To
manage growth so it is compatible with the unique character of
Alachua
County
GOAL NUMBER 1:
For
Alachua
County
government to abide by the
vision, spirit and provisions of its Comprehensive Plan resulting in
less
sprawl, more sustainability, and livable communities for all its
residents.
GOAL NUMBER 2:
For
Alachua
County
government to support
Developments of Regional Impact only with complete and impartial
assurance that
such developments will enhance the health, safety and welfare of all
residents.
GOAL NUMBER 3:
For
the Alachua County Government to abide by its ordinance providing for
the
establishment and protection of Scenic Roads that preserve the few
remaining
examples of rapidly disappearing natural
Florida.
INTRODUCTION
We call upon the
Alachua County Commission
to vote “no” on the expanded SpringHills development by following the
guiding
vision for its own Comprehensive Plan, which states that the commission
will
“slow sprawl in the county’s rural areas and western
Gainesville while
encouraging higher density
infill.”
The
commission’s vision statement further advocates:
·
Sustainable
economic development
·
Strengthening
existing small businesses
·
Poverty
reduction and supporting east
Gainesville
redevelopment
·
Cooperating
with other governments in planning for growth
·
Protecting
sensitive environmental areas
·
Ensuring
clean air and water
·
Safe
transportation for pedestrians, bicyclists, cars and
others using our roadways
The commission
cannot follow our
Comprehensive Plan and support the expanded SpringHills development.
SpringHills
is the largest single development in the history of
Alachua
County.
The project of a
Philadelphia,
PA
developer, SpringHills is 600
acres of big-box stores, warehouses, hotels and tightly packed housing.
It
would fill the entire area between I-75 and
NW 39th Avenue and San Felasco
State
Preserve and have far reaching negative effects on our county.
A smaller proposal
from the developer was
approved by the commission in 1999. It had 1,971 dwellings, 495,000
square feet
of offices, 801,342 square feet of stores, 459,471 square feet of
warehouses
and industries and 748 hotel rooms.
With little notice
to residents, the
developer presents a new and grossly expanded proposal that clearly
violates
the comprehensive plan -- our best assurance that growth will be
managed. The
developer now wants to double its stores and pack in more dwellings.
Its new
total comes to 1.5 million square feet of mostly big box stores,
125,000 square
feet of offices, 460,000 square feet of warehouses and distribution
warehouses,
hotels with 625 rooms, and 2,238 dwellings.
To visualize the
breathtaking size of
SpringHills, imagine a development much larger than all of sprawling
Butler
Plaza
and bloated yet farther by tightly packed houses, warehouses,
apartments and
hotels. Estimates are that population will increase by 15,000 and tens
of
thousands of people daily will visit or work there.
POSITIONS
ABOUT THE EXPANDED SPRINGHILLS DEVELOPMENT
Degradation
of
Traffic Conditions throughout
Western
Alachua
County
To
realize its ambitions, the developer wants 39th Avenue to be six-laned
like
nearby I-75, a cut through road from NW 39th Avenue to Millhopper
Scenic Road,
and a bridge across the Interstate to the entrance of Meadowbrook.
The developer’s
plans were reviewed with
alarm by the North Central Florida Regional Planning Council, which
stated that
traffic congestion will have “significant adverse impacts on the
regional
transportation network.”
SpringHills will
cause intersections on
39th
Avenue to
become too overcrowded, and congestion
would spread at least as far as Jonesville to the
west and US 441, or
NW 13th
Street, to the east. Worse, traffic will congeal down
Fort Clarke Boulevard,
where it collides
with county approval of
Newberry
Village,
which would
flood 11,000 more cars each day onto already gridlocked
Newberry Road.
County
Prevented
from Building Future Road Projects
Roads costing $120
million are needed to
serve SpringHills. The developer is estimated to pay $50 million and
county
residents must, through increased taxes, pay $70 million.
Also, by consuming
a huge amount of county
roadways funds, Springhills will block commissioners from building
needed
transportation projects elsewhere in the county for years to come.
Small
Businesses Closing
SpringHills’
concentration of big box
stores will close many of the county’s small businesses and damage the
local
economy. Numerous studies confirm that local businesses, unlike their
big box counterparts,
spend more to pay local workers, recycle more of their profits into the
community, and support local cultural and volunteer organizations.
Studies show that
local businesses spend
three to five times more of their revenue in the community than do the
big
boxes, whose profits go out of town and often out of state.
SpringHills’ big
boxes also threaten large
centers like the Oaks Mall and
Butler
Plaza
by drawing away their
customers.
No
Help for
East Gainesville and Poverty
Reduction
Residents
of east
Gainesville
and
Alachua
County
at or below the poverty line will
not benefit from SpringHills, which is up to 20 miles away. Many
residents lack
transportation to remote SpringHills, and those that can get there are
likely
to be paid wages at or below the poverty line, which continues the
cycle of
poverty and further strains social services.
