like to reconvene the Board of County Commission we're going to do a little agenda management at this point we're going to take item number two under public hearing will be our first item and then item one be the second item and then we'll go to the quasi judicial of public hearing part of that okay so the first item will have first of two public hearings for a county initiated initiated unified land development code amendments for aqua tourism floating solar CAD and paving thank you good evening my name is Angeline Jacobs and I am a planner in our growth management department and I'm joined with by Lilit Lilwani which is also a civil engineer and our public works apartment for the first of two public hearings for proposed updates to the unified land development code the topics that we'll be discussing today in our we had a request to advertise back in April and so what happened there is we we spent a little bit of time and did some outreach for our agritourism and met with rural concerns committee and so we talked about substantial offside impacts and also accessory restaurants the other items that growth management will be addressing is home-based businesses floating solar and small-scale comprehensive plan amendments which relate to Florida statutes and then public works will also is here to speak to computer aided design files for acceptance of right-of-way and stormwater facilities and also resurfacing improvements for new connections on to existing roadways I kind of skipped but I basically said this earlier but we did meet with rural concerns on the 15th of July and there are notes in your backup from staff so I'm gonna start with the agritourism because that's really the only portion that got updated since the request to advertise and so one the staff are proposing to establish standards for consistent application to mitigate substantial off-site impacts for agritourism activities and that is coming from the state who preempted us and a variety of different ways for agritourism however they did identify that substantial off-site impacts would be something that we could identify and regulate and so with the conversation that we've had with the board and also with rural concerns a few suggested proposed updates here for lighting to be mounted at a maximum height of 35 feet shielded and set back from a neighbor properties by 50 feet lighting would be off from midnight to 7 a.m. and there was recommendation for using warm tone lights to minimize disturbance and potential harmful effects on wildlife additionally the parking to make sure that parking would stay out of public right-of-ways we asked that there be adequate space on site and also for traffic if over 50 peak hour trips during commuting hours we would ask to have an impact study and possible roadway improvements I'm sorry Commissioner Alfred and then Commissioner Cornell I'm sorry um yes thank you can I um can I ask if we are already already limiting um lighting that's aimed upward we do have a like a photometric code but it doesn't apply to agriculture or agricultural sites or agritourism operations so we would have one for um like for parking for commercial or for those types of circumstances we don't have specific lighting for this application because that would have been what I yeah and more night sky impact kind of thing so that lighting is directed toward the ground where people need it for operational reasons and not upwards just to have it there where we do have it it is shield fully shielded and it does affect that type of like localized um lighting for parking and pedestrian and things of that nature is there a reason why we wouldn't include that in this ordinance it's not identified in that portion of the code for agritourism so this is where we can consider that a substantial off-site impact um and so that's why we're identifying it here so that we can apply so if somebody were to call in and make a complaint and say the glare is coming right at my bedroom window we can point to the code and say hey this is what you should be doing to sort of mitigate that I understand that I'm just asking why it can't be stricter oh I understand I mean I think I guess I mean I would consider you know shining light uh casting light above and all over the place in ways that would impact like if a neighboring business was um choosing to do like stargazing as part of their agritourism or something like this could impact that right it would be a substantial impact so I think including night skylight provisions and these would be a good thing to do especially given that many of these are in rural areas where people are trying to enjoy the night sky yeah exactly well thank you I usually think of rural as being in bed at least by 10 you know you know did that have the lights from at midnight you know and what kind of activities oh I okay well I'm trying to work through that I mean some of our code does direct it to like 11 p.m but we were cognizant of say like the newberry corn maze and places like that may have evening hours and like Commissioner Prusia said weddings may go into the wee hours and and I think like uh uh low voltage lighting like fairy lights or you know the the that kind of lighting isn't really a big deal but I've you know seen I've seen places where they've made a big deal of the lighting for like an outdoor concert in some of our rural areas where it wasn't really necessary it's just like hey here we are you know right and so those are my thoughts but thank you the agritourism for accessory restaurants so we're just advancing this idea and also allowing it in the agricultural rural business so that was a limitation as an accessory to that and we're also removing the 20 seat capacity limit um when discussions with rural concerns it's only a few picnic tables and you're at that capacity and it felt like it was very limiting um and so we're proposing that to be removed but the rest of it um that is pretty much staying the same is that they must utilize some kind of agricultural resources grown on site they can't be a part of a chain or a franchise there are no drive-throughs and to have access to a public road uh the home-based business um this is just one portion that we unfortunately missed when we updated this code in 2023 um so we are just identifying this is just a home-based business for the farm machinery and lawn and garden equipment repair another state regulation that became law in 2024 was this idea of allowing floating solar or floatovotaics and so we have we are proposing it to be an improved use within our solar facilities portion of the code utilizing the same standards for whether it's ground mounted or floating and this just kind of shows you what we updated within the solar facilities and we added the definition as as it was stated in the statute additionally the small-scale comprehensive plan was updated in 2023 so this is just a definition that we're updating it was now it was 10 acres and now the state has asked that it would be 50 acres for a proposed amendment for a small-scale development um at this point i'll ask lalitlalwani to come up and speak to the public works portion good evening commissioners lalitlalwani alachua county public works uh so we just have two slides here one is for the submission of cad files these are required for um we are digitizing all of our assets including um everything with the stormwater roads etc so this is uh going to enhance our system and so this is what we are asking the code the second one is resurfacing of roadway connections um the first top picture is how the current code has you know basically the site that they are improving would be the one that you have to ask put blacktop or asphalt uh in the new proposed code which is actually a clarification the code is there but it's not clarifying it to the extent we need it to be so this will further clarify it that anytime you have a roadway connection to a county road both sides of the road will be blacktop so that's what the purpose of this is so it's providing additional clarification i move the proposed updates to the um code second got a motion to second direct staff for a second hearing oh and direct staff for a second hearing yeah that's what i said yeah two here first and second okay we got a motion second and uh are there any further discussions i i just have a question again you explained this to me once before and i i'm still a little dense about digitizing all the data or putting it what is the cad cad is that what it was yes okay and i had asked you before if there is no you said it would go up into the universe that it was out in the cloud somewhere i think that it because i was concerned about electricity going off shutting it off to the point where we wouldn't be able to access those things i'm still in a whole another generation of people who believes in carrier pigeons right so i just want to make sure that i understand that you're totally confident that anything that we put that data regardless of whether we have electricity or not you can still get a hold of it yes that is correct okay thank you and if i can add we're probably way behind most other places in florida in doing this i had been submitting these things in cad form for years to places that have been requiring it so and i would i have a question too about the floating voltaics it where would that what would they float on what how large a body of water would you need we haven't had any particular applications in our county um when i was looking into this i noticed some places like in miami where they have a large they have like a water treatment facility or a storm water pond um and they have basically floating i mean there's but both of those ponds go up and down though right and they i believe they're anchored in certain points and then they are allowed to rise and and fall i see so if it drops too far down they would still be up there i'm just trying to understand the technology because you know we do have a lot of surface water bodies here in the county and i just didn't know how it would impact the quality of the water if we actually permitted those things to be used on like lake santa fe well commissioners the definition is very clear that it was going to be on wastewater treatment ponds abandoned lime rock mine areas storm water treatment reclaimed water ponds and other water storage so it's not going to be on a pristine lake i'm not in that sense how big a size are we talking about for those do you i don't know what engineering wise what would make sense okay okay you know like how large it would need in order to generate the kind of voltage that someone so this is theoretic it's been done and yeah it's been done in other places in florida just not here in alachua county yet all right thank you thank you mr chair okay we have a motion in a second are there any citizens to the motion that's on the floor yes please my name is garrett shendwich um and on the air it says it's the first of two public hearings um about this was there going to be more because what i wanted to speak about was not spoken about just now um was there more about this okay so basically um i was at the meeting previous uh about the rural um concerns yeah concerns and one of the things that it was talking was uh about um agritourism activities and it says that they can only be done on a uh public road and so we were hoping to be able to make an adjustment to where it could be that the agritourism activities could be done on a private road with like a maintenance agreement similar to what we had passed with the farm stay situation um so i don't know like that's your deal i was gonna say maybe we could ask um yeah maybe we could ask our growth management staff and or public works have to address that because i think thought we did allow for some agritourism activities so uh mr chair um we did see the comments from rural concerns we think that it's appropriate for these larger agritourism activities to be located to have direct access on a public road we for farm stays we do allow those to be located on private roads although we require some sort of maintenance ability somebody's got to be agreeing to maintain that road and we don't feel like large agritourism operations would necessarily have those same kinds of abilities to do things and it requires us to have an enforcement mechanism so it's a little bit harder for us to deal with we think that having them have access directly to a paved public road is appropriate i guess it you're saying large agritourism but not all agritourism is large so i is there a possibility sorry well we've since we asked staff i guess if they could respond i guess i is there a possibility of having a scale like you know like you could have a small agritourism operation that's doing things or have a limited i mean i'm just interested i mean there's so many farms that are probably off of the private roads these days our private road is better maintained than the public did i say that out loud yes i heard you could we require a maintenance agreement or something that would then we could enforce it i show you special exception so we could see the scale i mean i guess that would be the that would be the way to handle it i suppose so mr chair i think what what we're trying to do is is provide is allow these things to happen without us giving lots of approvals okay um and and i think that's sort of one of the ways that we see this being um appropriate to do is to have access to a public road um it once we get into private roads it becomes that much harder for us to regulate or enforce um the way those things are done and we envision or understand agritourism operations to involve visits by the public and so i think we have historically looked for those uses that are open to the public things like churches or places of worship those kinds of activities to have access