Yeah, I mean, sir. I was just, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So moving on to the solid waste element, the overall goal of this element is to provide clean, efficient, economical, and environmentally sound management of solid waste resources in Alachua County. The key policies in the element include using the LaVita Brown Environmental Park as the central location for management of the county's solid waste. Policies call for the capacity and function of that facility to be continually evaluated and expanded to meet changing needs over time. This element identifies a generalized level of service standard for solid waste. That standard is currently 0.8 inbound tons of solid waste per person per year at LaVita Brown. That number is not necessarily the county's goal for solid waste processing volume. It's more like an actual processing amount sort of based on an existing condition. We updated that number as part of the last comp plan update. I think it used to be 0.73 and then it was increased to 0.8 and I think we'll be reevaluating that number again to update as part of this. Is it going to go up or down? I don't know the answer to that right now. Maybe Gus does. Yeah, so I guess my main comment in this section is that I feel like the goal is off. I feel like our goal should be to reduce overall waste in our county and to focus on a circular economy. I mean, we've sort of gotten into that conversation and so to me that should be the primary goal is like waste reduction is a primary goal and then underneath that, of course, we also want to make sure that the waste we do have is managed this way. But I think like trying to focus our attention on that circular economy component and our zero waste plan and our efforts to tie this back to our economic element and the eco park, the eco loop and other investments that we have made or want to make in the ways in which we're trying to create new streams of use for resources rather than throwing them in a hole is important. And so I hope we can just think about how we incorporate those ideas of the circular economy and our zero waste plan into this and think about the ways in which we could make more robust policies around investments in the eco loop, investments in infrastructure that supports economic investment and attracts companies and private investment that focus on waste reduction and reuse and recycling. So anyway, that's my main comment for this section was I just felt like it kind of, it's focused a lot on how we throw away things and not on how we do something other than throw away things. And Mr. Chair, that actually is a good segue into the next slide and some of the staff recommendations for updating the element. So we appreciate that. So the... That was very diplomatic. Yeah, right? Shut up! Essentially. We agree and anticipate. So there are policies in this element that call for the county to reduce per capita solid waste disposal through a combination of waste prevention, reuse, and recycling. And we hear that that may need to be strengthened and maybe reworked a little bit. The element also speaks to the collection and transport of solid waste, calling for it to be handled safely, securely, and efficiently to protect health and the environment and also to minimize collection and transport costs as well. And the element also addresses household hazardous waste, just ensuring the safe disposal or recycling of that waste as part of the county system. So the plan updates that staff would recommend for this element would mainly relate to the broad ideas of zero waste and the circular economy. We know that's an issue that's of importance to the board. The county's draft climate action plan, which you will be considering whether to accept that on, I think, November 4th. That has a waste management and resource recovery chapter, which goes into a good bit of detail on different strategies for the county's solid waste system. It also identifies a number of specific goals and action items relating to solid waste. So we're going to be trying to build those into this element as much as possible or where applicable. The climate action plan talks about promoting a zero waste strategy and as part of that, trying to establish a circular economy with regard to solid waste. And the board had a recent presentation on the cap, so I won't try to recap all of that. But some of what is in the climate action plan with regard to solid waste is not really reflected in the current solid waste element. Or if it is, it may not be articulated really through that climate action plan lens. There are general policies about increasing diversion rates and promoting recycling and reuse, but they're not really at the same level of detail or described in quite the same way as they are in the climate action plan. So we're going to try to reconcile the comp plan with the climate action plan as part of this. So I think most of that can probably be accomplished by revising a lot of the existing language within the objectives and the policies, but we may also need to possibly create new goals as well, just things about reducing waste potentially. I did also, I already brought this up to staff, but I did notice that the policy 1.3.2.1 talks about C&D landfill operators and sort of the requirements there. And I guess just to, like, wondering about do we do those things currently? like what we talk about with regard to monitoring and then also tying this back to the, I think in our natural resources section or I'm not sure which section it is, we reference C&D landfills and we reference sort of this social, you know, compatibility related issues. And so this would be another place to sort of tie back like compatibility and community related issues in conjunction with waste related processing facilities or landfills, making sure that we don't locate them in places that aren't compatible with the community and that the community is saying that. Very carefully chosen words. Yes, carefully. So that seems to me like it could also be tied back in here. I think it's in land use and also we can put it in reference, cross-reference in here. That was my point in compatible uses and getting that in. I just wonder where Valu Forest