Information for President Young's Focus Group
from the Natural Area Advisory Committee (2 May 2003)


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The Focus Group
The Road
Academic Impact


The Focus Group
Summary
On 31 Jan 2003, without input from any of the UF committees that normally advise on land-use changes, the University Administration announced its decision to give land for a four-lane extension of SW 24th Avenue through the Natural Area Teaching Laboratory [NATL]. Since then, there has been no forum for open discussion of the costs and benefits of that decision. A Focus Group, which will meet for the first time on 6 May, is the Administration's first initiative to get input on its decision. However, it asked the Focus group to take the road as a given and to consider only the academic impacts of donating the right-of-way. The Administration has yet to announce a time certain for any open consideration of the the benefits it claims for the road nor of the costs other than the academic ones.

Details
On 31 Jan 2003, V-P Poppell told a special meeting of the Alachua County Commission that the University had a "new vision of SW 24th Ave." This vision differed from what was in the MTPO's 20-year transportation plan (which the University had previously supported) in two important ways: SW 24th Avenue would be four-lanes rather than two and the University would facilitate the construction of the eastern extension to Archer Road by providing right-of-way through its Natural Area Teaching Laboratory. Poppell reiterated this vision at the 20 Feb 2003 meeting of the MTPO, and the 20-year plan was amended to agree with it (by the minimum 3 votes each from Alachua County and Gainesville commissions). At the 25 Mar 2003 meeting of the County Commission, a letter from President Young was read in which he stated that the University "will recommend through its Master Plan amendment process that sufficient right-of-way be given to the City of Gainesville/County of Alachua to provide the necessary land to connect SW 24th Avenue to Archer Road." Thereupon, the County Commission voted 3 to 2 to abandon the $500,000 it had spent for 90% completion of the construction documents for a two-lane SW 24th Avenue in favor of beginning the planning for a four-lane SW 24th Avenue.

This degree of commitment to donating campus land for the extension of 24th Avenue, with its effect on MPTO and County Commission decisions, was achieved without consulting any of the committees that the Administration maintains to advise on land-use changes. Concern over this failure to follow normal procedures prompted a member of the Land Use and Facilities Planning Committee to have SW 24th Avenue added to that committee's 1 April agenda. It was at that meeting that the Administration first announced that it had begun to seek input on its decision on donating campus land for SW 24th by appointing a focus group which would consider the academic impact of the road.

By virtue of a Faculty Senate vote at its March meeting, SW 24th Avenue was also on the April agendas of the Transportion and Parking Committee, and the Lakes, Vegetation and Landscaping Committee. At both of these meetings a representative of the Administration used the appointment of the Focus Group as evidence that it was seeking input relative to its proposed donation of campus land for road right-of-way.

In his 26 March appointment letter, President Young asked members of the Focus Group to consider the impact of the proposed road extension on academic programs and suggest ways in which the impact could be mitigated or the programs transferred to other locations. The Focus Group is thus expected to advise how to mitigate the academic costs of the right-of-way donation prior to any open discussion of other costs (e.g., conservation) or of benefits. Indeed the Administration has yet to set a date by which it will ask for any other input relative to its decision to donate campus land for a four-lane extension of SW 24th Avenue. Nor has it set an upper limit on the amount of land that it may propose to donate.

The Road
Summary
Traffic planners do not recommend a four-lane extension of SW 24th Avenue. Its current importance derives from its role in a plan to double the commercial development in the area between Archer Road and SW 24th Avenue west of SW 34th Street.

Details
The impact on UF's academic programs that the Focus Group has been appointed to consider results from the Administration's intent to facilitate a four-lane extension of SW 24th Avenue by donating the right-of-way such a road will require. Thus the road is the key to whether there needs to be any donation and thus any impact. Strangely, no traffic study has concluded that such an extension will relieve traffic congestion at SW 34th Street and Archer Road or on SW 20th Avenue. In fact, the new signaled intersections that the road would require on SW 34th Street and on Archer Road may well slow the flow of traffic rather than speed it.

More importantly, the genesis of the four-lane extension is clearly a result of Butler Enterprise's desire for greatly expanded commercial development in the area between SW 24th Avenue and Archer Road west of SW 34th Street (see map below and read the details in a web page prepared for the Transportation and Parking Committee). Commercial development on the scale proposed will bring much new traffic to roads that are already congested.

Map used to explain the proposed four-lane extension of SW 24th Avenue at the special County Commission meeting of 31 Jan 2003 (enlarged map, minutes, Poppell's notes).


The web page prepared for the Transportation and Parking Committee lists and documents eleven "information items." Each item can easily be verified. Although the items have been well publicized, no one has questioned any of them.

These two conclusions are warranted by the items:

The University is promoting a change in the 20th Avenue Charrette and the MTPO's long range transportation plan that is not based on sound evidence and is counter to the recommendations of professional transportation planners.
[See information items 2, 3, 7, and 8.]

This change was initiated by Butler Enterprises in connection with a proposed commercial development that will more than double the retail space in the Butler Plaza area.
[See information items 5, 6, and 11.]

The academic impact
Summary
The Administration has yet to define how much and what NATL land it proposes to donate. Until this is done, the total impact on NATL cannot be judged. However, even the minimal amount that might be donated will severely degrade NATL's academic usefulness.

Details
Area to be donated not specified
The proposed four-lane extension of SW 24th Avenue through NATL will require a right-of-way of some specific width, it will turn south to Archer Road at some particular place, and it will either require or not require additional NATL land for the retention of storm-water runoff. If it requires additional NATL land for storm-water retention, that land must have a particular area and location. (See water quantity and quality considerations and blue overlays on an aerial photograph of the area.)