onto public roads because we know that we can maintain them and i think that's really staff's reasoning we if if the board is interested in having you know access on private facilities we definitely can look at that it becomes increasingly complex for us to regulate those kinds of those kinds of access points if the private road is wholly on their property or hold it like if they own both sides of the road is it still would that be considered than the driveway yeah i mean we at that point we'd look at that more like a driveway than a private road yeah yeah i was just gonna ask i've been many times to the wild game feast right hundreds of people show up to that that would be kind of like an agritourism event in a lot of ways mr chair i can't speak to it because i haven't uh ever been so um i recommend it um i've been to many agritourism kinds of events throughout alachua county and other counties almost everyone i've been to is accessed directly from a public road well i mean you you you know you turn off that i have been to okay well you turn off a private road and then you go down a very long scary dirt road which i've actually gotten stuck on and i you know have my concerns about but you know i i just feel like there's i'm i'm wondering if there'd be you know um unforeseen consequences here by by making this a rule if that would affect something like the wild game feast it's not why it's not it's not a bona fide agriculture operation oh i thought hatchet creek farms was well they might be leasing that farm yeah it is a rotary fundraiser but i'm just you know that type of event i've just like they they certainly are successful mr what kind of event are you talking about so we have a we became alacho county's first farm stay so now we are allowed to have people come and stay at the farm overnight it's been we've had we just finally got approved um not approved but we finally got every all of our things done we just had our first people stay huge hit everybody loved it they're they're going crazy they love it um so now we've got 12 acres so we would like to have like growing wildflowers and and growing a sunflower field and having people come out and take pictures that's an agritourism activity if you know we grow moringa we grow other things medicinal herbs if i wanted to give a tour of them and explain to people what they are that's an agritourism activity if i want to have people show them how to plant the seeds and how to grow them that's an agritourism activity so i know that there's different levels of actual agritourism activities like the you know farm maze thing the corn maze which is a big deal but like according to the previous slides we could have oh i guess not because it's a public road but you know we could have different things on there and it just would be it's just really shutting us down on the ability to do these types of things when we already you know obviously i'm biased because i'm talking about my farm but we already have a agreement to maintain our road so i'm just trying to figure out like you know we're trying to expand we're trying to educate earlier today there was a gentleman talking about you know let's teach people how to plant seeds and stuff well that's me i'm here to teach you i'm here to teach the edge to teach the next generation but i just need to have that ability to to do that by allowing the public to come on my property you know and and do it in a legal way as well as you know let's we've already got the they already said you know 50 uh transactions per day okay i can deal with that i'm not putting on huge events but i would like to have groups of 10 people coming out you know so as it sits now it's not looking in my favor for that sort of thing so i think this is the opportunity to kind of we can put little amendments in there to her with an agreement you know road agreement that's what we're kind of hoping for okay thank you commissioner presia um i guess i i'm interested to know if um an event like that if they were doing it a few times a year if they would be eligible on a private road to apply for a special use permit or a special event permit that would allow them to have an event like that so they could still have those events on their private road without it being i mean that would still have to come to staff or there would still be another approval process but it would give them an avenue to be able to do this on their farm from time to time on a private road mr chair i think what i'd like to do is we hear the concerns we can put our heads around it before we bring this back for a second hearing and try and have some language that addresses it i have some concerns about the process of a temporary use permit for agritourism operations that may run into the sort of state preemption issues so um we'll take a look at it and see if we can come up with something better that addresses the concerns that have come up thank you any further citizen comments back to the board there was in favor of the motion we need to modify the motion based on that or no it's no come back to second year they'll just bring that back okay those in favor of motion vote by the sign of aye aye those opposed same sign motion carries thank you this will bring us to adoption hearing for large-scale comprehensive plan amendment on southeast hawthorne road good evening commissioners this is madee bangatar with the alachua county growth management department this is the adoption hearing for z25 000-003 it is a large scale comprehensive plan amendment located on southeast hawthorne road and lakeshore drive just to refresh your memory you heard this in may that was the transmittal hearing and you voted to transmit this application to the florida department of commerce and other reviewing agencies and our staff transmitted that the following day on may 28th we had comments from florida commerce the florida department of environmental protection fdot st john's water management district and fwc the nature of these comments were that florida commerce provided technical assistance about our the proposed text amendment and fwc provided recommendations on the wildlife there and wildlife friendly fencing the other agencies just responded that they didn't have any comments or objections the site as you may recall is an 82 acre site that's located in the southeast portion of the urban cluster the intent of this land use amendment is for a future single-family residential development to be located there existing land uses on the site consist of low density residential estate residential and commercial and this request would amend the land uses on the site to low density residential and conservation this is located in as i mentioned in the southeast portion of the urban cluster and the east side greenways but strategic ecosystem and proximity to noonan's lake there is also as you may recall a rezoning application associated with the land use amendment that would implement the new land use categories if this is approved that's z25 0004 if the new land use categories are approved they would yield 221 units however as mentioned at the transmittal hearing the applicant has proposed a text amendment which would limit the number of units to 149 the proposed conservation land use is aligned with the strategic ecosystem more or less and the remainder of the property would have low density residential land use gru does have water and sewer lines that run along southeast hawthorne road that would be able to service this this future development this slide shows existing and proposed land uses as well as a summary of what is changing the existing uh maximum number of units would be 131 and maximum square footage uh based on the acreage of commercial land use if an assumption of 10 000 square foot per acre was used would be 124 000. the proposed amendment would eliminate that commercial land use and result in 221 units but as i've mentioned the text amendment is limiting that to 149 therefore the net change would be 18 additional units and a reduction of 124 000 square feet of commercial uses and that just reiterates that on this slide the transmittal hearing the applicant proposed a text amendment that limited the number of units and also in the text amendment was a description of a 200-foot area where lots and roads would be prohibited the florida department of commerce in the response gave some comments about how to clarify what that area is and staff has made some revisions to the proposed text amendment this is the proposed text amendment and at the end of the presentation i have a strikethrough and underline so you more you can more clearly see what has changed from the transmittal hearing the area that's been referenced in the proposed text amendment is shown here a 200-foot wide area and it is abutting these two parcels along the eastern portion of the site again the location this is on southeast hawthorne road and lake shore drive the aerial image shows the parcels that comprise this site to the south is southeast hawthorne road to the east is lake shore drive to the northwest is the east side activity center the west is the green grove subdivision south of southeast hawthorne road is pains prairie and to the uh the northern portion and to the east of the site our wetlands and strategic ecosystem further to the east across lake shore drive is newton's lake these are photos again from the site showing what a typical uh image of the site looks like along the southeast hawthorne road as you may recall from the transmittal hearing the existing buildings there are have been abandoned commercial uses so this is what they currently look like and the view from lake shore drive looking towards hawthorne road the existing uh future land use map shows where the residential land uses are low density residential and the state and then commercial towards the lake shore drive and uh hawthorne road intersection pose as i've mentioned the northern portion will be amended to conservation and the residual would be low density residential this slide and the following slide shows existing zoning and proposed zoning so as you can see there is inconsistent zoning for these parcels here they have agricultural zoning which do not implement a state residential and then these are bhmb and br these are various commercial zoning districts the proposed zoning if this is implemented would comprise of c1 which is conservation re1 which is a lower density residential and then r1a which is also single family residential and the proportion of these would yield the 149 that are mentioned in the text 149 units that are mentioned in the text amendment the green on this slide shows where the east side greenway strategic ecosystem is so this north northern portion of the site and then a slight bit in here in the southeast have the eastway greenway covering them wetlands also can be found along the northern area and this on the other side of the slide is the flood zone map we have a few slides for environmental protection and they can just reiterate what happened uh from the transmittal hearing until now could could we uh pause for a public comment at 5 30 it's it's 5 33 at this point so are there any public comments public comments not not not to this item but that's that's general and to something else not on the agenda yeah not on the agenda that's right long time list my first time caller um my name is dave drobeck i was born in gainesville i grew up uh 85 miles southeast of painesbury um this is in regards to the 00017 it's a i noticed i hear it was public comment for that uh uh the most recent data that i saw for alatua county housing was from 2023 and there were almost 13 000 empty houses so and going back further uh the earliest data i could find was from 2010 and every year they're between 19 000 and 12 000 empty homes so considering adding uh hundreds of homes adjacent to payne's prairie seems like a bad use of where homes are being put um paines prairie it's one of a kind i mean we all have the website first florida park that was there so i i'm i'm not an expert on science i believe darwin was here earlier today studied ecology i trust them when they say it's going to be bad i just know that it's beautiful and there's plenty of opportunity for houses to be built that are not right there thanks you guys have been doing a great job uh watching you guys make it very easy for people to come up and talk and give information about how the public can do that so we see that um we're also going to be watching how this turns out so thanks do the right thing thank you take care sure okay yeah my name is evie i'm also here to talk about the prairie but it also feeds into the newness like conversation also i'm here to talk about the potential rezoning of land near pains prairie as someone born and raised here i'm a reluctant alachua county resident and a reluctant floridian in general i live here because it's where my family needs to live right now a lot of my gripes misgivings and things i find problematic about living here are all problems that have existed in other places i've lived as well so i no longer believe that there is something just not quite right about this place i also know that the heat our local government has been facing lately is not entirely unique to gainesville that doesn't make the current political and environmental climate in florida any less unnerving we have a lot to be afraid of excuse me i'm nervous okay the prairie is one of the places that make this place special it provides pleasure and access to natural habitats that can't be found in too many places on earth it's also an ecosystem collaborating with us daily to keep us alive and connected to the biodiverse web we are just one part of whether we acknowledge that connection or not when you try to calm us down by telling us the development wouldn't be on the prairie but rather