is. Where geographically? Yeah. It is in the... Outwards Millers. Outwards Millers. In between Millers and... Yeah. And Austin Cary. That was one of the few places I've never heard that before until I read this. I drove past it pretty regularly but I didn't like a place for adults. The original site for the landfill before we went to the Tri-County Association. Yeah. Before we decided to have it not in our backyard. Do we have any cutoff? I mean, do we have any... Do we have any measurement that would trigger us going there to Valu? Is there... At what point would we know that line has been crossed that we need to move there? Mr. Chairman was almost always director. There is no trigger for us to use in Valu Forest. It will be a board decision. Okay. I mean, we do have a current contract with New River Landfill. That contract is going to expire in two years. We're in negotiations to extend that contract. Okay. But it is... I think it's a good thing to have a plan B. Absolutely. There's a little bit like a bright line that once we cross this, we need to go there. That doesn't exist. Absolutely. And why was Valu Forest chosen? That was a long time ago. They did a thorough survey of the different county locations. There are volumes of books starting to stay in town. Big history on that. And they picked that as the best location in the county. Clay bottom. But that was a big argument for three commissions. Yeah. We want... In my opinion, we want to renew... Of course. Yeah, long term. I mean, that being said, there is going to come a point where New River is not going to renew what else. Right. There's going to be a point where landfills are going to be needed somewhere else. So... Putnam County is begging for us to take our waste if that comes up. Well, I think... At least the Putnam County commissioners tell me that every time I go down the fact. I mean, I think that's why I think it's important to recognize, like, you know, when we have these conversations about the circular economy, like, investments in something like a MRF, like a real MRF that would do optical sorting and could actually attract, like, you know, investment by private sector people who want the glass or the plastic or the whatever that... Metal, whatever that might be, that bulky waste might be is an investment in our future because we can reduce our waste so that we can utilize our facilities longer and we don't have to spend millions and millions developing this thing. You know, we can... I mean, we still spend millions but probably a lot less millions in the long run by diverting that material from a hole in the ground and having to build a new hole in the ground. It's only going to get more expensive but also... Right. And so I think being able to understand those opportunities and really what they look like and what the options are and what the future comparison option is... Well, to your earlier point, this should tie back into our economic development. Exactly. Yeah, this is really the circular economy. It's really the economic development and reducing waste together. Chair, do you have a question? Do you have a question? We were talking about programs directed to schools, churches, civic organizations, and service clubs, businesses. It seems to me education, we really need a big, big focus on education even if it's to put together packets to send to these schools to use or something, you know, because I think people want to participate but there's a lot of confusion still, you know, about what we can repurpose and what we can't and what can be recycled. So, you know, ongoing intensive education, outreach, whatever, because I think there's a lot of, I don't know if it's disinformation or what, but, you know, in terms of telling people that no matter what they recycle in terms of plastic, it's not going anywhere. I mean, you know, we hear that kind of stuff and then people give up and don't, so I think we need to intensify and keep that information getting into the community. I, where does the glass go? Where does our glass go? We talked about this at one point. So, there's only one company processing glass in the state of Florida and that's where it goes, they're on Tampa. Tampa, that's what I'm on. We did look at some closer alternatives and when we bid for the project, their bid was gastroenterology. Okay. And they were on. Going back to the, to the outreach and education, I mean, we do have a pretty robust waste alternative program where people go, our staff goes to the schools and stuff like that, but, yeah, it is difficult. I mean, if you look at the big picture, we're doing pretty good. We're fifth in the state as far as recycling. But, if you were to do a spot check of the recycling bins anywhere in this county, you would go, we're just not there yet. And we do do that. Yeah, I think, to your point, I think sometimes it's like, it's a new people moving in, new people moving out and I know you all do have a really robust program for education so I'm wondering, I don't know, I'm guessing we already have a partnership with GRU to put a mailer in their bill on a regular basis or to send to their customers but I feel like continuing to educate customers, like every time we drop off bins, you know, new bins, like if we have like processes where it's like intercepting them at the points at which they're thinking about trash, their bill when they're paying for trash, like when they get new bins, like new homeowners when they move in, maybe with real estate agents if we were able to provide packets that give them, you know, that little guide that you have that's updated with what's recyclable, what's not because, I mean, to be totally frank, even I was mistaken the other day. I was like, yes, we take the, you know, do we take the gable top? Do we not take the gable top? Do we take the clamshells? Do we not take the clamshells? And, you know, those sorts of things are ongoing debates, I think, in the community. So having those cleared up with good materials at the point in which people are thinking about it could also go a long way. Yeah, I mean, it is very difficult. Unfortunately, I'm not going to say, oh, but a lot of the communities around us, they're just giving up on recycling. Yes. They're