Approval Cuts Homes And Caps Commercial Space
ALACHUA – Walmart’s name hung over a marathon quasi-judicial hearing that ended early Tuesday morning with the Alachua City Commission voting 3-2 to approve a rezoning widely seen as paving the way for a speculated Walmart along U.S. Highway 441, even as the vote itself was about far more technical matters: how much commercial space and how many homes the long-contested Farmlands project will ultimately be allowed to build. The meeting began at noon, recessed briefly to allow for a budget hearing and then resumed and lasted until after midnight.
Commissioners approved Ordinance 26-10 on first reading. Vice Mayor Jennifer Ringersen, Commissioner Shirley Green Brown and Mayor Walter Welch voted yes. Commissioner Jacob Fletcher and Commissioner Jackson Youmas voted no. A second and final reading is scheduled for Aug. 24.
Walmart repeatedly invoked, never confirmed
Walmart’s name came up again and again over the course of the hearing, treated by many in the room as something close to an accepted fact even though no one representing the applicant ever confirmed it outright.
Interim City Attorney Scott Walker told the commission plainly, “It’s obvious that the application references a Walmart,” while cautioning commissioners that they cannot legally base their zoning decision on a specific projected tenant. At one point, when the subject came up during cross-examination by an affected party, Mayor Welch cut in to say the commission was “not talking about” Walmart, adding later that the Walmart identification had not been formally confirmed.
Testimony from the applicant’s own geotechnical witnesses added to the sense that the connection was widely understood, if never stated outright. A resume filed with the city and entered into the hearing record, belonging to an environmental scientist who has worked on related site testing in the area, lists as its first related project, verbatim, “Walmart Site assessments, Alachua County.”
Questioning of a separate engineering witness about the site’s soil boring reports, which label the development’s main building simply as “anchor tenant number one,” drew a similar non-answer: asked whether that anchor tenant was “the Walmart,” the witness would confirm only that the site plan “shows an anchor tenant.”
Numerous members of the public referenced Walmart by name throughout the hearing, including a Santa Fe High School student who spoke about traffic near her school, and residents who cited research on the so-called “Walmart effect” on local economies.
Opponents cite unresolved evidence
Much of the hearing centered on whether the applicant had provided enough evidence to justify approval. A representative of the Sierra Club’s Suwannee-St. Johns group, Sarah Younger, told commissioners the applicant had not met its burden on four fronts: wastewater capacity, stormwater management, contamination from a nearby decommissioned county landfill, and the scale of the commercial increase itself. She argued the wastewater projections relied on a generic estimate that would still consume more than half of the city’s remaining wastewater allocation, and that a city engineering review had flagged as little as 20 feet of separation between a proposed stormwater basin and the underlying limestone, in an area where similar separations elsewhere have produced sinkholes.
Other speakers pointed to the region’s ongoing water shortage, an EDB contamination plume tied to the old landfill, and an unresolved traffic failure on a segment of 441 near Interstate 75, which the applicant’s own traffic engineer testified would require more roadway improvements than have currently been identified or approved by the Florida Department of Transportation. Fletcher and Youmas cited many of these same concerns, particularly around karst geology and hydrogeological testing, in casting their no votes.
The applicant’s team, led by NV5 consultant Gerry Dedenbach, pushed back on those characterizations, saying the rezoning would lock in a smaller commercial and residential footprint than the property’s current zoning already allows, and that the project posed no threat to public health or safety once it moves through additional engineering review at the site plan stage.
Fewer homes, capped commercial space
Whoever the tenant turns out to be, what commissioners actually voted on was a restructuring of the property’s development limits. The roughly 182-acre property is currently split across three zoning designations, Community Commercial, Commercial Intensive, and an existing planned development known as the Northwest 188th Street PD, which alone permits up to 275 homes and 4,000 square feet of non-residential space. Combined, those existing designations allow considerably more development than what commissioners just approved.
Under the new zoning, the property is split into three development areas. Development Area A, roughly 48 acres along 441, is set aside for commercial use only, with no housing permitted and a hard cap of 450,000 square feet of non-residential floor area. Development Area B, about 81 acres, is reserved for single-family homes, capped at 203 units, with no commercial space allowed. Development Area C, about 53 acres of common area and open space, allows up to 4,000 square feet of limited amenity and recreational space.
City planner Carson Crockett told the commission the changes amount to a net loss of 483 housing units and 267,433 square feet of non-residential space compared to what the property’s existing zoning would allow. Crockett and the applicant’s team stated that made the project less intensive than what could be built on the land today, not more.
What’s planned for the commercial frontage
Along 441, the commercial area is laid out around a large anchor building bordered by eight smaller out-parcels, according to testimony and site materials presented during cross-examination of the applicant’s engineering witnesses. One of those out-parcels is planned for a gas station, which witnesses testified will include underground storage tanks. The remaining out-parcels are positioned to accommodate additional retail, dining and service uses along the highway frontage, in addition to the project’s main commercial building.
The vote and what’s next
In an unusual turn, Fletcher moved the motion to approve the ordinance himself, but only after adding several conditions to staff’s original recommendation, including added landscaping and pedestrian and bike connectivity requirements, a county-requested groundwater and landfill protection study, and additional geologic testing requirements. He then voted against the motion he had just made, citing unresolved concerns about karst geology and the city’s comprehensive plan. Youmas cited similar concerns about incomplete groundwater evidence in casting his no vote.
Ordinance 26-10 returns to the commission for a second and final reading on Aug. 24.
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