adjacent to you insult a bare minimum understanding of how pollution works noise light air and soil pollutions don't simply cease to exist at the edge of someone's lawn i know it's tough to be working in local government right now every day on social media our elected officials bemoan the tying of their hands the things they can't control the moral compromises they are having to make to keep the city running financially and i understand that a lot of this is out of their control but this is not out of yours in a time where we're being asked to compromise visibility for our queer community we're being asked to compromise what teachers can teach and what our kids have access to in school with our fears for our undocumented residents and the way that our state government is using environmentally protected lands for the most insidious reasons you have a chance to say no we need people in power people we elected to serve us and maybe even protect us when it comes down to it rejecting this rezoning rejecting this development would be a big way to show a lotto county citizens that you all aren't willing to compromise every little thing that makes this place good developments like this are not a sign of progress they only signal that we continuously and willingly allow destruction of our natural habitats and by extension our homes and our collective conscience please do the right thing thank you thank you all done maybe repeat some of the things they said this is also about paint spray my name is sarah cleeman okay um i wasn't sure if i was going to speak um i know this is a quasi-judicial hearing and a decision will be made based on evidence or whether your life or housing is affected um i'm not a mcnope resident um and i don't have a background in water conservation nor am i an environmentalist darwin killed that earlier um but i'm a long time alacho county resident i'm a business owner here in gainesville and i care a lot about this area i was married in painsbury state park i love it a lot i've been helping my parents move out of naples into this area and we've been house hunting and there is no shortage of single family brand new homes that are empty to the point where you can't keep track of them um that's all they're seeing and so when this popped up i i just it's shocking to me that there would be even more built in an area that is so near and dear to all of us um and so i just feel compelled also my first time ever speaking to speak against it it's just kind of mind-blowing to me when i know there's so many um because i'm in the thick of helping my parents house hunt so let this be a point in history where you all make a decision to not approve the rezoning request because alacho county cares about its natural environment and wants to set itself apart from other extremely non-favorable actions happening in the state thank you i'm shauna and i'm kind of in between the two i actually live by noonan's lake so that's really why i'm here but i feel like these two things are the almost exact same thing um i have a few things to say the main thing is god's not making more land if we just gobble everything up we won't have anything left that's it so both of these decisions are synonymous thank you any further citizen comments okay thank you i just yeah i mean this is just for everyone that's here especially those of you that live near the site that this will be a quasi judicial hearing which means we're required to um make our decision based on the evidence presented at the hearing um and so if you're um more affected than the average public because you live near it or because you make your living off of that you know like your ecotourism provider or something like that you can apply for party status and that will give you an opportunity to present evidence at the hearing um to bring in experts or share any data you have or why you believe this shouldn't happen you can also still come and make public comment at that or send us your email comments or comment today and it'll be submitted in the record but just wanted to let folks know if they want to speak to our growth management staff and request party status that's something that they can do and i think the hearing should be sometime in september but um yeah that's all and thank you all for being here mr cornell yeah i just want to say um you know we hear from a lot of folks regularly it's really impactful when we hear from folks that we've never heard from so thank you all for making the time thank you both all three did great for never speaking in public so appreciate it thank you okay we'll turn back to staff chair commission appreciate the opportunity to be here mark brown epd i wanted to kind of go over a little bit of background environmental perspective of the the site we did staff meet met with the the applicants consultant in january to look at the sites and verify where the wetland boundaries are um and then also to to verify what strategic ecosystem resources are present not just within the se overlay this is a depiction of the east side greenway in relation to uh the lake as well as depiction of of you know the broader sense in terms of how it fits within the county and the subject site it's kind of a depiction of the transition of the site that was historically cleared um quite a bit of except for the preservation area on the north side um and turned into the pasture and it's kind of naturally regenerated on its own so from that standpoint and showing on the 96 it has where in relationship to the to the greenway um again this is the overlay of the greenway it's again it's just an overlay requires ground truthing the middle slide is where there's some problems with ardhesia that would have to be eradicated as part of the preservation plan and then the gopher tortoises that are present within the southeast portion of the property they would have to be relocated we are in the process of finalizing the southern boundary of the strategic ecosystem for set aside and this right on the left is showing some of the other protection lands right adjacent to the east side of the property is conservation easement um as y'all know we've been contacted by dan smith who's here tonight if you want to talk about uh anything relation to um that proposed plan for set aside um or easement associated to tying it in with the on-site opportunities that's all i have i'm glad to answer any questions you may have mr chair commissioner wheeler can those gopher tortoises be relocated to the northern part of that property unlikely because there's so much wetland habitat and i don't know unless we uh looked and see because it probably at carrying capacity already and so when you relocate them there it's such a small area you really couldn't contain them in that location so they would you know go into other areas or so well is it but isn't there an area in there that it's it's this natural area that yes if they went into that area it would be okay or is it too too wet it's not saying it could we'd have to get approval obviously game and fish would prefer on-site relocation if conditions are right uh but at the same time there's such a small area that i don't know that that they're going to support that it wouldn't be the whole population they may have just a few that they would allow how many are we looking at there's um because it's a sand hill i know it's sand hill and it's perfect yes right you're right and um i think there's um close to a dozen boroughs so with a 50 occupancy probably maybe six six hortices so um but you know the on-site off-site relocation is generally the preferred alternative okay all right thank you thank you mr chair okay okay anything else no sir yeah they can go to the lead property um so uh continuing the presentation uh the staff report included a section uh that evaluated consistency with florida statute 163-3177 that is required for comprehensive plan amendments and that looks at things such as available services level service analysis site suitability which included environmental protections review and to discourage sprawl um which uh alachua county's main uh tool for that is the urban cluster as well as future land use policies the staff has uh the following bases uh for approval the first of which is policy 151 of the future land use element and that states that new residential development shall meet all the requirements for adequate facilities based on level of service standards and we have an analysis analysis of that in our stack report policy 857 of the future land use element that incentivizes redevelopment of areas that have already been developed are impacted by prior development for east gainesville urban area this is in the eastern gainesville urban area policy 341 of the conservation and open space element and that's related to environmental resource assessment and protection of natural resources and objective 3.1 of the energy element that promotes energy efficient land use patterns that reduce travel costs and encourage long-term carbon sequestration and uses existing urban infrastructure and infill of the urban cluster our recommendation is for the county commission to adopt z25000003 with the bases that we have in the staff report and with the addition of text amendment uh to the comp plan policy 7137 of the future land use element as amended following the transmittal hearing and this slide shows the strikethrough and underline that followed the uh transmittal hearing um it still retains the the gist of what uh the original um text amendment had uh prohibiting roadways and lots within that 200 foot area on the eastern side of the site it's just a little uh worded a little bit differently and also uh specifically mentions that it abuts uh those two parcels to the east but does not extend all the way to the um south east hawthorne road intersection it stops at the uh along the parcel that it abuts if i can go back to this slide you'll see where that um light blue color is is the area that we're talking about and um with that that's uh our staff presentation we can take any questions you have any questions i just have one question um i know the next part is the rezoning hearing and we have to do all our disclosures and all that and i'll disclose now and i'll do it again during the hearing that we we've had i have had conversation with the developer and with the community and um and it's been noted that there's several things that the community is interested in and the developer is working with them on to mitigate the impacts of this development and make it more i think both to make it more palatable for the community to have this as their neighbor but also i think in in good conscience you know as being developers that want to do the best they can for this piece of property but um i guess i it's not clear to me that if these are things that the developers willing to commit to if they need to be in the land use element or if they can be in the rezoning element or how we would incorporate those into this process mr chair um i think the best way to handle that is to let the applicant make their presentation let members of the public um provide comments and if the board hears something that they feel like they want to include um that that be part of your motion for this either as a land use amendment we can't condition the zoning that that would be coming up so if there's something if there were something that needed to be added this is the place where the board would have the ability to do that yeah okay so i guess that to that end you know i guess i i can make the motion that we for hearing that we adopt this land use transmission but i'd like to i guess leave my colleagues if they're going to second that motion leave it open for i'd like to hear from the from the applicant and from the community on that motion and if there are things that we should condition to ensure that they get done um during this process i'd like to do that so that we can have you know those those things lined up and the community can have some assurances they're going to happen and the developer can have those listed so he knows he or she or they know what they've committed to a motion in a second so we have a motion yeah yeah so we're going to have a discussion i guess yeah i i i would just like to say that i feel like that this is a leap of faith um on both parts of this commission you know we're we're putting ourselves out there hoping that this is going to be a low impact development that's going to help maintain the lifestyle of of not just the people who are out there but also the wildlife that lives there now you know because i tell you at one point i live across the street from gainesville high school i had a gopher tortoise who dug a hole right in my driveway and they live they they can live with people and it would be really nice to think that we are going to develop a place out here that would still accommodate the wildlife that's living there not just the gopher tortoises but the birds and the snakes you know whatever so i know one of the things that that the community has asked us for is to make sure that when we're putting in vegetation out there that we're using natural vegetation that would have been there not bringing in stuff from greenery square or wherever it is we would do it that we would maintain as much of the integrity of the land there as possible and i don't know clay if that's something you all talked about or not but it would make it easier for the gopher tortoises to live in the same yard you know with the people who are living there as well so we wouldn't have to worry about relocating them that they could cohabitate uh with you know and then not just like i say not just the gopers the the wildlife corridor that we really want to maintain this could be a pilot for a class act development and it's in a place that is controversial and if we