just giving up on recycling. And schools that gave up on recycling papers. So the people who live nearby, they think we are too. It's a very convoluted message. That was actually what my point was going to, well, the question I was going to ask is I've talked to two very educated, smart people lately that told me that they read an article that it costs more for the county to recycle than it does to throw the waste away. So they're not going to recycle anymore because of, you know, and I don't know if that's true or not. I just said, well, that's not the right decision. That's not the right thing to do. And I mean, it was quite a discussion. Without knowing the specifics of the conversation, I mean, I would say the cheapest thing to do is to throw it in a hole. It's always going to be the cheapest thing to do is throw it in the hole in the short run but not in the long run. If you're looking just at dollars and cents to date, that is the cheapest alternative. If you're looking at the long term, having to open up another landfill and all the other external costs, recycling is still the way to go. And I feel like we need to have that message out there because if I've had two conversations, one with a business owner who has a lot of influence told me he wasn't going to recycle anymore and I was taking it back. So I... Well, I think that was a lot. We do have a mandatory commercial recycling. Well, I did mention that but I mean, I think it was for him it was like collecting the aluminum cans in the kitchen kind of stuff versus, you know, having a recycling bin. It was just like not going that extra mile. It made me really sad. It made me super sad. And so I just, I feel like we need to have some of those bigger conversations with the community about the short term versus long term costs. I don't think people see the whole waste cycle so much as, you know, I don't know, in the 70s we got taught all this stuff. In the 80s we got taught all this stuff. I'm not sure what kids are taught these days. No, I'm with you. I think we've lost, I think that there was like this big push on recycling, recycling, recycling, and then it's slowly gone downhill and recycling is kind of a gateway to a lot of years. These were younger business owners. Yeah, these were younger business owners. They weren't older ones. We grew up turning Coke bottles back in, you know, for a little, at least not yet. From my perspective, I mean, we did go through all that process and people doing it for the right reasons and at some point it got turned into we're going to make a ton of money out of this and a lot of people got into this to make a ton of money and it didn't happen and that's what's turning people away from it. We have channel 12 that we could put out, you know, a campaign but not everybody watches get channel 12. It's not the most exciting site but if we could check to see how much it would cost to run an ad during our nightly news, you know, during the news time especially if you get people kind of reactivated. You know, I don't know what those kinds of advertisements cost but we have a great team here who could put together some kind of little video or an ad or something that we could use. Maybe it would be worth checking to see perhaps, you know, too. Yeah, we mostly rely on social media. I mean, it's, the interesting thing is there are so many ways to get to people now, it's almost impossible to get to people now because everybody's looking at their own little thing. But our news reaches Ocala up to Lake City, right? I mean, we cover a wide area here too. TV 20? I don't know anybody that watches. TV 20. You don't? Oh gosh, I do every night. Nobody has cable anymore. Oh, okay, you have to have cable to see it. I see. Well, heck. A lot of people are screaming. Lord have mercy. Okay, well, they know somehow to get the message out there that you can, you can, we just got to get the word out however it goes. Yeah, and with all that being said, Gus, yours is one of my favorite departments and I really appreciate all that you guys do in waste management. I think we are head and shoulders of, you know, above a lot of folks in the southeast, not just in Florida. I love to go out there. I love to go out there. The help that I do, I feel so accomplished when I take a load out there, you know, or take my limbs out there, you know, there's only so much those trucks can pick up, you know, but, you know. It's a great place to go if you need a gallon propane tank. Well, in the compost heaps that are out there, you know, they help to load into your truck, you know, it's remarkable what we do. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. Education. Mr. Chair, that's all I had on the solid waste element. Our next is the community health element, so if there's no other questions on solid waste, I'll move on. Foster public. He left me a note. So the community health element is a relatively new element that was adopted into the comprehensive plan in 2011. That's relatively new by comp plan standards. The goal of this element is to preserve the health of Alachua County residents and promote health in all policies and service initiatives affecting all aspects of the built environment by facilitating health care delivery, improving the equity and livability of the community, and providing all Alachua County residents opportunities for active living. it's probably worth noting when this element was initially written, it was done so in coordination with the Well Florida Council as well as our health care advisory board. I believe those two groups and some others were primarily the authors of this element along with county staff at the time. But this element really focuses on those areas of community health where the county has some direct role or has an influence in some way. So as you know, there are many organizations that make up the local health system, so the element focuses a lot on how the county coordinates with those agencies and organizations to help facilitate access to various health care services with particular focus on underserved populations. So there are policies that in the element that promote land use patterns and built environments that encourage active lifestyles and that