The Alachua County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) approved a preliminary development plan for an 87-acre parcel by Fort Clarke Boulevard along Newberry Road.
The project, 8024 W. Newberry Road, started several years ago with planning and, following Tuesday’s unanimous vote, will proceed to a final development review before construction. Commissioners hope the development provides an aesthetic town center with a mix of commercial and residential.
“I was real impressed when I first saw this development when it was first presented,” Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler said. “I still am. Because we’re so weary of looking at ugly, uncreative, unimaginative developments. So, we’re really hoping that this is going to be an ace the way it was presented all along.”
Called Newberry Village, the development will be allowed to build a maximum of 639 residential units and 224,000 square feet of non-residential space. Atlanta-based Fuqua Development will develop the site and has done more than 40 traditional neighborhood development projects in the Southeast.
Tuesday’s meeting focused on tree preservation requirements and future bus lines that would run through the property.
The preliminary development shows 20% tree canopy preservation. Alachua County requires 5%. The property will also have 18% open space compared to the 10% requirement.
Gerry Dedenbach, vice president of CHW Professional Consultants, said conversations with RTS has shown an interest in running a bus line through the development. The exact route might change as the development finishes phase 1 and then phase 2.
Phase 1 only connects to Newberry Road and primarily consists of the commercial development closer to the road. Phase 2 would include more residential units further north. This phase would also include roadway connections to NW 15th Place and the Publix at Newberry Square.
A future bus line might swing around the Publix, down into this new development and then leave through NW 15th Place by Hidden Oak Elementary School.
The final development plan will have more details concerning building heights in the town center, whether residential units will be built on top of the commercial spaces and the number of units per building.
Commissioner Anna Prizzia asked the developer to consider the county’s incentives for affordable housing so everyone who has a reason to visit and work in the development could live there as well.
The city of Gainesville recently passed mandatory inclusionary zoning to provide affordable housing units.
Have you taken into consideration the amount of traffic it’s going to add! Ridiculous!!! Our roads are in awful shape as it is and I cannot even imagine what it’s going to be like with the additional traffic…
The only way to solve this problem is requiring the BOCC members to live in these developments. Until they have to eat their own dog food they won’t care about our quality of life.
Utterly ridiculous to add to more congestion at that choke point along Newberry Rd! That is one of THE worst half miles of intersections in all of Alachua County. Shame on you BOCC!! Shame!
As others have written, the traffic in that area is worse than New York City.
WHO GOT PAID OFF? Follow the money, there is no need for this development
No one in his right mind would approve more construction on Newberry Rd.
I totally agree with the two previous comments. Has ANYONE thought about the increase in traffic this development would represent? Newberry Rd., Archer Rd, and 39th Ave that are the only big roads running E-W are completely inefficient already!
I’m willing to bet this has something to do with the I-75 extension. These commissioners are not truthful about such projects they’ll let you know when it’s to late.
Absolutely not!!!! Traffic is a nightmare thru that area already!!!!
Every development project must deal with a wide range of competing and often contradictory interests. Unless the public wants to pony up the cash to purchase this parcel for public use, it WILL be developed. Yes it will cause traffic, but spreading those 600 units further west along 26 wouldn’t reduce trips, but rather make them longer. At the end of the day, there’s only two options – add road capacity or reduce trips. The BOCC is reducing trips via mass transit and a walkable town center (BTW building residential above commercial should be the default standard). Also, requiring internal connections to Ft Clarke Blvd and Newberry Square keeps traffic off of 26.
As far as increasing road capacity, the BOCC doesn’t have jurisdiction over STATE Road 26, much less the money to do it. NW 23rd Ave must be widened into a major artery. The State Comprehensive Planning process, passed by Democrats in the 80’s required new development to pay for adding infrastructure capacity (roads, schools, utilities). That has been gutted by Republicans wanting to be “business friendly”. We accumulated an infrastructure deficit while Florida currently sits on a surplus of billions, much of which came from Federal infrastructure appropriations. Yet Perry and Clemons were more interested in micromanaging city government and women’s bodies than infrastructure.