could somehow input have it as low impact as possible where both man and beast could live together um it would it would be a showcase that we could all be proud of because we i i think we're just taking a big risk entrusting the development to get in there a development to get into this sensitive area and do right by it and so i just i'm hoping that your developers hear me say that because i think that there are a lot of people who would love to live in a place like living in a forest with the creatures thank you mr chair okay commissioner prisoner well i just i guess i want to say i guess that's why mary helen i i you know i think that i you know might yeah the list of things that i know they've been in discussions with and i i would love to hear from the applicant about you know which of these they feel comfortable um conditioning and and um so that folks have a sense of security that those things are going to happen um and i and i know that you know when i met with the developer i shared with them a new design guide that's been put out by the outside collaborative that really provides um it actually provides whole landscape plans essentially that are 100 native landscaping and there are now nurseries that are starting to really mass produce those plants and provide those plants so that it's possible because i think one of the big hardest hardest parts is sourcing those plants um and but now i think with cherry lake and some of the others there are some options so i tried to share that with the developer and impress upon them how important um this place in particular although all places i think in alachua county should be using native landscaping um and xeriscaping strategies and and they seem really open to that so i look forward to hearing from them um on that and the other um eight items that are on this list um but thank you okay any further commissioner comments um would the applicant like to respond good evening good evening chair commissioners i'm clay swagger with eda consultants i i'd like to ask from for some direction from you all um i have essentially the same presentation that i gave at the transmittal hearing which was probably about 45 minutes long and i can't remember the last time i spoke that long in a consecutive session so um i would like to say all the information that you had received at the transmittal hearing is still there i would like to just for the record give the presentation to the clerk i'm happy to go over any of those components um thank you any of those components that you would like i know a lot of the folks that are here um heard the presentation as well but again i'm here to share information and and be helpful any way i can i will just go through a couple of the slides and i'm excited to be here i'm excited to share some of the information that i have that work we've been doing since the transmittal hearing here to adoption and i'd also like to just remind the commission that a preliminary development plan would be the next step for this process which does come back to the board of county commissioners so some of the um interested uh topics that that the board may have or neighbors and the developer some of them might make sense now some of them might make sense at a pvp level so there's there are a lot of bites at the apple if you will again about 33 percent of this property is proposed to be to have conservation land use designation and that corresponding zoning conservation zoning really uh and the table that may be indicated um in or shared in his report really the difference between the land use map that's there today and the proposed with that language is 18 units so it's it's rising from 131 to 149. the condition that is that we proposed to you all last time to limit the number to 149 and require it just to be single family detached type development um and then also the 200 foot greenway is in there the the state uh is maybe indicated um wordsmith the language a little bit just to make sure it was even it was better written than what i wrote just to make sure it's very clear where that greenway is going to be so all that is in place we had a lot of conversation last time about east gainesville and housing need and the time it's been since there's been development um school capacity is available road capacity is available this map shows you just the orientation of the property to commercial to the southeast and to the south and then the brown color existing single family areas and the east side activity center in yellow again i spoke about the proximity to downtown in relation to some of the other major development areas we had a long conversation about urban cluster that this is in the urban cluster and that we do have urban map designation so we're asking for modification within those parameters and this is the existing and the proposed future land use map you can see on the right the proposed conservation and the 200 foot greenway this is the condition that you all included in the transmittal and we'd like to keep it here at the adoption hearing we do believe that we're going to participate and contribute to the greenway concept that's in the the county's different comprehensive plan and some other reports this just shows you sort of a high level view of how this property weaves into that stepping down the current land use map does allow about 24 units in the state residential and our greenway essentially would mean that there would be no units in that very easternmost part of the property there are several photos that we shared with you all last time existing conditions around in and around the property which spoke about septic tanks and that this project will connect to gru water and sewer and also we'll have an opportunity to stub sewer to the westward extent of this property so the potential for the neighborhoods to the west to be able to connect in a larger infrastructure improvement over time you can see all the triangles there's a there are a lot of septic tanks in this area we had a long discussion about urban sprawl and how that relates to the urban cluster i'll be glad to talk about it more if you like i share with you some of those development scenarios in the comp plan with the map today some tnds and live local and all those those essentially are taken off the map because we're stating we would just do single family at 149 and this is a concept plan that we shared at the last meeting and this really hasn't changed much we are working on a preliminary development plan we are looking forward to sharing with the neighbors and the community very soon but this does show you the conservation easement area to the north the greenway and where we would propose to have residential lots this is some information that we discussed last time about these entry-level homes some economic data just to show the impacts of the development that we hope to bring online very soon again there's more analysis of urban sprawl in relation to the property and the urban cluster and i thought this map was helpful in showing you that there are not a whole lot of properties in east gainesville that are developable whether road utilities or environmental constraints there it's it's difficult to find property over there not to mention a developer is willing to you know to give it a to give it a go and this slide really was just to reinforce that we're really sort of on the very top line here at land use and zoning we have a preliminary development plan final development plan final plat construction permits and then all the gru water management and dot permits so there'll be a lot of a lot of permits a lot of eyes on this project all wetlands have been delineated and all will be fully protected with the required water management and county buffers this was just a a few of the slides i think mark shared as well a lot of this property has been impacted or cleared over time just to kind of give you a little bit of context there was a cultural resource assessment done on the property they did not locate or identify any resources eligible for listing there'll be further study and review i am certain by the water management district as part of their requirement we did talk about this as well there are some pretty significant stormwater treatment requirements in this area due to the proximity in newton's lake we are in the orange creek basin management action plan area so there are additional standards for stormwater treatment for water quality and quantity your county code also says you have to reduce reduce post development average nitrogen phosphorus loads by at least 10 percent less than the pre-development average what's happening today and then dep also has regulations that apply in this area the 95 reduction of both nitrogen and phosphorus or a net reduction of the impaired pollutant when compared to pre-development conditions so these are the standards that will have to be met here and that will have to be demonstrated as the project moves forward as you all are aware there are some pretty robust fertilizer restrictions and irrigation restrictions um in the county code and we're proposing to put all of those into hoa documents to make them understandable and available to neighbors not many folks actually go and look in chapter 77 of the land development code or the code of ordinances so this will be a clear document for them and i want to speak about the hoa documents in just a moment in addition as well traffic there's plenty of capacity on hawthorne road i would like to talk about lakeshore drive i'll save that for the end when i go through the response we would like to respond to the nine comments from the um the neighborhood group we did put together a comprehensive plan consistency which i will spare you that unless you have any questions public facilities are available um there are policies that support development in east gainesville in the urban cluster area and the county um epd reviewed the application and found that the amendment is consistent with protection of natural resources and so this is um i really liked the discussion last time this is an and not an or you know we're doing it we're bringing economic development and we're doing the environmental protection and the master planning that i think is going to really mean and result in a really quality project public facilities are available this really is in the comprehensive plan the scheme of things and just in community economic needs a great a great place to do this project we would respectfully ask that you adopt this comp plan amendment um i would like to take just a few minutes and i did see that the pga put together a list of nine comments slash recommendations and i'd like to go through those if i may um i could put them on the um might help we all have a good idea i'm happy to leave this as well yeah thank you great thanks me um so the there are nine comments that were um presented and i'm sure the the um the greenway alliance is here would like to speak to them as well but um i like i like the sentiment we've had several meetings with um with them different representatives i think they've been very cordial and positive we're all working towards the right direction here i think um and so i'd like to share our responses um number one is very straightforward that the um the rezoning of the property and the land use change would eliminate commercial development on the property so the amendments on the table would be consistent with what is mentioned in number one item number two the maximum number of residential units not exceed 149 and be single family homes again that this amendment would actually solidify that being the case uh number three allow green garden street um adam's homes any exemptions for the installation of wildlife sensitive dark sky international certified lighting and so we did have a conversation about that we spoke with um ken hunter who's a lighting engineer that works on a lot of our projects and i i picked his brain and asked him about it and um so we would like to put in and we're we're committing to put this in and we can we're going to put these in hoa documents and we're also um agreeing to to have this um we'd like to well let me just read it it'll probably be better than me trying to say we as a result of these discussions the developer intends to comply with dark sky design principles including compliance with the following criteria promoted by dark sky international and they have those five bullet points you have to prove that the lighting is useful there's not a whole bunch of um non non contributing lighting that's just adding for no purpose targeted it has to be for maybe it's for safety or security low level it's the lighting levels have to be monitored controlled that usually means that they maybe are on timers or some other similar device and warm colored and so um strategies for street lights uh will include full cutoff for all lights meaning that there's no up light component that would directly contribute to light product pollution secondly the fixtures would utilize directional optics which concentrate the light output um on the roadway in immediate adjacent areas and lastly street lights would utilize a warm light 3000k which is a friendlier and is friendlier to residential neighborhoods and wildlife due to reduction in the blue light component the good news is that's what gru is now ordering and you're going to see those coming online and in many neighborhoods but we're committing to making sure that's the case here um also so that's the that covers the streets you know those are the street lights so we we are committing to take it to the next level and include um provisions in the hoa documents that require homeowners to utilize lighting that complies with dark sky principles including prohibition of unshielded lighting and flood lights which are likely to produce sky