ties in directly with our land use policies. The element also talks about promoting local food systems and equitable access to nutritious foods and those policies kind of link also with our similar policies and our economic element of the plan. There are policies that call for the county to increase equitable access to mental health, dental health, and substance abuse services and also calling for the county to support programs to reduce poverty and its effects on health. So we have spoken with community support services staff who deal with health issues on this and we do have a few specific recommendations but I will note we will be reviewing the health element with the health care advisory board at their November meeting. So we haven't gotten there yet but we will and they will likely have some substantive comments for us on the policies in this element which we will bring back to you at your next meeting when we talk about the actual plan amendments. As far as technical recommendations in the community health element we would recommend removing the reference to the 2009 hunger abatement plan. That plan is now outdated. It's no longer being actively implemented that we could find in any way. However there are some parts of it like local food initiatives and efforts to reduce food insecurity that are still being pursued today just not necessarily under the banner of the hunger abatement plan. So the recommendation would be to delete references to that 2009 plan but keep the general policy concepts which are to try to eliminate food insecurity. We would also recommend removing the policy about the county implementing a tobacco licensing program. That local program was in place for a short time but as you know tobacco regulation has now been preempted to the state so we need to delete that policy from the element. And then just also some general editorial language updates and clean up to you know fixing dates that may have passed or names of organizations and things like that. And that's all I have on the community health element. Happy to answer questions. Okay I had three things. The first under the and this is just a question I don't know that this is necessarily needs to be in the comp plan update but I had heard that we were going to get a Narcan dispenser in the lobby and then I heard we weren't going to get a Narcan dispenser in the lobby and so since you know we have a substance abuse as part of our goal here I just wanted to find out what happened with that proposal because they did put one in the jail so yeah I would want to find out so the terms of the policy policy 1.2.4 about aging safely in place allowing a mix of housing types and housing units blah blah blah I think one thing that we've talked about a few times or at least I've talked about a few times is identifying folks that are elderly and at risk and making those modifications in advance of injury so that people do age safely in place not just encourage a mix of housing types but have a more proactive approach to identifying folks that are at risk of injury so we can connect them up with services to make the right modifications to their homes before they fall or break their hip not afterwards. So maybe that's working with the senior centers or working with community partners There's grant programs out there for exactly that I believe I've talked to Claudia about it I know there are things out there I just would like to see something more robust in there about us since housing is a really big issue and when people already own their homes or are settled into an apartment they can afford having to move because of an injury is actually a really big deal for folks so anything that we can do to promote aging in place by keeping them safe in their homes I think is really important and then the policy just under that which CPTD which is the oh it's about crime let's see crime prevention through environmental design one of the aspects of that actually is sometimes reducing the amount of light that is shown on a house because when you've got really bright lights you can't see into the shadows when you have lower lights you can see further that goes right along with our night sky work that we're talking about so maybe tying those two things together might make a lot of sense you know there's like double reasons for changing the way we light things for a safety perspective as well as for a night sky compliance perspective that's okay I'm looking at objective one four to promote a healthy community by enhancement of school based health promotion and activities including for persons with special needs and then it takes care of the things that I was asking you guys about transportation mobility and you know anyway being able to get safely back and forth to school and the co-location of schools and parks you know we talked about yeah we we talked about that earlier yes but when we were talking about in here increase access to health promoting food this is 1.2.3 the one right before yours Mary healthy foods said on work sites health care facilities schools to encourage healthy foods and beverages we don't talk about the jail and we have people that are incarcerated there that we're trying to feed and keep healthy so we can get them back out into the community that was the yeah I thought okay so I don't know if well I mean we have a commitment to the good food purchasing program now in the jails that we're supposed to be adopting partnerships with them so I agree with you I think putting enlisting the jail in there also I had already brought this up but the bottom part talks about like horticultural information and lifestyle programming and education but then we're talking about access and education doesn't lead to access so I earlier I just encouraged that while we're in here we talk about some of our infrastructure like our investments in the food hub our work to work with the CRA on grocery in eastern Elantua County you know efforts that actually do increase access so being more robust about this policy in terms of the ways in which we're thinking about food access and institutional settings like schools and the jail but also in we we when we were at fact last summer not I think it was a year ago maybe