My first meeting leading, so thank you. You'll do fine. Perfect. Thanks. I appreciate that. So welcome to our October 21st local planning agency and planning commission meeting. I'll call the meeting to order. Good. Do I need a second for that? No, we don't. We're good, right? All right. Perfect. The first item for approval tonight is tonight's agenda. Second for it. All right. I can get a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Okay. Second. Do I have a second? Perfect. Motion carries. Do I have a vote? Did we vote? Oh, my bad. Okay. Perfect. All right. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Any opposed? All right. The motion now carries. Perfect. Okay. So the next item on the agenda is public comment. So comments for any items not on today's agenda. If there are, each speaker gets about three minutes. Is there anyone that wishes to speak? All right. Seeing none, we can close public comment. Now we'll have the county attorney poll any ex parte communications and read the party statement into record. Has any member of the commission received any communication regarding tonight's agenda item? No. No. No. And, Madam Chair, we do not have any party requests. Generally, it would be somebody who is more directly affected than a member of the public at large. No one has requested the additional time that comes with party status. But if anyone is in the room and would like to request party status, they can explain how they would be qualified as a party. Thank you. So now I'll ask the clerk to swear in staff and anyone from the public who wishes to speak during this evening's meeting. Thank you. All right. Just then, raise your right hand if you plan to speak at tonight's meeting, please. Do you swear from the testimony or evidence you are providing today is the truth to the best of your knowledge or believe? I do. Thank you. Wonderful. All right. Thank you, Patricia. So now we'll move to the first item on our agenda, Z26-000013, the West End Plan Development Major Amendment. Staff, whenever you're ready. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good evening. Jerry Brewington, Senior Planner, Alachua County Department of Growth Management. I have been sworn a copy of my resume is on file. For the record, this item is properly advertised on the county website and as well as other means, social media and press releases were also given regarding this item as well as our usual mail outs that we do for these types of items. This, again, like you said, is Z26-13 West End Community Park PD. This is an amendment, a major amendment, to an existing plan development district located on the West End area, West End Development on Newberry Road. Here's a locator map, Madam Chair, showing the site. It is located on the north side of West Newberry Road on the north side across from the town of Teoga. You can see the outline of it. This is the outline for the area that we are actually addressing tonight, but as I will get to in a moment, we are actually amending the PD for the larger West End Plan Development, including the residential development that surrounds the PD. Here is an aerial view of the site. You can tell this is a little bit older photograph because you can still see the clubhouse that is still existing on this aerial photograph, which is no longer there, although the parking area remains. And you can see the outline of approximately 75 acres that constitutes the former golf course, West End golf course, purchased by the county. The zoning district on this site is PD, or planned development. This is a mixed-use planned development district with residential surrounding it and a recreational amenity, in this case the golf course or the former golf course in the middle, constituting approximately 75 acres of land in the center with a recreation land use. That recreation land use has policies, limited policies within the comprehensive plan, but it's basically meant for recreational uses. Formally, it was the golf course, but with the purchase of the park by the county, we are seeking to amend the PD, the zoning master plan, and the conditions to allow additional uses in this recreation land use area. As I said, this property constitutes the former West End golf course. This was a recreational amenity included as part of the West End plan development, which was initiated in the 1970s. A few years ago, the closure of the golf course provided Alachua County with the opportunity to purchase the 75 acres, which we did, and develop the parcels as a recreational amenity serving the citizens of Alachua County. As part of this process, the county is seeking to amend the uses permitted within the planned development district to reflect the future recreational opportunities as a community park. So when the county bought it, we did not yet amend the PD. The PD still, as of now, says that it's for a golf course. We obviously are not going to be doing just a golf course. We're going to be doing other recreational opportunities on the property, and therefore we are seeking to amend the PD to reflect this situation and provide with a revised zoning master plan and conditions on that PD. Madam Chair, whenever we do an analysis of requests such as this, we look at a couple different areas on a consistent basis. The first is our comprehensive plan. We analyze the comprehensive plan for policies in the plan that may be impacted or affected by this request. In this case, one of them is the level of service standards in the capital improvements element. These are standards provided in our plan which provide thresholds for various types of infrastructure uses, water, sewer, transportation, recreation, public schools, and the like. Staff has analyzed this. The use of the – of course, there was an existing use as a golf course. The recreational uses that are proposed for this are very