glow and nuisance glare require that exterior lighting be controlled by a motion sensor with setback requirements for periods of inactivity require lighting outside output color to 3000k or warmer to incorporate additional components outline dark sky international recommendations so i don't know of any neighborhood that's proposed that and put in the hoa document so it should be very well managed as far as any um the light outputs if you will the blinds girls well thank you they only run at night the county will have an opportunity to review the hoa documents as we move through the process you'll be you'll get to see the the fine print number four um mr stephen boys had shared with us in a meeting some of his suggestions and ideas regarding stormwater treatment and how we design this project and so the good news i think is that we're really going in the same direction um i think this comment is best addressed in full at the development review stage um the issues that he's concerned about and i i'm just paraphrasing and he can speak for himself of course but concern about flash flooding conditions versus um post-development conditions versus pre-development conditions and protecting the hydrologic conditions of the wetlands in other words you can't design the project where no water is now going to wetlands and they dry up and they're they're gone in stormwater runoff treatment related to reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus levels so those three components i got from his comments and he's coming up with actual suggestions engineering suggestions on how to make that how to address those and make it happen and we will be glad to look at all those and i will say just um generally um all of those issues are addressed in the rules and regulations today water management district galachua county you cannot discharge water to rate greater post-development than you can pre-development conditions i did um mention you the significant nitrogen and phosphorus treatment levels and the standards from the state to the local level and also the um the hydra protecting the hydrologic conditions of the wetlands that's part of what the water management district will look at so i i'm i'm very confident at the end of the day we're going to have a a plan that addresses those three planks very well um and we will continue to work um with mr boys and have those conversations um number five and this is the big one um there can i ask a question about that one yeah thank you so um in the one that i was reading and it i don't think it's changed no okay um it does talk your responses yeah would be great we don't have them um well it talks a little bit too i mean it is about the stormwater volume um but it also talks about the you know the idea of um lid about you know using low impact development potentially limiting curb and gutter um or curb cuts to rain garden something that would sort of keep the water on site i think some of their concerns are you know directing and channeling water places then just creates more potential for that so i would just love to hear if that's something that the developers open to the idea of curbless on some of the the residential street or curb cuts and rain gardens or that lid approach um where it makes sense um and um yeah in the native uh landscaping side of things so that's on a different number okay um we have some we have some concerns about agreeing to very specific engineering design concepts at the land use stage because we still got to engineer the project we do have a series of basins that we're proposing so it's not just one large stormwater pond the lid ideas we're not adverse to them um and as far as the roads and the curb and gutter like we have to we also have to meet county standards if we want to dedicate the roads or even if we keep them private we still have to build the county centers there's a lot of moving parts um i completely understand the advocacy and what's being asked here so i i would i mean that's the best answer i can give you at this moment is that we understand what we what the challenge is and we're going to keep working on it okay um you don't want me to engineer your road tonight no and i don't want to engineer your road you don't want me to engineer road ever um as a planner so great well i will keep moving so there there was a lot of discussion at the previous hearing and other discussions about lakeshore drive concern about traffic concern about quality of life concern about the condition of the road um is this going to be the main entrance to the project and candidly for a good period of time we did anticipate that to probably be the main entrance to the project but we've we've listened to the neighbors we've thought about it we've analyzed things and we do have other access points we have an access on hawthorne road the big state road and 51st street so we would propose tonight to not um provide a connection to lakeshore drive keep that undisturbed don't put any cars on it um we'd be happy to put that in if you if you want it as a comp plan amendment we still have those two fully functional access points which is county code um so we hope that that is well received um by the neighbors i know that was something that has been has been brought up um pretty much every time we oh that's good um great well i'd like to continue on if i may so uh number six uh the the request was to it sounded to me like just um only do native plants throughout the whole project whether it's the planting that the developer does to establish the common areas or for residents i don't think we're prepared tonight to agree to that um officially but we are willing to voluntarily agree to utilize only what's certified as florida friendly landscape which right now your county code encourages it but it doesn't require it so we we are offering that tonight as a as something that we could we could agree to um and some of these again you know some of these items are really maybe a little bit of a cart before the horse but we're just taking these head on because we've been having all these conversations and and you all want to know where we are and we're trying to be as transparent as we can um number seven is a recommendation to use permeable concrete whenever possible um to diminish neutral neutrified storm water runoff um ultimately to the lake and so so that's one as well i i consider that comment number seven similar number four where we we understand we we're going to have to work with county staff a little bit we also have to just take into consideration some cost factors there um the pervious pavement can be um quite a bit more expensive so we just need to look yes ma'am yeah i um i i met with uh some of the concerned residents and and had a little bit of discussion about pervious concrete because the upkeep of pervious concrete you know on private property especially is not something that you can guarantee and that it it gets clogged up and it might not be as efficient as you would like it to be there are other options that i think that might go along with this idea one thing is to not pave a full driveway but to the two tire tracks that go into the driveway for instance and then make a maybe a parking area to just decrease the amount of of of uh impermeable surface the what like madera yeah and yeah and and or also um what you see in parking lots that are you know not used as often you see the open pavers that the grass comes up that you can mow over that's another option that might i don't know how how that compares to permeable concrete but those all allow infiltration of groundwater without the same cost and upkeep as uh permeable concrete so i just want to throw that out there it's something that might be amenable to um the residents that could also serve the same purpose is just to minimize the the um the the concrete yes well i think that's a uh beneficial to everyone to minimize the pavement as much as possible yeah the cost the runoff this general all the things that you're you're mentioning and these are all strategies that we can try to incorporate the best we can i i can't speak tonight if they the developer would only want to build the two tire track type of driveways but we're not opposed to continuing to work on this i i'm gonna say though i just want to since i've got the floor for a second i've had more people ask me about when these houses might be available than i've ever had of a development before because they're hearing about the concessions that you guys are making i think it's creating real interest in these homes from folks that are looking for a you know more sustainable option for a home so i just wanted to throw that out there i'm glad and i and i will mention too that you know with the 30 conservation area on the north there's also some other wetlands and cmas we're saving all the landmark live oaks which you'll see at the pdp level we've finally got those all surveyed the county arborist so we're going to work around all those there's going to be a lot of nice green areas in this project so it's really like a nice interface between the natural areas and the residential so um i was very happy i could say that tonight commissioner cornell um okay uh number eight i'm almost done uh is a request to um install minimally lighted entry signage on the development uh along hawthorne road and 51st street that's no problem at all um i essentially just regurgitate what the county code requires you can only have a 32 square foot sign which is pretty small and it can't it can't be lit with a panel um so we'll agree you know when in the code will enforce that but maybe there's just a small little light that shines up on those monument signs but there can't be any giant and well you know highly illuminated light it's just not it's not allowed um and number nine um is we've had several conversations um there are multiple folks here tonight that either own or associated with land that is either potentially will be put into conservation or is in a conservation easement they're very interested in what's the future of our cma because as you saw in that drawing we connect and so we've agreed and i believe it says in writing that we're not proposing um this to be a highly activated area we're not proposing trails and recreational infrastructure it's really gonna be more of a wildlife preserve and that it will connect to that larger area and that's i know that's what um some of the folks here are advocating for the developer is fine with that um it it will work seamlessly in i know there's also some interest in who's going to take management of the cma ultimately and who's going to hold the conservation easement i mean that decision won't be made tonight but we're also open to if a third party a land conservation trust wants to come forward and say we'll take on your piece maybe the hoa is contributing you know an annual amount to help with exotic invasive management or so forth it works out well for everybody worst case scenario is we still have to do our own cma but we're going to do it as a wildlife preserve and it's going to be very consistent with what the folks are looking for so i think it's a win-win either way i don't know which way it's going to go there's probably going to need to be lawyers and people like that involved in county epd we've spoken to steve and mark and i don't think that they have a issue with that idea in concept so we're putting that on the record as far as what we're willing to do and agree to with that cma and i'm hope hopefully that's very well received as well um we we are working on a preliminary development plan um we'd like to if if tonight you see fit to approve the land use and zoning we'd like to schedule a neighborhood workshop very soon to roll out our preliminary development plan and share all the details and get going and then that that would mean we would be back again with you all um sometime in probably in the fall to review that so um thank you for the time i said i wasn't going to take long and i took 45 minutes anyway so um if you have any questions for me i'll be glad to answer them or i can stand by and wait okay i got um commissioner prisia ken cornell and commissioner albert um well i thank you very much i think i'm excited to hear all the things that you've committed to i mean out of the nine here that's you know one two three four five six are you're pretty much you know yes we're committed um and the others are in pd yes but let us explore options and bring something back at pdp that tries to hit the mark um which i appreciate and i understand it does make more sense particularly for the engineering side of things um so i guess um huh yeah i guess that's the question i had for staff is if we condition these does we do we have to re-transmit or are these just conditions on the language that we've already transmitted um mr chair we we've talked a little bit about that i think the extent of what that conditioning might be or the change proposed change i think a change that sort of limits the action the location of access is probably something that we could include without having to re-transmit that we could just send as part of our adoption package okay great um what about the dark sky lighting and the um florida friendly labor florida friendly it's already in our yeah so one of the reasons that i i wanted the applicant to be able to talk to you a little bit first um is because the way that a lot of the recommendations are proposed are their allowances to the developer they're asking the county to allow the developer to do these things we've reviewed them and without getting into specifics much of what is in that document are not things that are required by our code so we don't require a dark sky compliant lighting plan with any development but anything that was dark sky compliant would be compliant with our code and so