or maybe it was this past summer we were introduced to a program that they were using in the jails that would provide health insurance for those who were not yep and that it was free they're doing that now we have what's this summer so we have implemented it yeah actually I got introduced to it last summer but it was the last jail meeting that I had they said that that is available to not every inmate but to you know all the inmates that it that you know qualify for it and we'll do the paperwork okay great okay great that's that's actually the part part okay thank you my my comments were just that I I felt like again I feel like we've talked a lot about sort of social determinants of health and that's more than just like medical care and dental care although those things are really important and I think there are some references in here to that there's a there's a term in here that they use that I don't I hadn't really heard that much of but it's like health in all policies but when I look that up it's essentially the same thing as a social determinants of health yeah that's a good point being a little bit more robust about that in particular and then thinking about in our mental health element like reference to the central receiving facility that we're invested in and the work that we're doing there and and then there and or in areas that talk about we talk about mental health and then we talk about service providers and we talk about this re-entry efforts so that's what I was saying is like our gun violence efforts you know we declared that as a public health crisis I think we need to address it in here and talk about the ways in which we're investing in support for gun violence prevention and then also the re-entry re-entry programming and support for successful re-integration from incarceration yeah those feel like they belong in this public health element somewhere and I'll leave it to staff to kind of figure out how to incorporate those things in but it felt to me like those things as well as the food hub and our economic to tie this to our economic development I know that's been done a little bit here and there but maybe more robustly tying the two together yeah I'd much rather see something about social determinants of health versus supporting programs to reduce poverty and it's effects on health while that is important I think the social determinants of health go far beyond poverty yeah and so that's where I just don't want to box ourselves in to how we're thinking about that yeah that's that's a really good point yeah you've got a little comments here and there but I think most of them were editorial and just like when I gave staff already so thank you all for the hard work this is a lot well that's thank you all that's all I have as part of the presentation for today as I noted we do have that December 2nd date on the calendar if we need it for this we probably won't but it's there if we need it so we will take all this great input that the board has given us through these four workshops and kind of start to process those into actual changes to the plan and begin to bring those forward to you early in 2026 it'll these will have to go to the planning commission first and then they'll they'll come to the board are you planning to bring that's right thank you I want to go back to September 2nd the housing and economic element I had a presentation with the realtors a couple of weeks ago and they had brought up this idea of TNDs and TODs and our current density I think is 12 per acre and 24 per acre which could potentially be increased with density based on height allowances that we allow for three and four stories is that something staff has talked about or looked at as a opportunity for additional density within the urban within the urban services boundary for the TODs and TNDs Mr. Chair not broadly what I would say and you'll see it next week is in our so that there is an opportunity to do that we could we could take a look at those policies and the densities we have prescribed in TNDs generally what you'll see actually next week for request to advertise is as part of the inclusionary housing requirements we have some bonus densities that are available for TNDs you know there's performance criteria in terms of providing some affordable units but there are density allowances both the buy down their non-residential requirement as well as additionally bumping up their residential allowances is that how we're getting past the adverse adverse well it's an incentive it's not a requirement yeah that that allowance is completely voluntary they don't have to do it so it's something that would be completely voluntary by any developer they can go by the code as it is today without having to do that so we can we can take a look at that we can have that discussion actually next week in terms of the levels that we have prescribed there because those the reason we're doing this code amendment is that those those levels of density bonus are not prescribed in the comprehensive plan we just say we would do some density bonuses so that's really going to live in the code okay um and so and you know and you know that's for inclusionary we could do something broader but i think you know one of the things one of the discussions we've had as as you know a lot of you know cottage neighborhoods traditional neighborhood development etc a lot of it was pushing up density within the urban cluster which has a load of benefits for the community one of the hopeful ones is that we would get some more you know by increasing housing supply get some more affordable units haven't necessarily seen that per se we're can't it's difficult for us to point to it and so this is a way you know but after we quote unquote give away the density it's hard to to have any that's how it came up is that they could provide more affordable units if they could do more of them well they've gotten well i'll just say this number one we don't see people maximizing their density as it stands so i i kind of don't believe that totally like i feel like we're not really seeing people totally max out um because i don't know if that's true mr chair what i said is that they they have many opportunities to increase it