Sam Cornell grew up in a small neighborhood off of Southwest 24th Avenue in Gainesville, adjacent to a roughly 990-acre rural property. There, he said, he relished playing outdoors as a kid, enjoying the lack of chaos and traffic in the area.
But after Alachua County approved a Roberts Companies plan for Everlee Farms, a farmstead community intended to house around 2,700 families, Cornell said his same childhood experience may not be possible for future generations.
“When you take away trees, you’re not just taking away trees,” he said. “You take away a fort. You’re taking away, you know, a map and a place to hide and think and go outside and imagine.”
Originally pitched in January, the Everlee Farms proposal overcame its first major legislative hurdle on Aug. 25, when the Alachua County Commission unanimously approved its comprehensive plan, sending it to the state for review.
The 2,600-acre property will have a reserved 996 acres for 2,750 residential units, 250 of which will be affordable housing. The remaining land is controlled by the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, whose plan for a 36-hole golf course the commission approved in April.
At its center, Everlee Farms will include a 20-acre farm managed by community members, a plan Cornell said is being used to conceal the construction’s main focus from locals.
“To me, that’s a trojan horse,” he said.
A lot of the construction rhetoric, Cornell said, referred to flowing green spaces interweaving between houses on the development. But while the idea made Everlee Farms sound like a “cozy cottage,” to him the true density of the construction doesn’t allow for the image he feels is being sold.
On average, the community will pack roughly 2.76 units per acre, based on the provided unit and land total figures. The current Future Land Use designation only allows roughly 0.28 units per acre.
“The farm is the headline, and the housing community is actually the story. And they’re flipping it,” Cornell said.
Stephen Hofstetter, the director of the Alachua County environmental protection department, said in addition to protecting special habitats, the county is placing limits on the amount of land that may be cleared throughout the development process. Buffer zones between conservation areas and the construction will also be outlined to minimize impacts.
The whole project, Hofstetter estimated, will have roughly 260 acres of conservation land, meaning around 26% of the site would be set aside for safeguarding.
Another 100 to 200 acres will have limited impact allowances, and to offset the higher density units in the residential area, his department is planning a program requiring the acquisition of 5,000 acres of conservation land in compensation for the project.
“We’re hoping to protect other [agricultural] and conservation lands in this process,” Hofstetter said.
On the farm, Hofstetter added the use of wells for irrigation will be prohibited, thus limiting the impact on local aquifers. Instead, irrigation systems will need to use reclaimed water while abiding by water use limitations. They will be required to use smart irrigation technology to avoid watering when inappropriate, such as when it rains.
But what Cornell labeled as misleading messaging isn’t his only qualm with the farmstead community — he’s also concerned about the lack of infrastructure in the area surrounding the site. The fire stations, schools and roads around Everlee Farms need to be developed to better accommodate an influx of residents, he said.
“In my opinion, in Alachua County, you have to slow down and you have to think about what you’re doing,” he said.
Brandon Contreras echoed his road-based concerns, saying he does not believe Alachua County can handle more traffic, especially for more than 2,600 homes.
“I'm a young professional in [Gainesville], could be a potential home buyer in the next five years,” he said. “But, you know, if it comes out to a point where the traffic is just unbearable going that way, that's a huge detractor.”
The traffic on Archer and Parker Roads, the two main roads bordering the Everlee Farms construction, is already bad, and the idea that any additional traffic will be retained within the area instead of spreading to central Gainesville is moot, Contreras said.
He added that the commission’s approval of the plan showed him that if something is marketed in the right way, anything may be approved.
“It was shocking to see how on board the commission was with this,” he said.
Now, Contreras wants to see the county do its due diligence in laying out plans to manage the existing and potential traffic problems.
Chris Dawson, the principal planner for development services in the Alachua County growth management department, said the Roberts Companies submitted a transportation analysis “appropriate for the stage of development” the county is currently at. Though it did show impacts on road networks, Dawson said the county will conduct additional studies to mitigate effects.
“The county is kind of going over and above what might happen on other properties in the county,” he said.
Regarding environmental concerns, Dawson said ecologically significant portions of the land will be set aside for protection. Additional proposed policies will also require significant geologic testing to ensure there is no damage to subsurface drainage systems on site.
More studies will be conducted after adoption of the comprehensive plan, Dawson said. Before that happens, the plan has to go through a series of other approval processes and an additional adoption decision.
“I can't imagine that there would be any construction for at least two years and maybe longer,” he said
Lindsay Haga, a consultant for the Roberts Companies, said in an email the Everlee Farms plan began with environmental preservation as its cornerstone, and within, the project protects “significant open space” and incorporates the surrounding environment as fundamental parts of the community.
“The goal is to create a place that becomes an important part of Alachua County for generations,” she wrote.
Now, Cornell said it is time for residents to put pressure and push for changes to the infrastructure, because if five Democrats voted for it, he believes five Republicans at the state level will, too.
“So if this is happening,” he said. “What can we do to keep them accountable?”