what we looked at was which of these things are are sort of being requested to to require the applicant to do versus what are some things that they're asking the county to be flexible on and we believe that really the majority of those without seeing a fully engineered plan it's very difficult to say yes we'd allow permeable permeable pavement or in a particular location or you know whatever that might be but many of the suggestions that are provided are things that our code would already allow a developer to do doesn't necessarily require them to do it but they're things that our code allows them to do so if there are things in particular that the board thinks the developer or an applicant needs to be required to do in order to approve this comp plan amendment those things would need to be spelled out as part of the policy and then depending on how far that goes we'll need we would probably need to have some discussion about whether that's a a transmittal a retransmittal or an adoption i just i don't have a i guess it would be the entranceway as you mentioned the dark skylight compliance and the florida friendly landscaping commitment those three items the others are at engineering they've already committed to the 149 homes they've already committed to the cma so those things are already done so i you know i think um and they've already committed to no commercial zoning in this so those things have already been done so just be those three can i can i talk to you yes yeah so first of all i i want to thank the citizens who put this list together and really the developer for working through it i think we should condition five which is the egress i think we're going to get um three four six seven and nine in the preliminary which we have to like which we have to approve which we have to approve and and i've heard their commitment it's on the record i'll keep my notes um they're keeping their word i mean i have to tell you i haven't seen a developer to do this this is kind of like a model that others um that are watching or not watching should watch working with the neighborhood and working with the commission and so i'm really good with approving what we have and adding five and then um asking the developer to address the night sky three four six seven and nine prior to preliminary um oh you mean adding number five just adding number five i think all five oh no no just number five which is the egress yeah yeah okay are you okay with that amendment it's fine as long as yeah as long as we can hit it at pdp i mean i i i i as well say i mean i've been really impressed with yeah okay so sorry the motion's already been made it's and seconded adding the egress one is the only one that we're adding tonight thank you mr chair for giving us a second we just had a little conversation in the sidebar over there we think that based on your discussions we and and what's being proposed we we probably would just go ahead adopt send it to florida commerce and um i mean worst case is that they would send it back to us and say no this isn't what you transmitted but i don't think that this really gets at a real change to what was transmitted to the department so by adding the egress not only yeah i think i think really any of the things i didn't hear the last parts of your discussion i'm sorry so if you were to amend that motion based on the things that i i heard you all discussion discussing i think we can adopt with that we'll we would have to work on some language um so we wouldn't be signing an ordinance tonight but um i think we could make that happen just staff recommendation mr chair what even if the board were to to want to limit access to lakeshore drive and the comp plan i know i heard some discussion about the dark sky or the florida-friendly landscaping if those are requirements that the board were to get to we think that those are things that the board could adopt in a policy in the comprehensive plan and and send to deo as our adoption as our adopted language well i'll say this i you know i the the developers made quite the commitment continuing to dialogue with the community i think the community's expressed their needs they've heard and we have on record that they've said they're committing to those things i think you know i'm okay with them doing at pdp i think it gives more flexibility perhaps they'll be able to come back with all native and do what we really would love to see happen but you know there's not ready yet so i think giving them that flexibility and and that trust that's being built is a good idea so i'll work with it and just add to my motion the um ingress egress no ingress egress um for on lake shore drive yep motion and a second yeah so mr chair if i could just um make one comment again i really appreciate uh the developer and the neighborhood working together um i do want to say when it comes to the cma i love what you said um and it's right in line with what i think uh you know we talked about at the previous hearing and i heard from the neighbors i would very much like to have act or somebody like act manage that i think it makes a lot of sense and um i appreciate you kind of committing that you don't have any problem um going in that direction so i just want to kind of put that on the record from my perspective i think it adds a lot to the folks that are interested in donating it gives a lot of um credence to this idea of the screenway alliance and as long as everyone is kind of in conjunct in in uh an agreement that that's really a wildlife corridor i think it gives us a lot of opportunities for um what i think may come down the road with additional um contributions of land for the project which will just make the project uh even better so i just wanted to tell you all that say that and let everybody hear that thank you mr chair um this thank you uh this morning we had a different conversation about this area uh this project touches just barely on one corner of the east side activity center am i correct not quite but just it's it's not in it no it's definitely not in it but it's just like just like cattywampus to the uh to the east side activity center if i'm correct by one very northwest corner and and so we um we had a discussion where staff is going to we're going to be rethinking the east side activity center rethinking what that looks like and rethinking what that might be going forward and one of the things that we discuss is the east side activity center could be this like poster child of what a environmentally friendly um sustainable you know activity center could look like because it's it is surrounded by areas that we want to protect and we need to protect so my thought process though is is because you're building uh potentially building 149 homes and that east side activity center might be a place that those people would want to go to while we don't want to necessarily disturb this greenway it might be really great if there were a trail through there for like kids to walk to school because there is a school there are schools right there that would remove trips from the road it would reduce traffic i just thought i would throw that out there as something to like keep in the back of your head and for the residents to think about as they recognize the fact that you know there could be some rethinking of this east side activity center what's happening there if there was a library we know there's two schools in that area but there you know there could be a library there could be other amenities and i i think that could be something that um you know even if act manages that there could be a you know a way for people to access that activity center and i hate to throw a wrench into something that we all just said it would be perfect the way it is but i just see that as a potential that might happen anyway being one of those kids that cut through woods that i wasn't supposed to to get from one place to another didn't we all do that yeah we all did that but um you know i think that uh you know planning for it and making it safe as as an off is an opportunity so i just want to throw that out there if i may just respond very quickly um 51st street which is a paved public road does extend really to the northwest corner of our property and then the activity center's there so you've got you've got a paved road going into the activity center centrally oh yeah from you definitely do all right a lot of land sort of quasi landlocked properties over there in the activity center so that planning process you're going through will be helpful i know there's some property owners in there that would like to do something as well so i can give you their names so they can make sure they're involved they they were involved in our neighborhood work i'm sorry i totally missed that road was there i was looking at the other side of it okay yeah you don't need to go through the green sidewalks on that room no sidewalks yeah i mean i think walking is the yeah no good all right good i'm glad that that's the thing but i did want to make you all aware that that that that is something that we discussed this morning is rethinking that whole east side development uh center so that's uh might be something that you want to keep an eye on i was just going to say it seems to me you could get a little extra money for a place that that shared a lot with a gopher tortoise you know i'm just saying um you can they do coexist in neighborhoods if you have a hard time moving them somewhere if we're having a hard time finding a place i don't know where we actually relocate our gopher tortoises but it may be that they would just scoot over long enough to get those houses built and then nestle right in next door to them that's what happened to mine mine lived in our yard for a long time and it was right across from gainesville high school behind the bank you know so they do live in urban areas if they have to if they have to thank you mr chair okay we got a motion and a second on the floor uh are there any citizen comments to the motion mr chairman members of the commission thank you very much for allowing us to come tonight and have another opportunity to comment on the the activity uh let me say first of all um as you know we did not support the development uh but we found the consultants the developer of very open and willing to sit down with us and you'll hear from a couple of others who were part of our strategic planning group but of the whole neighborhood we came up with that list of of issues and we appreciate your meeting with us earlier this last week and discussing them um i think there's a lot of progress that's been made and i'm so my comments really are two parts and clay really really and you all have already discussed can you state your name for the record though yes sir yes i'm sorry i'm paul pritchard and i'm the chairman who you are all right they don't thank you thank you i i should know that um the second issue for us is the one that is number nine and that is we do feel that it's very important that this is be considered a wildlife area and not a recreation area and the distinction between the two are things like not having trails and not because they do disturb and i have a gopher tortoise right in my front yard too um but it is i think important that we clarify that we are asking you and the developer to work with us to make this a wildlife area that will really complete a dream that started some time ago as many of you know in fact some of you i believe were part of that planning process for the east side great strategic ecosystem it would be a new conservation area one of our members of our committee who you all know dan smith has offered to contribute 91 acres to help it go we would have the developer we have others offering to develop or to donate their land i'm willing to donate some uh a section of areas that it looks like a dagger on that map but it's in that that gray and white area that's all mine and i'm happy to do that but i really do hope we can have the process and i think the developer will be cooperative and i think the question is for the county to set in on the record that it will be for a wildlife quarter as originally planned some time ago this is a wonderful opportunity and it can't be compromised by atvs and hunting and other activities that would not be suitable thank you very much for the opportunity to make my comments and uh i think uh steve boys has some comments about the water that we wanted to make sure you heard because that's the second uh equally important issue okay thank you thank you the next item he's waiting on the next item thank you again good evening mr chair commissioners my name is byron flag i'm a land use attorney with the law firm gray robinson here in gainesville um tonight i'm representing mr dan smith who's behind me uh just very recently retained um and mr smith has asked has retained me um to help him with um the concert to try to figure out how to maximize the conservation and preservation potential on the map uh just to get you oriented mr smith's property is the 10 acre parcel adjacent and north of the conservation easement area so you see there's two to the more to the west there's two smaller five acre parcels and then mr smith's main homestead parcel is that 10 acre parcel he also owns the larger swath of about 80 little over 80 acres that runs along the eastern edge of the proposed project so as you can see he has a very strong interest in conservation in this area not just because he enjoys and desires preservation and conservation of wildlife and management but because he's an owner of the land next to this this property and he's uh he does have a wildlife management plan and conservation easement plan on that larger parcel next to the property um but anyway the only the main reason we're here tonight is to thank the developer for the work they've done and to