by just going up in a story or two but the code doesn't allow it because of limitations and well now we do through this and something yeah and we will now and and so you know i'm just thinking back through some of our more recent projects we have had developments that have you know whether it's 10 or 12 units an acre depending on the situation have gotten to that gotten close yep or gotten there that's good it's good to know the city's doing hundreds because they're going to pyre and eventually we got to decide if we're going to go out or up so i guess i guess i don't i'll say two things one i don't have a problem you know i don't have a problem density i mean i'd rather see density in inside the urban cluster than any kind of sprawl outside the urban cluster but i i guess i don't feel like we maximize the densities we have at this moment maybe that is happening in tods and tnds and just not so much outside of them but i think that this incentive-based approach is a way that we're going to the only one of the only ways we're going to see true affordable housing and this was only in tods and tnds right yeah and so we i think this incentive-based approach that we had was also an answer to this board not necessarily wanting to require inclusionary zoning so we tried to find all the places in which we could incentivize it um you know by saying okay look like you can have it increased density as long as you commit to some affordable housing and the same thing with like expansions like it was like increases in density any kind of like expansion i mean not that we want to ever expand the urban cluster but if we ever did like that that would be another place that we'd have to include affordable housing so trying to sort of diversify the two right diversify housing and increase the opportunities for affordable housing by leveraging those density bonuses so that's our next meeting on tuesday yes okay all right i'll let them out and see if they want to come i i wanted to point out something that by allowing additional stories you end up with a better building because you can only you can build stick build all the way up to four stories but of course stories that was the other thing they were saying yeah and you you end up with a much higher quality building and so with our one of our goals is having buildings that are you know going to last that are going to be environmentally you know sound in terms of waste and all that other thing for a longer period of time going up makes makes sense i just yeah we do also get into needing elevators and well we do that and like and needing um elevated fire trucks and things like that right and like the cost of the cost of provisioning fire service and other services but yes certainly it's certainly true but i think from the environmental point of view we have to you know consider that totally we and we already have that need so it's not like it's a new need mr chair may i ask follow up with what you talked about because this is one of the things that i meant to ask about and didn't on um spaces open spaces in alachua county where we no project proposed for development shall be issued a final development order until it's demonstrated that the level of service standard for recreation facilities shall be maintained do are we expecting each of these developments then to come up with a recreational or space i mean that ties into their impact fees for rec the parks and rec impact fees mr chair um that that is referring to that that's a concurrency standard so the level of service is essentially a certain number of acres per one thousand of alachua county population so we as a county we meet those level of service standards very without having so so there's yeah there's never been a point where you know any proposed development could have run afoul of those standards because they are so general and broad based okay okay all right thank you sir one last question are we getting much resident feedback on our conference at plant site at all we've gotten some people yeah yeah we've we've had um there's been a couple hundred people who've um filled out our questionnaire um i've been trying to get tell people to do it but i you know or not tell them but you know ask them to do it we have a mailing list of a few hundred that that have uh signed up for updates and we do email those out um for each of these meetings okay good all right are there any filter cuts of course on your housing element i still wish you guys would specify specific day to reevaluate whether your inclusionary zone not waiting 20 plus years like you did on the voluntary uh incentives to realize it wasn't happening uh on the uh food uh i'm glad someone brought up healthy healthy health foods uh i wish the county would be sure to exclude junk foods in every kind of program you're involved with whether it's something after school whether it's one of your own events whether it's affiliates you work with i've worked at so many food shares where breath and mighty is sending out loads and loads of cheetos and soda and i don't even want to give it out and on your traffic safety the national safety council road to zero coalition can show you a list of 17 basic traffic laws that are on the books in states with the best traffic safety statistics florida has three of them so maybe you should check out which of the other 14 can be enacted locally i have two one is in response to kelly i'll just say kelly you're 100 accurate and you know until until we change the incentive structures for the way in which food assistance works to one in which we're trying to change the food system so that the people who are most impacted by that food system aren't also the people exploited by that food system i think we're going to continue in a cycle where grocery stores dump their processed garbage food into the food bank system and then it trickles down um right now i know that you know bread of the mighty gets this food and they have to get it out and they're incentivized by their parent organization by the pounds of food they distribute not by the quality of the food they distribute and and they get donated food and you know once it's donated the person's got a tax write off they can't just throw it