similar to what the golf course would generate. We anticipate no level of service standards being changed or exceeded by this request. So, again, the level of service standards will remain within acceptable limits as identified in the comprehensive plan. We also analyze policy 7.1.2, our future land use element, which provides factors for looking at a rezoning. Availability of infrastructure, the relationship to the surrounding development, and the range of densities if that's being considered. Again, Madam Chair, this is a very similar use to what has been there for over 50 years. We are anticipating not just a golf course but other recreational uses, but it is still a recreational use being anticipated for the 75 acres. So, there is no great change with what is being proposed by the county for this parcel. So, staff review shows that the proposed zoning request is consistent with this policy and the comprehensive plan, and the criteria will not be exceeded by this request. Lastly, Madam Chair, we look at our Unified Land Development Code, and there are additional criteria in the code that talk about what we have to look at and standards if we do a rezoning. That's 402.77 of the code. These are related to the zoning changes and find in the areas of health, safety, welfare, surrounding development, that, again, the citizens of Alachua County will not be impacted by this request. The proposed request is consistent with 402.77. So, those are the primary areas that we look at and are reflected in your staff report. That's what we look at when we look at rezoning requests such as this one. We will also be adopting a zoning master plan with this. The zoning master plan exists now. You can see the golf course, now community park area highlighted in green. And the key change, actually, the existing conditions are not changing. What we are changing, well, one small reference, it says golf course, we're changing to park. But the key area comes in the addition of a condition number seven, which is very small on that other master plan, but is larger. You can also find it in your staff report. But you'll see them identified as conditions A through J for community park. Now, I won't go through each one of them. I'll just highlight that these are that the park is owned by and run by Alachua County, that it provides for a development, developed recreation and passive recreation as permitted uses as identified in the master plan for the park. It gives availability or allowance for, I should say, for competitions such as the World Masters, which will be held on the site again next year. Other things such as exterior lighting, hours of operation, things like that. Just some general guidelines for developing and using the site in the future that we have as a guidepost for when we're working with the citizens and the community in general to come up with uses for the park that are consistent. These are the conditions that we will be using on the zoning master plan and in the PD to guide what goes on on the park. Madam Chair, that's it in a nutshell. Staff recommendation is that the planning commission find the application consistent with comprehensive plan and our code and that they recommend to the board that they approve the requested PD amendments with the conditions and bases as noted in your staff report. That concludes my presentation. We do have represent our agent here for the county. People who can address specific questions may be related more to the park itself. But that concludes my presentation. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Great job, staff. Commissioners, any question? I had a question for staff. Yes. Okay. I had three different questions. One was for the lighting close to the residential because some of the areas are close relatively. And I was wondering if the lighting, if there's going to be certain areas where they are close enough. If I was a homeowner, I would be concerned with how much light I might have and how that is being managed and the scale. Okay. The condition E or under E subsection E, you will see exterior lighting will be designed to minimize impacts to adjacent residential properties and shall fully comply with all applicable requirements of our land development code. So they will be subject to the requirements of the land development code. And the anticipation is that there will be minimal spillage over to adjoining residential properties. I believe there's also a reference in number J where it says pedestrian scale lighting is permitted in the buffer areas when located at least 25 feet from the property line. And so, again, they're anticipating that if there's any low-level lighting in the buffer, that it will be located away from the property line. So those are the two references in the conditions to lighting. And specifically, though, the first one that I cited in E, we do have lighting standards in our code, and those will be followed in any lighting that is provided on this property. There's also a limit on hours. If you'll see, the hours are dawn to dusk, with the exception of illuminated activity courts, and even these will operate only until 10 p.m. at the latest, if there's, like, pickleball courts or anything like that. I noticed that. And for the recreational area, if it's close, then it could be noise or otherwise. I mean, I don't have any property there, so it's not from that viewpoint. But from working on communities, I'd like to get a little bit more specificity for that, and you're probably not ready to do that, and it may happen. The commission's going to do what they want to do. Mr. Chair, I think, you know, there are some conceptual plans, I think, that have been shown to the public that the applicant would be able to share this evening that you all might take a look at. So maybe if we get through the applicant's presentation, we still have those questions. I'm good for that. