County wants new Millhopper Road fire station

Gainesville Sun, The (FL)

Oct. 31--Alachua County Fire Rescue officials are seeking a permit to open a station on approximately 2 acres off Millhopper Road, saying they believe it will help them provide better service in the area.

County officials will host a neighborhood workshop at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Trinity United Methodist Church, 4000 NW 53rd Ave., to discuss why they hope to get the special-use permit.

Officials will go over the Alachua County Fire Rescue Master Plan, which recommends the county build a fire station on Millhopper Road, said county fire rescue's Chief Bill Northcutt.

The property is located at 7516 Millhopper Road and is surrounded by trees, most of which will be left in place, Northcutt said.

"The County Commission has decided it's more appropriate to add fire engines into the service delivery system than to pay the city of Gainesville more than $2 million a year for fire services in some areas," Northcutt said.

The property, appraised at $120,000 by Emerson Appraisal Company of Gainesville earlier this year, requires the permit because the county's comprehensive plan requires that property to be used for governmental purposes, such as fire stations, must get special-use permits approved by the County Commission, said Missy Daniels, a county planner.

The commission will hold public meetings to hear from residents about why they support or don't support the proposed fire station, Daniels said.

The county's planning and zoning board will meet in December to decide whether to recommend to the County Commission to approve the permit, and the commission will likely decide in January, Northcutt said.

If the permit is granted, the fire chief said the property will be cleared in February and prepared for a modular fire station to be placed on the site, which now contains a house destroyed by fire and a swimming pool, both of which will be removed if the county builds a fire station on the property.

It will cost approximately $18,000 to clear the land, Northcutt said.

Immediate plans do not include the county building a new station on the site like the one it recently opened in Waldo with a price tag of $1.7 million, Northcutt said, but to use a modular building that was used to house a fire station at Northwest 34th Boulevard and U.S. 441 before a new station opened there last month. It has not been determined how much it will cost to move the modular building, Northcutt said.

The building is 600 to 800 square feet, and will house a fire truck, water tanker and a brush truck. The modular building is essentially a double-wide trailer, Northcutt said.

The station in Waldo is nearly 5,700 square-feet, and is equipped with sleeping quarters, a kitchen, bathrooms and showers, and an exercise gym. It also has two bays to park two of its three vehicles and could be expanded to allow a third bay.

Three firefighters will be on duty daily at the station, which will serve parts of northwest Alachua County, especially residents who live in subdivisions in unincorporated Alachua County near Millhopper Road and west of County Road 241.

The station is not needed at the proposed location because a city-operated fire station is about 2 miles away at 5601 NW 43rd St., said Frank Graddy, a property owner in the Hardwood Farms subdivision off Millhopper Road who lives about a quarter of a mile from the proposed site.

The appraisal the county had done by Emerson Appraisal Company says that the best use of the property is for a single-family residence, and Graddy, a 57-year-old insurance agent who has lived on his property for 20 years, said he and other property owners in the area agree with the appraiser's assessment.

Furthermore, he said deed restrictions on the property date back to the 1960s when the developers of the area sought to make sure commercial development would not occur on the road. Millhopper Road was designated a Scenic Road in 1980 when Alachua County established its Scenic Road Ordinance, which was created to protect areas along certain roadways.

"It (the proposed county fire station) needs to be on a four-lane road like 43rd Street," Graddy said. "It's just a waste of taxpayers' dollars when you have a fire station right down the road."

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