County transmits Southeast Hawthorne Road plan amendment with 149‑unit cap and greenway

Alachua County commissioners voted to transmit a large‑scale comprehensive plan amendment for an 82‑acre parcel at Southeast Hawthorne Road and Lakeshore Drive to the Florida Department of Commerce after the applicant proffered a text change limiting the site to single‑family detached housing and a 149‑unit maximum and designating roughly 200 feet along the eastern edge as a greenway.

The amendment, filed as Z25000003, would convert existing combinations of low density residential, estate residential and commercial land uses to a mix of low density residential and conservation and is paired with a companion rezoning that the applicant said would further constrain units to 149 if eventually approved. County staff recommended transmission to state review; the Planning Commission previously recommended against transmittal in a 4‑3 vote.

County planning staff and the applicant said the change would allow removal of underused commercial parcels on Hawthorne Road to make a financially viable neighborhood while protecting wetlands and a strategic ecosystem on the site. "This project's about 81 acres," said Clay Swager of EDA Consultants, the applicant representative, during the applicant presentation. Swager also identified the proposal’s marketing name as "Eastwood Preserve." Alachua County Environmental Protection Department director Steve Hostetter described the county’s strategic ecosystem program and told the board that "strategic ecosystems are 47 areas that were designated by the county as the most critical, large green connected areas of the county worthy of protection that weren't already in protection."

Staff said the parcel is partly within the East Side Greenway strategic ecosystem and contains wetlands concentrated on its northern portion; county environmental staff reviewed the applicant’s environmental resource assessment and concurred that the proposed map amendment could be…