The city of Alachua’s Planning and Zoning Board meeting on Jan. 13 holds the fate of development near Mill Creek Sink as the board will approve or deny a special exception permit for Tara stormwater infrastructure.  

The permit is for Tara April, one of five Tara developments planned for Alachua. Together, the projects would bring more than 1,000 homes and commercial components to areas surrounding Mill Creek Sink, a sinkhole which connects to an underground karst cave system and feeds into the Floridan aquifer.  

In Oct. 2024, Alachua County identified itself as an affected party of the Tara developments and set aside $1 million for potential legal action due to concerns over the environmental impacts of the projects. 

Find a full timeline of the Tara developments here.   

Next week’s meeting is the result of a continuance granted to applicant Tara Forest LLC. at a Nov. 18 hearing. The permit had also been removed from a planning and zoning board agenda in September 2024 without a future meeting scheduled. 

Applicants can be granted only one continuance, which means a final vote will happen at the upcoming meeting. 

If the special permit is denied, the applicant could abandon the project altogether or take legal action against the city. If approved, Tara will progress into the next stages of development.  

Dozens of emails voicing opinions about Tara are included in the backup documents for Tuesday’s meeting, with more opposing Tara than affirming it. 

During High Springs’ regular city commission meeting on Dec. 11, Commissioner Katherine Weitz, who attended the Nov. 18 meeting with High Springs City Manager Jeremy Marshall, raised concerns over conflicts in legal representation between Alachua and High Springs for the developments. 

Attorney Scott Walker, of Folds Walker LLC, serves as Alachua’s interim city attorney and Patrice Boyes, of Holtzman Vogel, serves as the city’s land use attorney.  

Walker’s firm also represents High Springs. The city applied in November 2025 to be an affected party for the Tara developments and asked to be looped into all future communication for the project moving forward.  

When Weitz questioned Walker’s potential conflict of interest by representing both Alachua and High Springs, Kiersten Ballou, of Folds Walker, said there wasn’t one because there was a continuance for the item.  

Ballou said Boyes would serve as counsel for the conflict moving forward, but Weitz said she still found representation at the Nov. 18 meeting disturbing. 

“Patrice Boyes was the one who made a phone call from the dais at that meeting to the attorney for the developer,” she said. “I’m sorry, it was just a very disturbing meeting for me. I realize it was continued, but she literally made a phone call in the middle of the meeting…I feel like there is profound conflict here, and I would have liked to have come first with Folds Walker.” 

Editor’s note: This story was underwritten by a grant from the Rural Reporting Initiative at the Community Foundation of North Central Florida. To learn more or get involved, click here.