DRC approves 75-unit Live Oak Cottages; public question highlights absence of affordability commitments

Alachua County growth-management planner Jacob Salplanner presented the final development plan for Live Oak Cottages, a 75-unit cottage-neighborhood development proposed on about 9 acres at 2408 NW 143rd Street. Salplanner described the cottage-neighborhood standards the plan uses: individual detached homes organized around common greens, a maximum unit size of 1,400 square feet, parking and pedestrian access, and tree-canopy preservation. Staff said the final plan intends to preserve roughly 46% of the existing on-site tree canopy and provides 142 parking spaces compared with a code-calculated 112 spaces.

At public comment, commenter Cali Blount asked whether 7–21 of the units would be designated as affordable or workforce housing at 80% of area AMI. Salplanner responded that the plan itself does not identify mandatory affordable units and that the Unified Land Development Code does not currently require such units. He told the committee an affordable-housing or inclusionary-zoning ordinance was near consideration by the Board of County Commissioners but was not yet in effect; he added that the cottage product’s smaller unit sizes could make some units more affordable on a per-unit basis but that no affordability commitments were in the Live Oak application.

Following staff presentation and public comment, a committee member (speaker 4) moved to approve the final development plan with conditions; a second (speaker 7) followed and the committee approved the motion by voice vote.

Why it matters: The plan would add 75 for-sale or rental cottage units under cottage-neighborhood standards and has implications for tree preservation, parking and local housing supply; the exchange during public comment clarified that the DRC approval did not itself create affordable or workforce-unit requirements for the project.