away so they have all of this donated junk food they have to then distribute and then they leave it to the food pantries the food pantries have junk food that they then have to distribute it just becomes this sort of like unfortunate cycle so i think some of the work that we're doing with the food hub conversation and this idea of the ways in which we actually start buying from our local farmers and paying fair prices for good quality food and finding the ways that that that makes it into our institutional systems into our food assistance systems and into our retail systems i think is going to make a big dent in that kind of conversation but it takes a lot of creative thinking and it's trying to it's trying to recreate a system that has been based in primarily processed foods and you know an exploitation really and i think for a long time the goal was make food less expensive make food cheaper and that sounds like a really lofty goal but the way in which we did that was we externalized those costs to people's health to the environment and to people's wages so now people aren't being paid fairly people our environment is being exploited and stuff's getting dumped in our environment and we're all paying the costs at the doctor and at the hospital instead of paying it at the register so when we talk about food being affordable i think we have to think about what is the it's just like we're talking about with the waste like what is the overall cost of that food right like it might be cheaper for us to buy it at the grocery store and we compare why does local food cost so much when we can buy you know i could buy this food for so much cheaper it's like well what's in that food how much were the people paid to pick that food how was that food grown how much water was used how much fertilizer was used what kind of inputs were put into it and how do we compare that apple to that apple when really it's like comparing an apple and a pineapple that's like and the shelf life and so that's like part of this big picture conversation so i'm glad collie brought it up and i think you know bread of the mighty is doing the best that they can with what they're being given to work with you know and i think they're coming up with creative ideas at the state level um feeding florida has actually just recently gotten 38 million dollars from the state 28 million um to do fresh fruits and vegetables and right now they're just doing a pick and pack program which essentially means they pay farmers to keep their labor in the fields picking the produce after the time at which it's profitable for them to pick the produce and then bread of the mighty gets that produce and the farm gets a write-off so it's good in that we're saving food from wasting in the fields but it's not necessarily solving the issue of like why that food isn't marketable to begin with and how much those people are getting paid so it's really and then there's 10 million for infrastructure investment for pantries and food banks to be able to provide more healthy nutritious and local food so i'm excited about talking with them about the potential to partner with that 10 million of investment and the investment that we're making um around food hubs to see if there's opportunities to collaborate on that and i'm hoping to get up to tally to do that sometime in november i'm interested in how that's going to work because if they glean another 3 000 pounds of blueberries is there a way to store those or is there you know is there people going to utilize that or are they just paying people to pick it and then it's still going to go to waste i mean they're sending right now they're sending it directly to the food pantries and the food well i i know but i i'm connected with that gain soul free fruit group yeah they get that stuff when they can't give it away it's like we have 17 tons of cucumbers if you want any cucumbers come i know exactly yeah exactly so there's a lot of challenges with the system as it exists and a lot of it is just existing to kind of move food out of a system that's broken already but i'm excited about how we can collaborate with no i think it's great some of that money on that so that was that other thing yes exactly the other thing i wanted to share was these you can pass this around there's one for the clerk if they need it um but this is just an idea it was in our county news magazine that we get and um from naco and it was a library um with a chef's series oh i i sent this to and i i wanted to yeah i thought you all that are in the library district could share this with our library yeah i thought that i i tore it out to take our next meeting and there's there's a really um the really interesting thing about this model is um in some places they're also like they said they used to have like somebody from the library doing the demos or someone from extension they got famous and then they started like um recruiting famous chefs and tiktok chefs and stuff like that and they've had this huge uptick but i think even recruiting like local popular chefs you know or home cooks that are doing like the box cooking or county commissioners or county commissioners me and mary can go if anybody else wants to cook we can go in but i think we could do something really cool with this and start like highlighting local food highlighting fresh nutritious food or just so if the library is interested i'm i'm all game and trying to help support them and standing something like this up i think it's a really cool idea healthy after school snacks i mean there's so many things you could do yeah thank you and did you see chef carl was highlighted in the parenting guys yeah that's so cool i know i was thinking of him when i saw this uh my only thing chuck was how to go at the delegation room yesterday oh it went well uh they asked one question that i don't think i had an answer to but anyway that's a really hard question to answer yeah she wanted to know what was the cost of the county what would the savings be from the inmate uh medical yeah and uh i just told it was 110 percent would be the savings to us yeah i think it's yeah i think it's in excess of a half a million i'm not sure exactly i know we have a contract with that was the