emphasize some of the comments that commissioner cornell talked about about about if there's going to be a cma cma area as part of this proposed plan that caution be taken to make sure that the management of area of this area is really done as as best as possible and sometimes when we when developers create an hoa and eventually the developer goes away and turns over the management and control of the entire project to the hoa and so if that happens here there's a bit of uncertainty as to how well the future of this conservation area will be managed and so to try to maximize the best ability to come to preserve and conserve this area and manage it and also to potentially create some kind of opportunity where you've heard already that there's other property owners who might be willing to donate land if we can figure out a way to connect um this conservation area granted it's on private property they can do what they want with their private property so we'd like to try to figure that out i'm here to help mr smith do that and so we look forward to working with the parties on that thanks thank you further citizen comments i'm kelly mcpherson uh you all heard from me last time um as you know uh well i'm here to say thank you to the folks that um the pifla coco greenway alliance folks were putting the effort in to work with the developer um and with you all to you know come to the outcome that we've gotten to i also as an individual representing my business which is across the street from the project um it's on a parcel that's um business automotive is the zoning there and i reached out to mr swagger with some of my concerns just that you know our business might not be um the quietest business we get going early in the morning um if i was moving to eastwood preserve i might not expect to hear a chainsaw or a wood chipper or a compressor going first thing in the morning and so um you know and those uses are all very consistent with something that's business automotive and perhaps not even as intensive as what might be there someday in the future there's no plans really at this point but um and i found that mr swagger was very um accommodating and uh thoughtful in his responses and among those responses were the limited access to lakeshore drive and i appreciate you all um kind of trying to i guess codify that in some way or put that in with the land use changes that he also uh told me that they were kind of trying to minimize the number of lots along lakeshore drive and then partially for just sort of making a little more buffer between these more intensive activities and residential uses which may not always be the most compatible that they would add a large landscape a large a landscape buffer along lakeshore drive that was larger than what's required by code and i do appreciate all of those sort of concessions very much and i do appreciate your efforts and your willingness to enter those into the record and especially because you know we never really know what's going to happen in the future and these folks are really easy to work with and we don't know what's going to happen uh we've seen developments not come to fruition on the east side in the past so this these this group of folks is easy to work with um if something happens um we come up with another group we might not be so lucky and uh so i encourage you to continue to uh take these concerns into consideration and put them into a form that's enforceable and um thank you for considering that thank you yep good evening folks my name is lisa holder and i also just want to express my thanks to you all for listening to the pithochoco greenway alliance groups um requests about our concerns associated with this development um we appreciate the developers willingness to work with us they've been extremely user friendly um the two things again that i would specifically like to thank you for are your willingness to eliminate the ingress egress on lake shore drive i think that's extremely important both for safety and for um the quality of life continued quality of life on lake shore drive and i'd also just like to leave you with an emphasis that this conservation management area is going to be very very uh important to not only um the neighborhood but also our vision for a larger conservation area that will run along the western part of noonan's lake and reach all the way up to noonan's lake stake forest optimally at some point in time so i would just ask that you do everything in your power to encourage the developer not to abandon the conservation management area to a homeowners association at some point in the future that no matter what happens no matter where it ends up landing uh it end up in some form of management authority that will um hold it to the highest conservation standard that's it for me thank you thank you hello adam gursky i just want to kind of echo what i've heard uh it's always good when we can get compromised and we can get to the finish line and feel like everybody's got some portion of win-win uh so that is you know admirable and i'm happy for the neighbors and just of course want to say just generalizing that we do still need housing so of course you know you're leaning in and saying yes i hope that there will be more yeses um and also want to be careful that we're not you know moving forward being too restrictive and making too many regulations as we know that can often take more time more money and then the burden of that you know those restrictions ultimately then land on the homeowner um so i'm not saying that we you know ever you know take something for granted or that you you go crazy and just say no we don't need any compromise but just to keep that in the back of your heads that every time we do that there's also some unintended consequences but i think this is a win and i just wanted to make sure because i know early on we heard some things about we have an excess of housing and we have thousands of homes that are vacant and i will just tell you we do not i mean we we just do not have enough housing stock in this community and we certainly don't have enough at the attainable and workforce housing levels and so this neighborhood certainly is going to get us you know in that vein and going to provide some housing so i'm very happy and hope that you all will support this project and of course want to thank the developer for listening to feedback from you and certainly from the neighbors that are going to be most closely affected because i think that's important um and should be something to look towards i just want to make sure that we're not always saying okay this is what it always looks like because we just have to be careful and strike that balance and compromise so thank you thank you thank you commissioners mr chair eric goday greater gainesville chamber um it's a pleasure to sit back here and listen to our community engage and listen to developer that heard and listens to the community and really works to make sure that we identify what's important to us in alachua county and protecting our environment and really making sure it stays a beautiful place and i you know i was so thankful as i sat back there and i love your questions i love the depth that we have in our community and i love that we have different iterations to continue to follow through and make sure everything is um moving in the way we would like what i really wanted to make sure i shared that you know sometimes we forget that the growth that we're having in our state and this growth is tremendous and it's really impacting north central florida and that's why it's really important that we have our urban boundaries and we have those areas and we identify but we make sure we protect our community just to share some numbers from a chamber standpoint when we look at economic development we know in the next five years the state is predicting we're currently at 200 and just under 292 000 residents in alachua county right now they're predicting a minimum of 317 so that's in the next five years a 25 000 increase on the maximum end they're talking about 348 and so we're talking about an increase of like 56 000 in the next five years the reason i get excited about ramon and all the stuff public works is doing and development because these people are coming and just like when the young ladies mentioned her family moved up from naples ever since hurricane year we've been seeing a lot of people move up from southwest florida where historically was only southeast we have both and so i say this because many of these people are coming with the means to purchase our homes and the ones we have and they can outbid our local residents but the reason it's so important that we look at these projects and we do them correctly is to take care of our residents that are here to make sure they have a place also so i just want to thank you for all the work all the listening and continue to be diligent i'm very thankful for the developer because i think this is setting a new standard that we can work with within our community and i really appreciate the comments from the residents there and one of the things i'm really excited about is that we're going to have gru you know uh sewer there because we're looking at our state dealing with a lot of our waterways having challenges with old septic i mean this is throughout the state and we want to protect our community so anything that can open up those avenues to get areas that didn't have it before on it only helps and protects our community and so on behalf of the chamber i just want to thank you for the work you're doing and continue to go down this road and thanks for all engagement okay thank you let me jump in real quick my name is tanya becker um i spoke at the last meeting on this topic i am affiliated with alachua audubon society so some of my um comments represent their opinions as well you know we have a lot of concern about development in that area and the wildlife particularly the birds that that make it their home and i'm just so pleased and so grateful to everyone who has worked to get the dark sky stuff implemented that was my comment at the last meeting was that these creatures all of them need darkness and i think this is a wonderful wonderful thing for gainesville and alachua county to be doing and i think it will be a an example to other places um and then the other thing that i've commented on last time is that i manage the cma for my neighborhood willow oak plantation and um you know i have a lot of reservations about these things um ours has been incredibly underfunded and mismanaged for many years and there's little oversight from the county and i got thrust into it as a you know as a tree hugging bird lover by the president of our board and i've had to do a lot of learning on the fly i've had a lot of help from kelly um you know and other resources around town and i'm working on getting certified as a land manager um what homeowners are really going to be willing or able to do that right like like i'm unusual and that i have the time i have the motivation and the passion um but if i move no one in my neighborhood cares if we're in compliance no one from alachua county is checking up on us because the lady who oversaw our account or whatever you want to call it she moved and the new lady i haven't heard from her in a year i don't even know her name um so so i think that it's really important all the things that have been said about making sure that the cma for this property is set up you know very intentionally that there's oversight whether act or someone else manages it like a separate entity or if there's just someone checking in routinely and making sure that whatever the goals for this property are that they're actually being continually worked toward and achieved anyway thank you for your time further citizen comments going once going twice go on back to the board uh those have got a message mr chair i'm sorry thank you very much for giving me a second um one thing that i wanted to clarify in your motion um about restricting access to lake shore drive was the potential for either emergency access or bicycle pedestrian access or both um so i don't i wasn't sure if that was clear if we can get clarification on that it'll help us draft a little bit better yes i believe the neighborhood was open to both pedestrian and bicycle access and uh like uh you know one of those like locked gated access for emergency vehicles should it be needed okay thank you mr chairman okay thank you okay back to the board we have a motion and a second uh those in favor of the motion vote by the sign of aye aye aye those opposed same sign motion carries madam clerk next item this will bring us to quasi quasi judicial public hearing yes yeah um i just want to make one comment to my colleagues this is the kind of developer and community engagement that the legacy project the 13 acres that we own deserves and i hope we get um some engagement like this so i just wanted to say that guys if i can say anything i just to the to the audubon society and to all of you i think we're in the we're just starting our comp plan um ear where we're like reviewing comp plan policies and um and your comments at the last meeting regarding night sky requirements and some of the comments that were made about this development really gave me a lot of food for thought as i've been reading that um our comp plan and um we actually asked our staff to review the night sky compliance and make sure that we're as up to date as we can be across the board for all developments in the future so good things happen from these conversations and the collaboration and the and the relationships that we're building thank you and if i can add something too i think a lot of the concessions that this developer has made also can potentially be money saving and i think that you know by not always doing