Loss
of
County
Tax
Revenue
The developer’s
claims that SpringHills will
provide more revenue to the county are highly unlikely to come true.
Such
claims have not been borne out by developments elsewhere in
Florida. Worse,
the financial burdens assumed
because of SpringHills would make it impossible for the county to
approve more
profitable developments in the future.
Also, the county
will have to spend scarce
funds to teach thousands of new students, provide new fire and rescue
service
to residents, and provide other services such as law enforcement.
Threat
to Our
Water Supply
There is a
geological fracture and sinkhole
under SpringHills that could dump pollution directly into the Floridan
aquifer,
the source of our drinking water. The developer has acknowledged
this
threat but has not addressed it.
Nor has the
developer provided an analysis
of storm water runoff. The homeowner’s association of Meadowbrook, a
subdivision
downhill from SpringHills which was swamped in 2004, asked for but did
not
receive answers from the developer to its questions about flooding.
The water
management district wants the
developer to implement water conservation, groundwater, and surface
water
monitoring and management plans. The developer has not complied.
Overcrowded
Schools
SpringHills will bring 2,000 more students
into
our overburdened schools. Schools now serving the area of Springhills
are
crowded. To serve the new students, the county would have to bus them
away,
possibly to east
Gainesville or
Alachua, rezone
families from their neighborhood schools, pack students into already
crowded
classrooms in violation of
Florida’s
class size law, or build 50 new classrooms at a cost of at least $22
million,
which the county cannot afford.
Ruin
of Scenic
Roads
In 1980, the
County
Commission
passed a law to provide for and preserve scenic roads. The county
stated that
it wanted to preserve for us and future generations the few remaining
examples
of natural
Florida.
The developer
wants an outlet road from
SpringHills to
Millhopper
Road,
one of five county scenic roads. SpringHills, with thousands of
residents and
tens of thousands of customers and employees, would spew huge amounts
of
traffic onto
Millhopper
Road,
ruining it forever and casting into doubt the future of other county
scenic
roads.
The
Developer
does not Provide Requested Information
Time and again the
developer, when asked or
required, has not provided information to support SpringHills in
respect to
traffic congestion, loss of county funds, detriments to small
businesses,
poverty reduction in east Gainesville and across the county, and
threats to the
environment and our drinking water.
To a large extent
the developer wants the
county to trust its promises for a grossly expanded SpringHills.
SOURCES
North Florida Regional
Planning Council Report on SpringHills
Memo
from PFM, Financial Advisor to the Alachua
County
Commission
Alachua
County Commission’s Guiding Vision for the Comprehensive Plan
Memo
from
North Florida Regional Planning
Council
Regarding Transportation for SpringHills
Report
on the Development of Regional Impact
Report
on Substantial Deviation from the Development of Regional Impact
Alachua
County
Commission
Special Meeting on the
Comprehensive Plan
Department
of Community Affairs Objections about SpringHills Provided to
County
Commissioner
Lee Pinkoson
Reports
From:
-
Alachua
County’s Department of Growth Management
-
Alachua
County’s Department of Fire/Rescue Services
-
Gainesville Fire Rescue Department
-
St. Johns River Water Management District
-
State of
Florida Department of Community
Affairs
-
Florida Department of Environmental
Protection
-
Water and Air consultants to the North
Central Florida Regional Planning Council
DEVELOPER’S
CHANGES TO OUR COMPREHENSIVE PLAN
Here are the
changes to
Alachua
County’s
Comprehensive Plan – our best assurance of properly managed growth –
desired by
the
Philadelphia,
PA developer of SpringHills.
1.Extending the northern boundary of the
SpringHills
Activity
Center;
2.Amending the Tourist/Entertainment land
use
to Commercial land use in the northeast, southeast and southwest
quadrants of
the
SpringHills
Activity
Center;
3.Increasing the commercial land use
acreage;
4.Reducing the office land use acreage;
5.Amending the land use from
Institutional/Single Family to Institutional/Medium-High Density
Residential in
the southwest quadrant of the
SpringHills
Activity
Center;
6.Amending the Capital Improvements
Element by
adding concurrency related road improvements to the FY 2001/2002 -
2005/2006
Concurrency Related Road Improvements table; (this will be further
amended to
be current with 2007)
7.Adding necessary roads into the Traffic
Circulation Map Series;
8.Text amendments to the Future Land Use
Element and the Transportation Mobility Element.
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT
TO ACT
Call
and make an appointment with an Alachua County Commissioner.
Call
264-6900 to oppose changes to our
Comprehensive Plan.
http://www.alachuacounty.us/government/bocc/
