Alachua County approves limited wetland impacts at Hawthorne Industrial Park with off‑site protection

Alachua County commissioners voted unanimously to authorize limited wetland impacts at the Weyerhaeuser Hawthorne Industrial Park while requiring a large off‑site mitigation area be permanently protected before any work begins.

The decision, made after a daylong quasi‑judicial hearing, modifies staff’s original recommendation to limit impacts to 15 acres and instead authorizes up to 44 acres of wetland and surface‑water impacts within the project boundary but outside a 39‑acre delineated Wildlife Corridor Conservation Area. The board specified that only the east–west rail spur and an access roadway may impact the wildlife corridor without returning to the Board of County Commissioners for additional approval. The motion passed unanimously.

Why the board acted

County Environmental Protection Department (EPD) planner Mark Brown told commissioners the applicant’s conceptual plans — permitted in part by the Army Corps and the Water Management District — showed roughly 83 acres of direct wetland impacts and roughly 87 acres of buffer impacts. Brown said staff’s evaluation found the application did not meet all criteria in the countywide Wetland Protection Code and that a strict reading of the code would support a 15‑acre limit, but staff had worked with the applicant on an Avoidance, Minimization and Mitigation (AMM) approach.

“Staff does not agree with … the 83 acres of wetland surface water impacts and 87 acres of buffer impacts,” Brown said, but nonetheless recommended a limited approval with conditions and tracking…