Newberry workshops comprehensive plan updates

Gerry Dedenbach (left) and Stacey Hectus presented the strategic plan progress to the commission and P&Z board. Photo by Glory Reitz
Gerry Dedenbach (left) and Stacey Hectus presented the strategic plan progress to the commission and P&Z board.
Photo by Glory Reitz

The city of Newberry’s City Commission and Planning and Zoning Board heard an update on the city’s comprehensive plan changes at a joint workshop on Tuesday. Commissioners and board members provided some feedback to staff and contractors, but also plan to meet one-on-one to offer suggestions. 

The comprehensive plan, which is the city’s guiding document to outline its vision for the future, came before the Planning and Zoning Board last year for initial feedback on an update, and staff is set to bring it back in a month with strikethroughs and underlines showing recommended changes. 

Gerry Dedenbach, principal planner at CHW Professional Consultants, a consultant on the project, said CHW will work on the first three elements of the comprehensive plan: land use, transportation and housing. 

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City staff will work on the elements of recreation and open space, conservation, intergovernmental coordination and economic development. Staff also reviewed the four other elements of the comprehensive plan, capital improvements, public school facilities, property rights and water/wastewater, but found no need for legislative changes so left them as they are, according to Stacey Hectus, Newberry’s new director of community development. 

Dedenbach said one of the main issues with the comprehensive plan is that it has come to include many specifications that should be in the land development code. The comprehensive plan, he said, should not include specifics such as setbacks, building heights and performance criteria, but rather should only ask if a development is residential and how dense it is. 

However, a comprehensive plan can set forth a vision for what Newberry wants its growth to look like, in broader strokes. Dedenbach and Hectus asked for commissioners and board members to be thinking of what towns look good to them and give them as examples while the plan is still under revision. 

City Manager Mike New said many development applications start as un-approvable.
Photo by Glory Reitz City Manager Mike New said many development applications start as un-approvable.

CHW also held two community input sessions, receiving 152 comments. 

In the future land use category, Dedenbach said the main themes of citizen comments were preservation of rural character, raising development standards, preserving trees and open spaces, requiring neighborhood meetings before large developments, transition density, reduced urban services area, pace of development, avoiding sinkholes and mining, leveraging the one-way pairs project, welcoming new businesses and jobs, repurposing buildings and adding more commercial development. 

Dedenbach said Newberry has a well-balanced downtown of non-agricultural uses, on top of a wide swath of agricultural land. 

CHW’s proposed goals for the future land use element are as follows: 

  1. Promote the city’s community character 
  1. Support a strong, diverse local economy 
  1. Establish and deploy land use categories 
  1. Establish unique planning districts 
  1. Reinforce the urban services area to focus growth 
  1. Encourage development/redevelopment downtown 
  1. Promote the preservation of historic and natural resources 
  1. Ensure annexations comply with state requirements 

Comments in the transportation element noted poor quality county roads, heavy traffic in peak hours, needing enough infrastructure to handle growth, speeding in residential areas, improved downtown sidewalks, shuttle service, downtown parking and leveraging the one-way pairs. 

“They want quality of life elements,” Dedenbach said of citizens who provided input. “And your community is very vocal about, ‘we want this to be a great, special place.’” 

For the transportation element, CHW highlighted the following changes: 

  1. Broadened scope to include all transportation types 
  1. Reduce dependence on major roads by using cross-access, alternate modes and new roads 
  1. Establish streetscape design guidelines that enhance the downtown’s sense of place 
  1. Conduct a walkability audit to improve pedestrian safety and experiences 
  1. Coordinate roadway improvements with the county’s plans 
  1. Leverage the State Road 26 realignment for potential development/redevelopment and infrastructure opportunities 

Housing comments from the community centered around Newberry having too much residential development and needing higher quality residential. 

Dedenbach said Newberry has averaged 62 residential permits per year over the last decade, with 2020 setting the record with 105 permits. Though the town is outpacing Alachua and High Springs in growth, he said it is not an unmanageable rate, coming to an average of one person per day. 

Newberry’s average home value is also comparable to, and a little higher than, High Springs and Alachua, well above Gainesville. Dedenbach noted that the new growth is paying for itself, but also said Newberry needs to diversify its housing types. 

CHW’s housing element highlights include the following: 

  1. Ensure a variety of housing types are permitted throughout the city 
  1. Reduce barriers to address the affordable/workforce housing needs 
  1. Partner with organizations to preserve and increase the availability of affordable/workforce housing 
  1. Support naturally-occurring affordable housing (such as a converted garage) 
  1. Create a housing plan to identify needs and prepare strategies 

Mayor Jordan Marlowe said Newberry’s commission and P&Z board are very responsive to citizen input, but noted that once the comprehensive plan is finalized, it dictates strongly what developments will be allowed to continue, and if a developer fits with the plan the commission must approve it. 

“When I say, ‘speak now or forever hold your peace,’ that’s real,” Marlowe said. “Because we get into these [quasi-judicial hearings] all the time, and residents stand up and say, ‘I don’t want you to say yes to this. I want you to say no.’ Well, if it’s in the comp plan, it’s in the LDR, and there’s no expert giving us any evidence, we really don’t have a leg to stand on.” 

A few commissioners and board members said they wanted to specify green space requirements, ensure road capacity, historic area aesthetics and downtown activities for children, but planned to follow up with Dedenbach and Hectus individually once they had thought about it more. One public commenter also spoke to ask for the city to maintain high standards for new development. 

“It’s uncommon to have the level of public participation that we have as consistently as we have in Newberry, and I think that we ultimately get a better product,” city manager Mike New said at the meeting. “It’s just while you’re in the middle of it, it doesn’t feel perfect.” 

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