question uh with our jail of 20 million over four years well i mean it all depends on what the medical situations are right we had three well i think three inmates that had major cancer that had to go for chemotherapy every week it could be a huge tommy was going to work with the clerk and try to come up with some of those numbers for the past couple years i think just so we can have like an average like this is how much it's costing us and then this is how much medicaid bills so this is how much it might have been i think i think we can get some at least get some examples of what it could look like and some examples of they open the running a local bill huh it sounded like bradley was interested yeah bradley is yes probably should open running a local bill yeah yeah but she needs that information though and i and i think i think though if we do that if we gather information i think it needs to be for a few years and i think they need to normalize the um costs from like four years ago to today's medical costs so that we can see like the difference because things have gone are going up so we need to like understand what that yearly cost is and then we also need to see how much the cost of medicine has gone up over the last other counties have also done this another right other counties and so they may also have good data from that's why i kind of thought it was a tricky question because didn't they pass that bill last year they passed that question had to be an ass last year right i'm just saying right what what was the savings to those counties yeah right julian county would be a good one yes but they passed it so wouldn't you know as a senator or representative i'm just saying yeah yeah she seemed she seemed interested in the claim they perked up as interested and they seem like that was like one that was a win-win for everyone but they wanted data to be able to back up back it up i guess in the legislature have we ever invited those folks to come meet with us like this in an open session to meet ivan or or jennifer senator bradley have we ever have the time i mean they invite us you could you could you could ask though right invite you know if you're if she's interested in what we're trying to do here this would be a good play a good forum to get the information because you all know stuff you know it really left up to the legislature but but i remember when i was a legislator i went to marion county to share with the folks yeah what happened in section in this session but over a couple of times they stopped coming that's the problem yeah people stopped coming so it's it's not an interest anymore once they get the basics it's like well that's all it would take maybe it's just to even know who we are as a group you know because and and i'll tell you one of the things i didn't like as a legislature is that they try to shield you and i didn't like being shield really from the public i just didn't like that yeah you know i want to speak to people i want to talk to people how do i get ideas i got to talk to people i can't exactly exclude myself from them and that's the kind of thing they staff are taught to do that right yeah yeah yeah i believe that that forum up there is just it's totally different yes yeah and it's really you know they are no connection i mean it's like there's a a glass wall in front of you yeah they don't have time during session i've always took time to talk to people because i felt it was important you can't wait to tell a assie yeah i should at least talk to me meet with you not say i'm in committee meeting i'll talk to you later no that's not fair that's not right so they were accepted okay i think it's important too it's all up to the legislator really we have a lot of new people running we need to invite them yeah you know so they can get to know us if they get elected so yeah but we do to staff's point we probably do need to follow up with her staff and or all the delegation staff pretty quickly with those numbers on the savings because to make sure they get it because bills need to get file into drafting soon and if we have a meeting i know there wasn't yeah because they needed they needed that one yesterday yeah yeah yeah and there was other there's other i guess county so i'm i'm assuming that tom already has suggested bill language but if he doesn't maybe he could get that to their offices along with the savings numbers asap okay i just wanted to say the meeting with the our new eweb president yesterday he ran in the world masters yeah yeah yeah he did so he knew about the community from running there there so that's he wants to do it again in 2070 that's right i told him i was going to be running with him i'm getting ready to start training after i come off this boy okay all right he looked like he looked like he was drinking from the fire hose boy yeah yeah it's a lot it's a lot nice as i can well he seemed to be in shape though i mean yes no no he's it was fit and ready for the for the for the yeah yeah i welcomed him to elastro county and told him to please make sure that he got out away from those ivory walls because there was a whole community out here really smart and interesting people that did you guys did um oh what's his name um the head of the board of maury did did he tell you all that um that they're opening a campus in jacksonville because people said there's nothing to do in gainesville no he didn't dare say that to me what are you talking about you and f is already in jacksonville right but they said you said they're building a campus i did hear that yeah but not because there's nothing to do with games no it's because the city of jacksonville has given them a hundred million dollars or something you know you're talking about bringing out a football stadium and of course with me i know and i forgot to ask him did did anybody think to ask him if it was going to be open to the public because i forgot to ask him that where i knew that was the scuttlebutt before but where they're just he didn't say oh renovating the existing yeah i thought you meant another one i was like a million dollars a lot of money yeah they got a lot of money okay all right all right if there are any current business we adjourn thank you all