Editor’s note: This story will be updated with additional information. 

Approval of a special exception permit for Alachua’s Tara April development stalled again as the city’s Planning and Zoning Board voted to cut Tuesday’s marathon meeting at midnight and continue at 6 p.m. on Jan. 20. 

Residents, environmental professionals, government officials and divers from across Alachua County and the state packed Alachua’s commission chambers beyond capacity for the six-hour quasi-judicial hearing.  

Tara April is one of five Tara projects planned by developer Sayed Moukhtara, who also attempted to develop near West End Golf Course.  

The Tara developments would bring over 1,000 homes and commercial components near Mill Creek Sink, a sinkhole which connects to an underground karst cave system and feeds into the Floridan aquifer and wells. 

According to the Alachua County Environmental Protection Department, the area has the highest concentration of freshwater springs in the world and brings in millions of dollars from recreation. 

Tara April is slated for 58 acres, with six and a quarter set aside for stormwater infrastructure needed to support Alachua’s Tara developments. The infrastructure calls for two stormwater basins in the special exception permit and a third, larger basin for I-75 runoff in the infrastructure plan. 

Many staff who were with the city when Tara applications started coming to Alachua have since resigned or been fired, including 75% of planning staff, the city manager, the city attorney and the land use attorney. One former planner cited outside influence from a former city manager on the Tara projects as part of his decision to resign. 

Patrice Boyes served as the city’s land use attorney during Tuesday’s hearing. Boyes is a former member of the Florida-based firm Stearns Weaver Miller, whose attorneys Vinette Godelia and Susan Stephens represented Moukhtara at the hearing. 

The Planning and Zoning Board entertained presentations and testimonies from representatives for the city, the applicant and parties that could be impacted by the proposed development as evidence for or against the permit. 

Effected parties included the National Speleological Society, which is a cave and karst research non-profit that owns Mill Creek Sink land, Santa Fe Hills resident Soorya Lindberg, the city of High Springs and Alachua County, which set aside $1 million for potential legal action due to concerns over Tara’s environmental impacts. 

Parties also read a November email into the record from the Florida Department of Transportation to the county, saying it did not need the stormwater infrastructure as Tara April proposed. 

“The department prefers that the stormwater from the I-75 basin continue to free flow in the way that it does today without any restrictions,” the email read. “The Department is in no need of water quality treatment since the I-75 basin has its own stormwater treatment system that was permitted by SRWMD (Suwannee River Water Management District). Additionally, the proposed plan will be cutting off the base flow to the wetlands to the east.” 

City planning staff recommended approving the Tara April special exception permit, which carried 11 new conditions that the applicant would need to incorporate.

The conditions included over a mile of recreational trails, eliminating commercial components, like tire sales and carpet cleaning, that could produce hazardous waste and geological testing following application approval. The applicant would pay for the testing, which would take three to six months. 

However, all four board members said they weren’t comfortable voting without results from geophysical and geotechnical testing of the entire Tara development area—not just Tara April—as recommended by Apex Companies hydrologist Michael Alfieri, whom the city hired as an outside consultant for the project. 

The applicant offered to hire its own consultant to perform the recommended testing before the board made a decision. But board member Danielle Judd said she still didn’t want to vote without the infrastructure plans for the basins because she said she’d be approving a use without knowing what the end answer is. 

“I can’t vote to move forward with the special exception without having the complete picture,” Judd said. “So for me, if I had to do a motion tonight, it would be deny, and that would be the end of it.” 

The board agreed to extend the meeting past its usual 11 p.m. cutoff but stopped at midnight to avoid adjudicating without an official court reporter.  

The Tara April hearing will continue Jan. 20, first with public comment, then rebuttals from affected parties and concluding statements, before the Planning and Zoning Board votes on how to proceed with the permit. 

If denied, the applicant could abandon the project altogether or take legal action against the city. If approved, the applicant would submit infrastructure plans for the stormwater basins, which the Alachua City Commission would review for approval. 

The inconclusive meeting is the permit’s third delay after staff pulled the item from an agenda in September 2024 without a future meeting date, and the Planning and Zoning Board granted a continuance in November 2025. 

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.