In presentations to three committees, UF Planning Manager Linda Dixon said that the ROW will be 80 to 100 feet and that the place the road turns south is as yet undetermined. She did not say whether additional land might be required for storm-water retention.

When the Natural Area Advisory Committee first attempted to judge the impact of the proposed donation on NATL, it assumed that the Administration would be as parsimonious as possible in its donation of campus land--specifically it assumed that the ROW would be 90 feet wide (the minimum that would allow bike lanes and some separation of sidewalks from the roadways), that the road would turn south through the Classic Car Wash property (as assumed by Alachua County Engineer Michael Fay in estimating the cost of the extension), and that storm water retention would be on private property to the south of NATL. These assumptions led to an estimate that 3.1 acres (90 x 1500 ft) would be lost. If NAAC had assumed that the ROW would be 100 ft wide with two additional acres required for storm-water retention, the estimated loss would have grown to 5.4 acres. Even with the 90 ft ROW, the road will isolate the 1.6-acre of NATL that is south of the Surge Area (see map below). Thus the donation will reduce NATL's contiguous, easily accessible area by at least 4.7 acres and (probably) by no more than 7.0 acres.

Map showing path of road used by Alachua County to estimate its cost (width of ROW assumed to be 90 ft as explained above).


NATL's academic area
NATL is used to teach 73 courses, in eight departments and one school, in four colleges. Many courses in physics and chemistry need conveniently accessible indoor laboratories; likewise, many courses in the biological and environmental sciences need natural areas that are conveniently accessible and secure. NATL has provided such space for ten years and has been well used, as illustrated by a list of representative projects recently compiled by the Natural Area Advisory Committee [NAAC]. Most of these projects would have been reduced in value and some would have been impossible had the proposed four-lane extension of 24th Avenue been in place.

For management purposes the northern half of NATL is open to the public and K-12 groups visiting the Florida Museum of Natural History to help them learn about the ecosystems of north-central Florida. Many UF academic uses of NATL are compatible with public uses, but many others require that equipment and markers be left in the field or that wildlife be observed without frequent interruptions. Thus the public is excluded from NATL's "academic area," which consists of 13 acres of hammock and 9 acres of upland pine (see map below). This partition of NATL into public and academic areas was part of the 1993 proposal that initiated NATL, and NAAC has found that it works well and proposes that it be maintained (see NAAC's 2001 Long-Term Management Plan.) The 4.7 to 7.0 acres calculated in the previous section represents 21 to 32% of NATL's 22-acre academic area.

Map of NATL showing its principal ecosystems and the division between public and academic areas. [click on thumbnail to enlarge]

Administration's previous strong support
Those in the departments that use NATL for courses, special projects, and short courses are incredulous that the Administration failed to seek faculty input before deciding that UF should give away an important part of NATL. After all, since 1993 faculty and administrators have worked together to establish and improve NATL. The potential academic value of NATL was documented in 1993, and its realized value was documented in 2000. In addition to class-related uses, the 2000 survey noted NATL had been used for special projects, thesis research, and short courses. Prior to 31 Jan 2003, UF administrators fully supported NAAC's efforts to increase the academic value of NATL. For example, they funded all the major improvements that NAAC proposed. The two most recent improvements were a 7-foot-high earthen berm along SW 34th Street to mitigate the effects of heavy traffic on NATL's academic area (1999, $22,000) and an academic pavilion at NATL's academic entrance (2002, $14,400).

Road will reduce NATL's biotic diversity
Fewer species of plants and animals will be available for study because the road will destroy a significant proportion of the most diverse upland forest on the UF campus. Consequently the road will directly eliminate plant and animal species found nowhere else in NATL. Furthermore, the road divides what is currently about 48 acres of connected wildlife habitat into isolated fragments of 28, 14, and 3 acres. Such fragmentation will significantly reduce wildlife diversity.

Permanent water is now accessible to the south and east from the main portion of NATL's academic area. If the road is built, travel between NATL's main academic area and each of these water sources (Sinkhole Pond and the sink at Regency Oaks) will be by crossing a four-lane roadway. Road kills will surely increase.

Other academic impacts
With its south boundary a four-lane roadway, NATL's academic area will be more exposed to noise, litter, and trespassers. Those who are old enough to have taught in classrooms and laboratories with open windows know how distracting a noisy mower on the lawn outside can be. With a traffic artery next to an outdoor laboratory, classes will have the sirens of emergency vehicles as well as nearly continuous more mower-like noises. NATL's 34th Street berm was built to attenuate just such noises on the 670-foot western edge of the academic area. The proposed road will add more than twice that exposure on the southern edge of the academic area. Songs of insects and birds are easily masked by traffic noises. For example, Tom Contreras, a researcher undertaking a study of titmice in NATL writes "Even at San Felasco Preserve, the car noise from Millhopper Rd. makes censusing birds on one of the trails almost impossible." Finally, adding a major road immediately to the south of NATL's upland pine makes the controlled burns that are necessary for that ecosystem's restoration and maintenance even more difficult to accomplish.

NATL's degraded academic area will become a candidate for future construction
With a four-lane road on its southern edge, what is left of NATL's academic area will become an attractive place to site future buildings. Currently it is isolated from traffic yet part of campus and conveniently close to parking and mass transit--an ideal place for the academic uses for which it was developed.