things the way we've always done them and setting that example for other developers we can you we can make housing more available and we can make it more environmentally and sustainable and sustainably um consistent and i i think that yeah and and i think that that is um you know just a great lesson to give to our community and i i also think that this this whole process of engaging with the community is um just stellar and so thank you thank you so much both sides but for for the residents for working with the developer and for the developer for working with the residents it takes everybody playing together in the sandbox well for it to work and i really appreciate that a lot okay i just want to say we keep asking our developers to show us something we've never seen before it would be really nice to see this one be that thank you mr chair okay all right uh chair has any member of the commission received any communication regarding the item on the agenda tonight i have yeah yeah so i had a i had a meeting with john moran i think it was paul pritchett steve boyce and dan smith uh we talked about um night sky we talked about the conservation management area we talked about um this list that we went through and i believe they had a similar meeting with the other commissioners yeah i had the same meeting same meeting ditto ditto ditto same meeting i also had a meeting with the developers um where we spoke about um the design guide for native plants the outside collaborative developed and opportunities for um low impact development and also talked about workforce opportunities for training folks in our own community to do building and trades i also had a conversation with the developer about florida water star i just had a meeting with the alliance group the gang we do have uh members of the public who have requested party status i'll go ahead and read our little statement okay anyone wishing to testify or present evidence during this hearing will be sworn in prior to speaking through the chair all speakers may ask questions seek clarification and respond to comments or presentations of staff or other speakers anyone presenting written materials to the commission for consideration must ensure that a copy of such materials is provided to the clerk for inclusion in the board's official record of the proceedings florida law requires that the county commission's decision in a quasi-judicial action be supported by competent substantial evidence presented during this hearing competent substantial evidence means that the board's decision is based on enough credible evidence that a reasonable person could agree persons presenting opinion or factual testimony may rely on any factual information in the record to support their testimony opinion testimony may be given by people qualified to give such an opinion the appropriate time the clerk or chair will ask for persons other than staff and the applicant who wish to participate as parties to identify themselves and explain to the board why they believe that they are parties parties are people who would be more directly or more substantially impacted by the board's decision today than the public at large if the board grants you party status you will be permitted a reasonable opportunity to present testimony and evidence and to ask questions otherwise you'll be permitted to testify as a member of the public and matey has a list of individuals who have requested party status i believe uh dating back to the previous hearing yeah mr chair so we have a running list of party requests you can see this slide shows the ones that are closest to the site and we also have the uh other ones that are further up lakeshore drive and then there were a couple others that um we received from our public comment website um number four barclay apparel is down here on the other side of pains prairie and then less roach we don't know where that individual's address is so as far as our staff recommendation this is what we have those individuals shown here that we're also on the first slide i would move the list one through eight the staff recommends as parties second we got a motion in a second any further discussion to the motion that's on the floor those in favor of the motion by the sign of i suppose same sign motion carries thank you mr mr chair just uh interject real quick uh if anybody is here who did not request party status they may do so right now however they do need to explain how they qualify as a party and why they are late as far as requesting party status are there anyone seeing none i turn it over to the clerk it's time anyone wishes to address this item if you would please stand and raise your right hand yes thank you commissioners uh mady bangatar again with alachua county growth management department this is the rezoning that uh follows the large-scale comp plan amendment z25 0004 again uh this is the same site as we've mentioned in the large-scale comp plan amendment and it uh is for that uh in anticipation of the future single-family residential development existing zoning consists of agricultural uh r1a which is a single family residential zoning and then brbh and mb those are commercial zoning the intent is that this rezoning would yield r1a re1 and c1 or r1a is a single family residential as is re1 and c1 is the conservation zoning and we are familiar with the location here as you see southeast hawthorne road and lake shore drive the aerial image shows the same site as was shown for the complement amendment these are just a series of labels showing you again where it is some photos that i've shown for the complement amendment uh so now that the comprehensive plan amendment's been uh amended as shown on this slide there needs to be rezoning to find consistent zoning districts with the new land use designation this is showing the existing zoning and this uh rezoning would yield the following conservation in the northern portion re1 in the central portion and r1a in the southern southern portion again the zoning as proposed here would correspond with 149 unit limit that was part of the comprehensive plan amendment so the existing zoning map uh would allow what is shown on the upper left table 119 units and again the existing zoning if we assume 10 000 square feet an acre would be 124 000. now the proposed zoning map as i mentioned it corresponds with a limit of 149 and you can see the breakdown there of the different zoning districts and relative acreage so this results in a net increase of 30 units and a net reduction of 124 000 square feet of uh non-residential our bases for approval are shown on this slide the first of which is that it will provide consistent implementation of the newly uh amended land uses it meets the standards of that are uh shown in section 40277 of the unified land development code for rezoning applications as well as policy 712 of the future land use element for rezoning the environmental resource assessment that was submitted with this zoning application was determined by our staff to be consistent with protection of natural resources and it does remedy inconsistent land use and zoning that exist on parcels 16185000000 and 16194000000 those are the parcels that are currently zoned agriculture our recommendation as staff is that the county commission approved z250000004 with those bases that we have in our staff report um if you uh would like we had we still have these uh slides from environmental protection um if you need to go over any of them uh otherwise that is our staff presentation and we can take any questions okay are there any questions no we don't have staff recommendation second got a staff recommendation do we want to hear from the applicant make sure we go through it yeah the other parties too yeah i was going to give the applicant and then the parties if i'm following it correctly yes yes so and then citizens so yes mr chair uh clay swagger um i will give you a presentation if you like otherwise i'd like just all the records um in the file all the applications staff reports um to serve as the basis of approval and so the zoning map has been designed specifically to match exactly the number of units um that the land use approval just granted which is 149 along with that conservation area so if you have any questions um i'll be here thank you thank you now we have the parties mr chair i did just want to let you know that i just had a conversation with dan smith um who would be number one number two on this list um and has indicated he would not um speak any additional uh for the zoning item tonight okay i believe he might also be number eight one two and eight and number four greg de long five paul pritchard okay thank you sir miss holder good evening you can you can put it up i guess okay um this is a summary iteration of stuff we've i've exposed before but this is a quasi-digital hearing i've held a few of my own i know what they're like and i want to get it on the record in eastern elachua county we keep our water close to the land surface our water table and our superficial aquifer are more are confined from the underlying floridan aquifer we keep our water close to us we have lakes we have large lakes okay figure one provides a topographic map indicating the area and the area where the uh proposed project's going we have sand hills good habitats for gopher tortoises they're highly conductive sands the soil survey doesn't do it justice we don't see runoff from the hills you see runoff from the creeks the creeks are a base flow discharge okay the proposed development contains the sand hills it effectively captures recharge exceeding areas of like three inches or more rainfall events we just don't see runoff running off runs off the concrete once it hits the sand a little area of impact and it's all in the ground um then that superficial aquifer is charged um my next figure let's just scroll down okay there's a cross section which i've adjusted uh looking at uh some information i've gained from the creeks in the area um we have the sand hill we show um it full of water and transmitting the water it transmit the water relatively slowly but it's what supports the surrounding wetlands uh it's a large area of wetlands that are being supported by this by this event this is what keeps it when it's the dry season and everything else it certainly is important with regards to strong water design that we try and keep this natural system in existence the problem is that's where they want to develop that works but you have to take into considerations we've already set with them experience from hurricane irma uh we had a flood and if we don't handle storm water runoff adequately it's it creates a problem in this area but it's because we keep our water close to us the loss of rainfall recharge to this official aquifer the loss of water storage in a highly conductive sands that compose the official aquifer and the loss of slow natural discharge from these stored waters from the superficial aquifers water table will harm the slow sustained release of water to the wetlands and adversely impact the slow release of water to the wetlands and increase flood flashiness the recommendation is to use innovative storm water drainage and you've heard those we recommended uh curbless streets natural swales semi-permeable stormwater pipes and more permeable driveways and sidewalks i guess the purpose of the innovative design is to assure continued natural recharge of the superficial aquifer permeable sands providing aquifer storage and the slow natural discharge of groundwater from storage as base flow to this sustain the adjacent wetlands and the survival of the large wetlands okay and that's basically the recommendation i have one issue with regards to the staff review of uh of the impact there when you look at alachua county's map protection there are evidently a number of there are a number of different maps unfortunately the developers used this accurately shows the site is not in the green area it's in a brown area that's that's incorrect the source of that map is the inaccurate map for that area this is the original map it was put into the comp plan and on that map the development area is in the green area okay now the issue goes to basically review and the reviewer with the alachua county environmental protection department has placed it into a high aquifer recharge area to the florida aquifer that's wrong so i'd like a finding a fact that this is in an area the green area basically the area that's relatively confined in the in the alachua county area all right thank you appreciate mr voice's comments those were two different meant to demonstrate two different ones vulnerability that's associated with uh recharge not just recharge but also pollutant loading and one is related to confinement and the vulnerability of that system the high vulnerability that was checked on there was not done by staff that's by the applicant we didn't so that was that's not done by staff so he's right and that that must not be to not have been actually checked his information mark just to confirm for the record his information is correct okay thank you can just pass me a note saying it's really great that we have such smart people in our community and it makes this process so much better so thank you it's good to see them back to some of these folks i regularly feel completely dumb around all these people yeah it's really nice is kelly mcderson you have nothing to add okay santa fe land trust that was dan mr smith mytho all right now i'll move that recommendation i'm sorry that's it yeah got a motion in a second uh okay are there any citizens comments one twice back to the board those in favor of the motion vote by the sound of aye aye aye those opposed same side motion carries thank you all for coming tonight thank you are we adjourned if there aren't any any further business we are