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Bell. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Okay. I've got one just real quick. So was there any consideration with the exiting onto Newbury Road, basically at that intersection across from Tioga, and is that more of a play question? So, Madam Chair, the applicant probably has some ideas or might tell you something, anything, any access there, really the trip generation for this proposed use is almost exactly the same as a golf course. If they make any changes, those have to be permitted through the Florida Department of Transportation, but I think the applicant may have some thoughts that they would share about that. I'll say the applicant because we're the applicant. It is very weird up here to say that. I have one more question, and maybe it will be answered later. Because I was not a resident whenever it was a golf course, I'm not quite sure how long it was a golf course and if there's been any consideration about the fossil, any of the pollutants that were attendant to it being a golf course. And if there is, you know, any study or anything that was considered in the fact that they're making this a public park for safety conditions. Perhaps we welcome the applicant to give a presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and Board Members. I'm Clay Swager, land planner and agent working with Alachua County on this application. Try to answer a couple of your questions. Also, just give you a little additional context. Next, this item is related to an amendment to the PD zoning list of permitted uses, essentially. The PD was originally approved in 1981, so the golf course was there for quite some time. Ended up closing. The county ended up purchasing the property and has come forward with a proposal for a community park, which is a signature park project for the county in western Alachua County where there's been a great need and desire from the public for additional park space. So they did come in and really kind of saved the day with the recreation amenity. And so the proposal is to essentially change the permitted use, which originally just stated golf course. And so now the permitted use is community park with the list of condition language that was articulated by Mr. Brewington, condition seven. Golf courses, for example, are still permitted. There is language in here, and the Board of County Commissioners has had some discussion about they'd be willing to entertain a public-private partnership for recreation amenities. We're trying to keep this community park list of permitted uses very open-ended. So the process will allow for that variety. Tonight with me is Ed Williams from Alachua County Parks and Recreation and Elizabeth Manley with Kenley-McHorn. They are the point folks on the actual West End Community Park Master Plan, which is a separate process from what we're talking about tonight with the permitted use and the condition language. That has gone through a very robust participation process with neighbors, hundreds of neighbors, several community meetings, to really find out what the public's looking for as far as those permitted uses and some of the concerns about access. They've made it very clear, adjacent neighbors, they're not interested in a vehicular access into those smaller private streets on the northeast or west side, but there are a number of places where it may be logical for a pedestrian bike-ped connection. And so the county master plan here, the zoning plan, does show that those connection points will be part of any development proposal or plan that moves forward. This will be a phased implementation, of course, by the county over many years based on budget. And so we did also include a buffer and a setback, and that was really a result of community engagement and understanding, you know, what their concerns are. And lighting, as Mr. Ruttenberg mentioned, there's a very pretty stringent set of regulations in the ULDC for lighting, but we also took that above and beyond. Essentially, there's no lighting allowed within 50 feet of the property except for pedestrian-scale lighting, which is essentially those little lights you see by a walking path, along with landscape plantings there, of course. So that was the intent of this condition language, is to make it a wide variety of permitted uses based on the master plan that can be amended over time with the county commission, but also provide some compatibility measures at the zoning level. As Jerry mentioned, the land use designation for the county comprehensive plan is recreation, so this being implemented as a community park is certainly a perfect use for that, consistent with the comprehensive plan designation of this property that's been in place for at least since 1991. There are no other changes to the West End PD as well, which I think is why you don't have a lot of neighbors here tonight, that none of those development areas in the PD are being affected at all. This is really just related to the 75-acre county-owned park area. So Ed and Elizabeth were the leaders of a community meeting that we had back in August that's a requirement for this zoning change, but we spent a lot of time at that meeting actually talking about the park master plan, which is separate, because that's really what gets people excited to see what, you know, what are the recreation amenities that are coming. So there's been quite, as I mentioned, there's been quite a bit of outreach and communication with the public, so, and that will continue. I'm here as kind of taking a bureaucratic step to help. So if there's any questions for myself or Ed or Elizabeth tonight, please let us know. We appreciate you all letting us present to you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Commissioners, questions? Yeah. All right. I like this park. I used to go there on Saturday mornings for the park walk, but then it got summertime and it got really hot, but I don't want to go back. Will that affect? Weather's changing now. Yeah, weather's changed, so I can go back. Will this affect that park walk? And also, I noticed in the paperwork, there's nothing, I mean, the county can say that you can have as many organized competitions or approved events at this park, but there is any limitation or enforceable limits to the frequency or attendance or the amplified sound or any impact on the surrounding homes, because you're walking right past people's backyards. So there will be any kind of limitations in paper to ensure that we don't overtax the use of this park for the neighboring residents? Well, there's nothing prescribed in here related to a number of events that could occur. They all do have to be reviewed and approved by county staff. This is unusual. Most county parks are zoned ag or something similar. There are no zoning regulations whatsoever, so it's up to the county parks and recreation staff to make sure that events are held properly. There's a noise ordinance also in the county that does regulate sound and that sort of thing. The location of some of the more active uses and the recreation uses were a result of a lot of the engagement with the community to have it a little bit closer to Newberry Road and sort of centralized in that area. Most of those fingers that you see on the plan will just be kind of natural areas, walking paths, maybe disc golf, something like that, but not active recreation, which, you know, is a little more of the intense type of use. Okay, thank you. And the park and walk thing won't be affected. They'll still be able to walk there? Yes, absolutely. I had another question. Can you show us on the map where the 50-foot perimeter buffer will be? I don't know if I saw that on the map very well. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you for your answer, Tim. Thank you. Yeah, the 50-foot buffer is the dashed line that rings around the perimeter of the county-owned park land, which is in green. It looks kind of small, but it's also very large. It's a large piece of land. So you can see it does ring around the park. The active use, if you look at the county park master plan for the community park, the active uses are essentially more down in this area. The vast majority of these residential areas are going to have more passive uses around the perimeter. And, you know, I know Mr. Williams can speak to it in more detail if you would like, but I know that they've gone the extra mile to make sure that the uses are ones that the community is excited about and also are placed in an area that will be well-received. Another question? The drainage easement, I was wondering about, it wasn't really accurately portrayed in this, and I was wondering if there's any resolution to where that's going to go because in the final plan, I want to make sure that the neighbor's properties are protected from the drainage easement, and I was wondering if that was addressed in there. Are you referring to the comment at the very end of the staff report? I think so, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. A very good, perceptive reading of the report. So I did talk to Mr. Lawani with County Public Works, and we discussed the issue. And I think we've got it all clarified. The dashed line that's in the northern area here, we stopped the easement outline at the county property. The easement does continue on into this area. So the off-site area in white and then the area in green is all part of one, like, central drainage area for those neighborhoods. So that issue was clarified. Okay. Thank you. We thought it would be good to have those drainage easements shown, just people forget about them. You start to make plans, and you forget that there's some legal encumbrances. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Again, Commissioner, is there any additional questions or discussion? All right. If there's no questions, I'll entertain a motion. I'll move. Second. I'll move to go on. To move. I'll move. Okay. With recommendation. Commissioner, can you repeat that one more time? Yes, I'm going to move to approve application Z26-000013 with the recommendations that were made under the staff report. Thank you, Commissioner. Any seconds? Second. All right. We will move to a vote. Oh, discussion. Madam Chair, we also need to take public comment. Right. Oh, I'm past everything. We can go. Perfect. All right. I guess we'll move to public comment. Public comment. All right. So we'll open up the floor. Does anyone wish to speak? Hearing none, I guess we can move to. I'm going to renew my motion. There you go. And to approve application Z26-00013 with the conditions that are listed in the staff report. Perfect. Second? Second. All right. Now we can move to a vote, right? Perfect. All right. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. The motion passes. Aye. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Agenda. Wow. All right. Well, the next item on the agenda is approval of our September 30th meeting minutes. So moved. All right. Can I get a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Attendance support? Patricia, any issues, comments, concerns? No. All right. Perfect. Any, I guess this is an opportunity for any public comments related to items that's not on the agenda? Hearing none. Commissioners, any final comments or questions or announcements? Madam Chair, I did just want to let you know that we will not have a November Planning Commission. We don't have any items for that meeting. Happy Thanksgiving. Yeah. All right. Good announcement. Anything else? All right. If there's no further business, we'll adjourn. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.